The People’s Support Is Our Top Political Priority

The People’s Support Is Our Top Political Priority*

September 17, 2020

The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 represented a challenge to our efforts to fulfill the 13th Five-year Plan (2016-2020) and achieve the annual targets and tasks set at the start of this year. Making people’s lives and health our top priority, we waged an all-out people’s war on the virus. After making initial progress in containing its spread, we coordinated epidemic prevention and control with the reopening of the economy, to restore economic and social order as soon as possible. On September 8 we held a grand gathering in Beijing to award national medals and honorary titles of the PRC, the highest state honors, to outstanding individuals and groups in the fight against the epidemic. I delivered a speech at the meeting.

Since the flood season began this year, severe floods have occurred in the Yangtze and Huaihe river basins. At times, water in major rivers and lakes exceeded the warning level, and some places were severely affected. The central leadership made timely arrangements for flood control and disaster relief. Under the guidance and coordination of the central departments concerned, the affected provinces, including Hunan, have done their best in flood control and disaster relief and sped up post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.

Looking at the whole world, we are in the front ranks in both epidemic response and economic recovery. Achieving this success has been no easy matter.

What impresses me most is that, in the face of urgent and difficult tasks and dangerous and severe challenges, our people have always acted with one heart, united their efforts, and fought tenaciously. They have made a great contribution. These victories of our Party and our country are all victories won by our people, who are the true heroes.

The people’s expectation for a better life is what drives us forward. Sound guidelines, policies and development plans must accord with the will, aspirations and expectations of the people. They should come from the people and serve their interests. Over the decades, our Party has always required relevant departments to conduct in-depth research and studies at the grassroots level and to understand and gather information firsthand before issuing important guidelines and policies and making major decisions and arrangements. Seeking truth from facts is an important element of our Party’s guiding principles. When our Party was headquartered in Yan’an in the 1930s and 1940s, Mao Zedong emphasized, “Communists should set an example in being practical”, and “for only by being practical can they fulfill their appointed tasks”. He pointed out that to conduct research and studies, “first, direct your eyes downward, do not hold your head high and gaze at the sky”; “second, hold fact-finding meetings”. The formulation of the Five-year Plan involves all aspects of economic and social development, and is closely related to the work and life of the people. It is necessary to strengthen top-level design and at the same time collect ideas from the people, encouraging all sectors of society to submit opinions and suggestions in various ways.

Among the representatives of grassroots officials and the public present here, some are from rural areas, urban communities and enterprises; some are from the fields of education, science and technology, health care, the judiciary, and law enforcement; some are delegates to Party congresses, deputies to people’s congresses and members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at various levels, model workers, and poverty alleviation officials; some are from the New Social Group; some are migrant workers, couriers, and online store owners. You all work on the front line of reform and development in various sectors. You are directly involved in economic and social activities, and have most frequent contact with the public. Thus you have a more realistic perception and experience of how effectively the Party’s guidelines and policies are implemented. Your opinions and suggestions can better reflect the grassroots reality and express the people’s wishes.

You have just made some very good speeches, going straight to the point and offering a wealth of valuable opinions and suggestions. They are all fresh and practical. They help us to understand more about the situation at the grassroots. Departments concerned must study them thoroughly and make full use of them.

Not long ago, we launched an online activity to solicit opinions on the 14th Five-year Plan (2021-2025). Officials and the public have paid careful attention and participated extensively. Many of the opinions and suggestions were directly addressed to me, as I welcome letters from the public. These opinions and suggestions reflected problems of general concern, which have also been referenced in your contributions. They should be duly addressed in the Central Committee’s recommendations for formulating the 14th Five-year Plan.

Now I would like to share with you some of my thoughts.

First, make best use of the favorable environment and build momentum for development.

The 14th Five-year Plan period is the first five-year period in our country’s new journey towards a modern socialist country after achieving moderate prosperity. At present and for a period to come, our country is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development, but both the opportunities and the challenges we face will be subject to further changes. The world today is undergoing change on a scale unseen in a century, whose evolution has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The international landscape is more complex, economic globalization is facing opposition, and unilateralism and protectionism prevail in some countries. We have to seek development in a world with more uncertainties and instabilities. China has entered a stage of high-quality development and has good prospects for economic growth. At the same time, it still faces a prominent problem of imbalanced and insufficient growth, and many shortcomings and weaknesses still hamper high-quality development. Whatever the difficulties, challenges, obstacles and changes, we shall never cover them up, avoid them, turn a blind eye to them, panic, or become confused. I have said on many occasions that the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will be no easy task. It will not be achieved by simply banging drums and gongs. Glory comes from adversity. No country or nation can achieve modernization easily.

Despite the deep and complex changes that have taken place in the internal and international environment, the fundamentals of long-term stability and progress in our economy remain unchanged. Our economy is still solid and resilient with great potential and significant scope for readjustment, and it is supported by many policy tools. These basic features have not changed, nor have the strengths and conditions behind our development. China has the world’s largest and most comprehensive manufacturing system, with strong production capacity and the ability to provide complete supporting facilities and services. It has a super-large domestic market, and huge potential demand for investment. We must effectively analyze the general situation, and understand the general trends of development. We should follow the fundamental principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, uphold the new development philosophy, and coordinate development and security. We will move faster to create a double development dynamic with the domestic economy as the mainstay and the domestic economy and international engagement providing mutual reinforcement.

Second, uphold the people-centered philosophy of development.

The people’s support is our top political priority. Our Party serves the people wholeheartedly, honors its commitment to serving the public good, exercises power in the interests of the people, and considers it our goal to meet the people’s aspirations for a better life. These principles have been both stated and followed over almost 100 years.

During the Long March in the 1930s, when the Red Army passed through Shazhou Village, in Wenming Township of Rucheng County, three female soldiers cut their only quilt in half and gave one half to a poor villager. This story has since been remembered and retold. In the fight against Covid-19, we have, from the very beginning, stated explicitly that people’s lives and health should be regarded as the top priority. To limit the spread of the virus to the greatest extent possible, we have mobilized the best medical workers, the most advanced equipment, and the most urgently needed resources from across the country, all of which have been devoted to treating patients, with all the costs covered by the government.

When mapping out the 14th Five-year Plan, we must follow the principle that development is for the people and its fruits should be shared by the people. Efforts should be made to improve people’s daily lives and make up for shortcomings while ensuring high-quality development. We must focus more on issues of public concern that affect people’s lives, take more targeted measures, and ensure effective implementation to solve each and every one of them, so that the people will have a growing, guaranteed, and sustained sense of gain, fulfillment and security.

Third, strengthen Party organizations and governments at the grassroots level.

If the foundation is not solid, the building trembles. Only with strong Party organizations and governments at the grassroots level can the foundations of Chinese socialism be solid.

During the 14th Five-year Plan period, greater efforts should be made in our foundational work to improve grassroots governance. We should strengthen and improve the Party’s overall leadership over grassroots work and improve grassroots organizations in rural areas, so as to provide strong political and organizational guarantees for comprehensive rural revitalization. We should strengthen and reform grassroots social governance, and carry on and improve the Fengqiao model6 in the new era – building stronger urban and rural communities, strengthening grid-based management and services, and improving the mechanism to prevent, mediate and resolve social conflicts and disputes by multiple means at the grassroots level. All of this will contribute to social stability.

Fourth, be role models as grassroots representatives.

The achievement of moderate prosperity is not the end, but the starting point of a new life and a new round of hard work. The people have wisdom and infinite creativity. We need to organize, mobilize and unite them and fully arouse their enthusiasm and initiative. Party members and officials should play an exemplary role; deputies to people’s congresses should form closer ties with the people; CPPCC members should maintain contact with and serve the people in their respective sectors; and rural workers who have become prosperous should work harder to lead others forward, so that all are united in striving for a new and better life.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the achievements of our socialist country have not fallen like manna from Heaven, nor have they been granted by others. They have been achieved by our people through hard work, wisdom and courage under the leadership of the Party. For a country with a population of 1.4 billion, individual contributions gather into an earth-shaking force. If everyone can do one thing or one job well, the cause of the Party and the state will advance one step further. All of you are from the grassroots or the front line, and you represent various sectors and industries. You should have firm ideals and convictions, and study hard to improve yourselves. You should work hard in a pragmatic manner, taking one step at a time and handling every piece of work, big or small, with the utmost care and attention. I believe you will experience greater fulfillment in life through hard work, and together we will create a happy life and bright future for all.

* Main part of the speech at a meeting with grassroots representatives.

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)