Zhexin of Zhijiang — A Book Report on Zhijiang Xinyu
As a collection of short commentaries published in a column of the Zhejiang Daily by General Secretary Xi Jinping during his tenure as Secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee from 2003 to 2007, Zhijiang Xinyu vividly reflects the work deployments, ideological perspectives, and grand strategies of our Party’s General Secretary while governing Zhejiang; reading it brings immense benefit, leaving a lingering resonance that remains unforgettable for a long time. Looking back from the present day, one can even better appreciate the profound origins of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s determination and confidence—“In utter selflessness, I shall never fail the people”—as well as the evolutionary course of the General Secretary’s thought.
Over two hundred commentaries, every word a gem of wisdom; over one hundred thousand words of exposition, brilliantly diverse and splendid. Across a series of domains—ranging from economic development; the discovery, cultivation, and development of Party talent, the ideological style of leading cadres, the building of governance capacity, and the relationship with the grassroots masses; poverty alleviation; environmental protection, and the coordinated planning of ecological civilization construction and economic development; cultural protection, inheritance, exchange, and integration; the relationship between reform and development; the supervision of power, integrity, and corruption; the issues of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, agricultural reform, rural revitalization, and the well-being of farmers; the practice of a series of basic principles and tenets of Marxist theory in leading cadres’ governance and the advancement of economic construction and development; the market economy; to a society under the rule of law—General Secretary Xi Jinping has made profound, clear, and distinctly instructive judgments of great practical significance, making the work well-worthy of the attention it has received from numerous leading cadres.
“From the masses, to the masses”—this is the subtle, unbroken thread running through the entire book. This central theme is most vividly reflected in the section concerning the “Three Rural Issues” (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers). “We must run our Party’s work line of doing everything for the masses and relying on the masses in everything throughout all aspects of the ‘Three Rural’ work.” (Page 100) On the basis of profoundly studying and understanding Comrade Hu Jintao’s Scientific Outlook on Development, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out the need to clarify that the core of the “Three Rural Issues” is the issue of farmers, which is an issue of enhancing farmers’ interests and safeguarding farmers’ rights. As an important cornerstone of our Party’s governance, farmers are of great significance to social stability. “Agriculture is an industry that pacifies the realm and steadies the hearts of the people, remaining ever the foundation of the national economy” (Page 191). Without industry, there is no stability; without agriculture, there is no wealth. It is precisely by adhering to “from the masses, to the masses” that Comrade Xi Jinping recognized that one of the major bottlenecks hindering agricultural development is the reality that comprehensive agricultural production capacity is relatively unable to meet the demands of our province’s scarce agricultural resources and the leveraging of comparative advantages (Page 109); the high-efficiency ecological agriculture pointed out by Comrade Xi Jinping as the direction for our province’s agricultural reform—distinct from both petroleum agriculture and natural ecological agriculture—is precisely a developmental guide formulated on the basis of fully investigating the actual resources of our province and adhering to a people-oriented approach. At the same time, with his unique strategic vision, Comrade Xi Jinping also recognized the crucial position of cities in resolving the Three Rural Issues. To this end, he pointed out: first, overall urban-rural planning to seek common development: “implementing the policy of industry nurturing agriculture in return, and cities supporting rural areas” (Page 103); second, nurturing rural areas to enrich villages, where such reciprocation is in itself also conducive to accelerating industrial development, rather than being a unilateral charity; third, gradually eliminating the difference between two types of people, namely citizens—that is, urban residents—and farmers; even if it is impossible for all farmers to live in cities, and even if the gap and difference between urban and rural areas cannot truly be eliminated, yet “though the distinction twixt town and country remains, the disparity betwixt them is minimized” (Page 189). In summary, in resolving the Three Rural Issues, Comrade Xi Jinping demonstrated his profound thoughts in just a few short commentaries, and even more so displayed his profound cultivation as an outstanding Marxist theorist.
“From the masses, to the masses.” Comrade Xi Jinping’s mass line is further reflected in the importance he attaches to the market economy and the private economy. He recognized the immense potential of abundant private capital for the development of Zhejiang Province, and the great significance of expanding the scale of private investment for enhancing the endogenous driving force of economic development: “We must further relax restrictions on investment fields; for some infrastructure construction projects with profitability, those that can be opened up should be opened up” (Page 14). “‘Zhejiang Merchant Culture’ is the soul of Zhejiang merchants” (Page 209); Comrade Xi Jinping recognized the increasingly prominent role played by the large number of Zhejiang merchants who emerged in the great tide of Zhejiang’s socialist market economy, along with the Zhejiang merchant culture born from their creative practices, in the development of Zhejiang’s enterprises and society. It is precisely by adhering to the mass viewpoint and basing himself on the perspective of the masses that Comrade Xi Jinping was able to recognize the vital force of “Zhejiang Merchant Culture” in developing Zhejiang’s advanced productive forces.
“From the masses, to the masses.” The mass viewpoint and the mass line are even more evident in Comrade Xi Jinping’s application of the basic principles of Marxism to the ideological and quality building of Party members and leading cadre comrades. Facing the temptation to abuse power, Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out that leading cadres must “establish the awareness that power is service, frequently ponder the important questions of where the power in their hands comes from and for whom it should be used, and consciously exercise power for the public good rather than for private gain” (Page 260). The sacredness of power has been widely respected since ancient times, and Comrade Xi Jinping’s exposition further emphasizes the intrinsic sacredness inherent in power itself. In the essay Being Good at Speaking with the Masses (Page 146), Comrade Xi Jinping conveys in a vivid and lively manner the need for leading cadres to strengthen communication with the people—coming from the masses and going to the masses—likening cadres who are divorced from the masses to suffering from aphasia. Behind language lie emotion, thought, knowledge, and cultivation; having an empty mind, putting on lofty airs, being severely divorced from the masses, and knowing only how to flatter in officialdom—these are things that leading cadres should spurn and utterly detest. Conversely, weighing another’s heart by one’s own, where hearts beat in mutual resonance—only when true sincerity is bestowed upon the masses shall the masses requite it with true sincerity. Only by winning the true sincerity of the masses can a series of the Party’s policies and guidelines be better implemented and carried out, can Party members and cadres carry greater weight in the hearts of the masses, and can the Party’s leadership be put into practice more subtly and effectively. In the essay Being a Confidant of the People (Page 139), from a delicate, profound, and meticulous perspective, Comrade Xi Jinping expounded upon the dialectical relationship between the macroeconomy and the hearth-lights of people’s livelihoods, arriving at the conclusion that “there are no trivial matters concerning the interests of the masses… we must shift our key concept of development onto the Scientific Outlook on Development, and onto putting people first.” To a certain extent, this clarified the problem of some Party members and cadres focusing solely on GDP while ignoring the actual livelihood of the people; it echoes from afar, to a certain degree, our country’s policies for the construction of spiritual civilization, social civilization, and ecological civilization, serving as a powerful guide for Communist Party members to serve the masses, educate the masses, and lead the masses. In addition, the viewpoints respectively mentioned by Comrade Xi Jinping in short commentaries such as Adhering to a Scientific View of Rights Protection, Handling Affairs for the People Aims at Serving the People, and The Voice of the Masses is the First Signal for Style Construction—namely, to “put people first and safeguard the fundamental interests of the masses; seek the needs of the people, seek the counsel of the people, and seek the sentiments of the people; take the needs of the masses as the primary requirement for style construction, and place livelihood issues at the forefront”—all possess extraordinary practical significance.
With his lively, vivid, figurative, and accessible writing style, Comrade Xi Jinping time and again expounded upon the numerous theoretical and practical requirements for governing Zhejiang Province; quoting extensively from a wide range of sources, he used aphorisms and golden sayings from ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign, to support his arguments, which undoubtedly enhanced the credibility and profundity of his own judgments. It deeply captures the essence of Chairman Mao’s literary style. Reading Xi Jinping’s Zhijiang Xinyu is truly of immense benefit.
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