13
Dec
“We should be good at exercising political leadership. We should adopt a strategic perspective, and develop creative thinking and a dialectical approach to thinking; we should think in terms of the rule of law, and think about worst-case scenarios. We should formulate sound Party lines, principles, and policies and resolutely implement them, ensuring that the Party exercises overall leadership and coordinates work in all areas. We should be good reformers and pioneers. We should be enterprising, work creatively in light of actual conditions, and adeptly apply information technology, including the internet, in our work. We should be good at promoting sound development. We should effectively put into practice the new development philosophy, and continue to break new ground in development. We should be good at exercising law-based governance. We will act more quickly to put in place a system of Party rules and regulations that cover all aspects of Party leadership and Party building, and strengthen and improve Party leadership over bodies of state power. We should be good at engaging with the people. We will develop new systems, mechanisms, ways, and means for this work. We will urge trade unions, Chinese Communist Youth League organizations, women's federations, and other people's organizations to strengthen their political consciousness, become more advanced, and better represent the people; to play their role as bridges linking the Party with the people; and to organize and motivate the people to follow the Party.”
—— From the Report to the 19th CPC National Congress
The foundation of the Communist Party of China is to forever maintain its close ties with the people while observing the Party's mass line is the key to maintain close Party's engagement with the people. The Report to the 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era "must therefore continue the commitment to our people-centered philosophy of development", particularly "put into practice the Party's mass line in all aspects of governance". The inference not only lifts the mass line to the strategic height of governance of China, but indicates that the mass line is of whole-process administration.
Just as mentioned in the Report to the 19th CPC National Congress, "Meeting the fundamental interests of all our people is the ultimate yardstick for judging all the work of our Party. The issues of concern to the people, be they big or small, should be handled with utmost care and attention. We must start with addressing issues of public concern, start with delivering the outcomes that satisfy public needs, and work without rest to lead our people in pursuing a better life." Such words indicate that, when handling the Party's engagement with the people, "we must earnestly address all issues the people are strongly concerned about, and resolutely correct any behavior that undermines the people’s interests." The expressions not only further intensify the importance of the mass line, but also conform to the basic direction of the mass line.
With the rapid development of economic and social situations, profound changes have taken place in the people's needs, appeals and aspirations. The 19th CPC National Congress proposed, "As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved. What we now face is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life." The conclusion signifies that the principal contradiction in Chinese society has met a fundamental transformation, from previously addressing issues of adequate food and clothing and moderately prosperous society to paying more attention to diversified needs of life. In the course of shifting from achieving a moderately prosperous society in all respects to fully building a modern socialist China, the people's demands become increasingly diversified, varied and complex. The Report to the 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that facing such situation, the government "should be good at engaging with the people. We will develop new systems, mechanisms, ways, and means for this work."
In the present internet era, the network mass line represented by the network governance platform has become increasingly one of main channels to intensify the Party's engagement with the people. The internet offers unprecedented opportunities for putting into practice the mass line, and brings challenges to which Party and government bodies at various levels should attach importance. If the bodies fail to follow the development rhythm of the internet and widely use internet technology to meet diversified demands of the public, they will be hard to enhance their close ties with the people. The Report to the 19th CPC National Congress particularly emphasized, "We should be enterprising, work creatively in light of actual conditions, and adeptly apply information technology, including the internet, in our work." In this sense, the network mass line works in the whole process of governance, and is a strategic focus in the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance.
Through online messages, the public can freely express their opinions and suggestions on various topics of their livelihood and get a timely and effective response of local Party and government bodies. Meanwhile, such feedback can also help Party and government bodies identify and diagnose problems from the public opinions, and prepare clues and thinking for the bodies to keep improving public service performance. Therefore, the network mass line is an effective tool for Party and government bodies and the people to complement each other, and, if taken advantages of properly, will realize the effect of win-win and common development.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, Party and government bodies at various levels in all regions have worked enthusiastically to innovate in thinking and practice, constantly advance the network mass line, enhance the Party's engagement with the people and greatly advocate the creative application of the "Internet Plus" thinking in the mass line. On the basis of consolidating and increasing traditional channels of offline participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, gateway website and Mayor's Mailbox, new approaches represented by microblog, WeChat, and mobile client terminal have served increasingly as the important positions and innovative mechanisms for the network mass line. Particularly the network governance platform represented by the people.cn's local leader message board gives full play to unique roles of media supervision, and erects a smooth expressway and fast track between the government and the people.
The message board for local leaders is a nationwide network governance platform launched by the people.cn in 2006, and is playing more and more striking roles in streamlining public opinions and enhancing the Party's engagement with the people. The author cooperated with Meng Tianguang, associate professor with the Department of Political Science, Tsinghua University, to carry out analysis of the big data of about one million messages accumulated by the website since its operation. The findings show that, since the 18th CPC National Congress, the people's ardor in the message has kept rising and the capabilities of Party and government bodies at various levels for responding to the appeals and public opinions have been improving, and that both parties have formed a continuous circulation mechanism of virtuous interaction. Before 2013, annual messages by the people were less than 100,000 pieces; after the 18th CPC National Congress, messages kept increasing, even exceeded 250,000 pieces in 2016. At the same time, the response rate of Party and government bodies have also soared, up to 75% from previous less than 60%. Moreover, gratifying improvement has been witnessed in message response speed, quality, and institutionalization level. The performance of the message board in response rate, response effectiveness and quality as well as other key performance indicators, is even better than the results of its kind in the USA and European countries, showing that the network mass line is becoming an innovation mechanism for building a Chinese-type respondent government.
In his report, Xi Jinping pointed out, "To improve the Party's ability to purify itself, it is essential that we strengthen Party self-supervision and subject ourselves to public oversight." The network mass line is just the way workable to observe the core idea and honor the Party's commitment to the People, and the direction of development that is worth upholding and constantly improving in the following period. The network mass line works like a probe and early warning device for Party and government bodies, and is favorable for timely identification of potential dangers and problems in economic and social operation. For example, many corruption cases were first disclosed through social media, and the media provided valuable clues for discipline inspection and supervision bodies to solve relevant cases. The network mass line is also like an instrument panel and compass for Party and government bodies, helping them precisely identify the people’s appeals, clarify the direction of rectification and solve problems and lift performance in a tailored manner. Based on technologies of big data and artificial intelligence, the internet provides Party and government bodies with a cutting edge to more precisely identify and meet demands of the public.
It is noteworthy that, the network mass line works not only to "say something" online, but to play an actual role offline from online and really "do something" for public opinions and appeals, which means that the network mass line is more than online activities, to combine online and offline actions, drive offline works through online feedback and rely on offline works to fuel online platform. The network mass line also means that Party and government bodies must combine offline and online channels, as the public hopes that government officials play their roles not only by moving a mouse, but by paying visits to and going deep into communities to solve actual problems through the offline channel. If the offline channel does not work, online channel will never win the real trust of the public even it seems very workable. Therefore, network governance is an innovative mechanism to observe the Party's mass line, and needs to get feedback and in time respond from online, and to follow up problems and enhance service offline.
The network mass line means that the people are not passive in giving feedback of opinions or proposing problems, but can actively participate in all links of social governance, and actively offer their wisdom and resources for governance. To guarantee smooth operation of the network mass line, Party and government bodies must respect the position of the people being the masters of the country and pay more attention to the people’s collaboration, participation, and common interests and to crowdfunding and maker activities while hearing and responding to public opinions. The people are more than clients or customers of Party and government bodies, and equal partners of the bodies in joint production and joint creation. As "the duck knows first when the river becomes warm in spring", the public is the receiving terminal of public services, knows most where pain point is in public services and is the group most possible to offer the countermeasures and suggestions for further optimizing public services. For this reason, it will be an important direction worthy of exploration in the future how to give play to advantages of wide participation of the people and make Party and government bodies and the people jointly innovate and offer various public services.
A point to which attention should be paid is, when practicing the network mass line, Party and government bodies at various levels should not overlook the groups who cannot enjoy the internet, and take other measures for necessary relief and remedy. China now witnesses higher popularization rate of the internet and smart mobile phone, but many people are still unable to get access to the internet. The digital gap between the urban area and rural area has not been eliminated effectively in China and the gap between regions has not been narrowed remarkably. The groups beyond the internet world mainly consist of those in a remote mountain area, poverty-stricken people and the elderly, who are just the key service objects needing the attention of Party and government bodies most. To this end, while enhancing the network mass line, more measures should be taken at the same time, and the bodies should enhance online-offline interaction to provide those groups with the opportunities to participate in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, and innovate in technologies and enhance services to gradually include them into the sphere of the network mass line.
The more important is that the people's appeals and opinions should not be handled in the manner of "treating symptoms but not the diseases", but by drawing inferences about other cases from one instance and making integrated use of the cases. At the same time, Party and government bodies should apply the public opinions and appeals collected from the network mass line to the links of decision-making, execution, evaluation and supervision to maximize the value of governance. The collection of public opinions is not just for collection, must not be ended at the level of collection, but must really play its role in policy decision-making and execution, so as to truly put into practice the governance idea of public opinion leading and the people first. As a vital point, we must recognize that the network mass line should be incorporated into the whole process of governance, and enhancing and innovating in process management will be a topic needing special attention in moving ahead with the network mass line in the future. To sum up, the network mass line means "getting from the people to serve the people", so as to win the support of the people by letting them express their voices and appeals, gain the trusts of the people by solving their problems and difficulties, and enjoying the understanding of the people by drawing on all useful wisdom and absorbing all useful ideas of the people.
(The author is a research fellow of the National Academy of Development and Strategy, RUC)
Read More: http://mdaily.hangzhou.com.cn/hzrb/2017/12/04/article_detail_1_20171204A107.html
Opinions