Research Update
18
Jan---Published on People’s Daily Theory Edition, January 13, 2021
In the Proposal of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-term Goals for 2035 (hereinafter referred to as the Proposal) adopted in the 5th Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, “ensuring new upgrade of the governance efficiency” has been set as one main goal of our country’s economic and social development in the next 5 years and important decisions made for advancing the modernization of governance system and capability during the 14th Five-Year Period. An accurate grasp of the significance, requirements and methods of delivering this critical goal plays an important role in furthering modernization of governance system and capability, turning our institutional strength into governance efficiency and ultimately making great strides in delivering on our promise of a modern socialist country in all aspects.
Upgrading Governance Efficiency is of Great Significance
Governance system and capability are the epitome of a country’s system and its executive capability. In practice, governance body is responsible for implementing and executing the system to achieve certain effects, goals and efficiency. A review of the evolution of governance suggests that a country’s governance efficiency is a direct reflection of the modernity of its governance system and ability and an important gauge of the effectiveness of the system. It can be said that upgrading governance efficiency is a critical aspect and goal of advancing modernized governance and has momentous implications on our persistence in and improvements of China’s system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Since the 18th National People’s Congress of CPC, the Central Committee with comrade Xi as its core has held institutional building to a more prominent position and has scored historic achievements in upgrading governance, with improved socialism with Chinese characteristics, governance system and more modernized governance capability. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “we should enhance the institutional enforcement and introduce more stringent oversight for making substantive progress in turning our institutional strength into governance efficiency”. There are notable advantages in our state system and governance system. Only when such advantages are transformed into governance efficiency can the system showcase its power in safeguarding and uniting Chinese people of all ethnic groups to tide over difficulties and push forward our undertakings.
As required by the decisions about the 2nd centennial objectives made in the 19th National People’s Congress of CPC, by 2035, we need to basically achieve socialist modernization in our country, one key aspect of which is modernization of governance system and capability. Currently, we still face some shortcomings and weaknesses in our governance, such as institutional enforcement and oversight. To further upgrade our governance efficiency is in line with the master design for achieving modernized governance system and capability while taking into consideration the 2nd centennial objectives and the need to focus on both goals and problems. This will be the prioritized goal of the 14th Five-Year Period as required by the ultimate goal of building a modern socialist country in all aspects.
An Accurate Grasp of Requirements for Upgrading Governance Efficiency
The proposal takes a strategic and holistic approach to spell out the goals and requirements in improving socialist democracy and rule of law, governance system, social governance especially governance at the grass-roots level, mechanisms for guarding against and diffusing major risks and others, and thus sheds light on the direction and focus of upgrading governance efficiency.
Improved socialist democracy and rule of law. China’s socialist political system with Chinese characteristics has its unique advantages, providing forceful political and institutional support for prosperity and peace of the Party and the country. As stressed in the Proposal, “we should adhere to the leadership of the Party, people’s position as the masters of the country and rule of law, and promote self-improvement and development of our socialist political system with Chinese characteristics”. We should adhere to and improve the leadership of the Party in various aspects and sectors in governance. We should hold on to and better the fundamental and basic political system, give full play to the non-government bodies, consolidate and expand the extensive patriotic united front and pool together wisdom and strength for building our country into a modern socialist country in all aspects. Rule of law in all aspects is a prerequisite for social equity and justice, harmony and stability. We should follow Xi Jinping’s thoughts on rule of law in our management, enforcement and administration, instill rule of law into our country, government and society, better our legal system, improve our ability to exercise administration in accordance with the law and our management and monitoring systems governing power of supervision, jurisdiction and prosecution, promote judicial justice, launch more campaigns to publicize knowledge of rule of law and further advance social justice and equity.
Improved national administrative system. Governance capability is directly associated with governance efficiency. Since the 18th National People’s Congress of the CPC, more intense reforms have been conducted in the Party and national institutions and the government’s governance system further improved. As we enter into the new stage of development, the government is expected to play a better role in constructing a higher-level socialist market economic system, improve and maintain people’s livelihood and so on. The Proposal has pointed out the need to speed up the transformation of government functions and build a governance system featured by clear-cut functions and administration according to law. We should continue our efforts in streamlining administration, delegating power and strengthening regulation, upgrading government services, promoting administrative efficiency and improving government agencies’ efficiency in providing services, saving costs including administrative expenses, building a government of rule of law and strengthening our government’s enforcement and credibility.
Notable improvements in social governance, especially grass-roots governance. Based on the historic evolution of our governance modernization, social governance is closely related to people’s production and life and still shows many weaknesses. The Proposal has put forward the goal and requirement of “achieving notable progress in social governance and grass-roots governance in particular”, indicating that these two areas will be prioritized in future efforts in upgrading governance efficiency to score major progress and breakthroughs. We should gradually delegate responsibilities of governance to lower levels, enhance and innovate city-level social governance, improve social governance system, upgrade social governance level and open a new chapter of grass-roots governance.
Increasingly sound system and mechanisms for warding off and diffusing major risks. National security system and capacity building serves as the foundation and defender for modernizing the national governance system and capability and upgrading governance efficiency. Without security, national governance efficiency won’t be improved. At present, the domestic and international environment has undergone profound and complicated changes, which highlights the importance of national security system and capacity building. The Proposal dedicates a special chapter to elaborating on the overall development and security. We should adhere to the overall national security concept as the guideline, improve the national security system, improve the centralized, unified, efficient and authoritative national security leadership system, improve the national system of security and rule of law, strategies, policies, human resources and mechanisms for their operations in practice, strengthen the economic security risk early warning, prevention and control mechanism and capacity building, improve the ability to protect public security, and safeguard the realization of more secure development.
Improve National Governance Efficiency with Multiple Measures
It is a complicated project to promote the modernization of national governance system and capacity, and to upgrade the national governance efficiency. Comprehensive efforts need to be made in the aspects of governance environment, governance objectives, governance pattern, governance mode, governance tools, governance capacity and governance evaluation.
Make a science-based research and evaluation of governance environment. Governance environment is an important factor that affects the development of national governance and the improvement of national efficiency. At present, the world is going through great changes unseen in the past century, and China is seeing profound and complicated changes in its domestic and foreign development environment, which brings new challenges and opportunities to national governance modernization. It is necessary to research and evaluate based on science the governance environment with more stable strategies, sharper insight and clearer judgment, so as to better formulate governance strategies, promote governance reform and enhance governance efficiency.
Set clear governance objectives. A modern state governance system must have a clear set of governance objectives. At the 14th Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, it was proposed that we should adhere to and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, promote the modernization of national governance system and capacity according to the “three-step” overall objective. Then at the 5th Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee, specific objectives in promoting national governance efficiency were specified for the next five years. According to the requirements of these objectives, the specific objectives for different governance areas should be further clarified and refined to form a measurable and operational governance objective system that can be evaluated.
Build a better governance pattern. It is very important to coordinate all kinds of governance bodies and form a science-based and reasonable governance pattern in order to improve the national governance efficiency. Under the leadership of the Party, it is necessary to ensure that different governance bodies, such as the government, enterprises and institutions, market entities, social organizations and individual citizens, perform their respective functions and capabilities, and take advantage of their respective strengths to complement each other, so as to fully mobilize and unleash enthusiasm and creativity of all parties.
Promote the governance process according to law. Rule of law is an important support of the national governance system and ability. Governing a major country like China is highly complicated. Only by promoting the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity based on rule of law can we ensure that things go orderly and smoothly. We should be good at transforming the advantages of socialist rule of law into the efficiency of state governance, and recognize and cement the new achievements in state governance efficiency with the law, so as to give full play to the role of the law in safeguarding the fundamentals, stabilizing expectations and delivering long-term benefits.
Flexibly use various governance tools. In the face of the numerous and intricate problems and challenges in governance, a variety of governance tools need to be integrated. Aggregation effect of various governance tools should be fully tapped to form a more flexible package of governance tools and to use them flexibly according to the specific conditions and circumstances, so as to effectively enhance the national governance efficiency.
Strengthen governance capacity on all fronts. Governance ability is the ability to use national system to manage all aspects of affairs, and directly affects the governance effect. Governance capability includes leadership, planning, execution, control, assessment, and adaptability. It is necessary to formulate and implement detailed plans for improving governance capability by considering different aspects and fields, to facilitate the efforts in upgrading the national governance efficiency.
Evaluate governance base on scientific methods. To judge the efficiency of governance, we need a set of scientific indexes as the basis of evaluation. Such a scientific and feasible evaluation index system should be built on the basis of our national conditions and practice while taking into account the goal of improving the national governance efficiency. At the same time, the system should be constantly adjusted and improved in light of changes in conditions, with sound interaction between upgrading governance efficiency and improving the evaluation index system.