Press briefing: Party building, self-governance

Speakers:

Yang Xiaodu, deputy secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, minister of Supervision, and chief of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention

Qi Yu, vice minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee

Chairperson:

Guo Weimin, spokesperson for the 19th National Congress of the CPC and deputy director of the State Council Information Office

Date:

Oct. 19, 2017

Guo Weimin:

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. During the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), six press conferences will be held. My name is Guo Weimin. I'm the spokesperson for the Congress, and the vice minister of the State Council Information Office (SCIO). We welcome you to attend these press conferences. If you need any help with your reporting, please feel free to contact me, any member of my team or the press center.

Today, we are holding the first of the six press conferences. Present here are: Mr. Yang Xiaodu, deputy secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Minister of Supervision, and the chief of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, and Mr. Qi Yu, who is the vice minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

They will introduce the work related to strengthening Party building and comprehensively practicing strict Party self-governance. They will also answer your questions.

Now, let's welcome Mr. Qi Yu to introduce the work for strengthening Party building.

Qi Yu:

I am glad to meet our media friends. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) opened successfully yesterday. General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a report on the historic changes that have taken place in the cause of our Party and our nation in the past five years.

General Secretary Xi Jinping made clear in the report that "we have achieved remarkable outcomes in ensuring full and strict governance over the Party," which summarized and recognized the achievements in Party building and the organizational work. Now, I would like to brief you on these aspects of our work over the past five years.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has incorporated exercising strict governance over the Party into the Four-Pronged Strategy, and has strengthened the Party leadership and Party building. This has brought about a historic, structural and fundamental shift from a lax, weak and slack approach to a strict, stringent and tough approach to Party self-supervision and self-governance. The CPC's organizational work has firmly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's thoughts on Party building, and the requirements for exercising strict governance over the Party. It has focused on the main responsibilities and tasks, stayed problem-oriented and stressed the need to take up these responsibilities with marked progress in the following areas:

First, by giving priority to ideological and political education, we have greatly elevated the political and theoretical level of Party officials and further strengthened their commitment to the Party. We have made it a priority to study and implement the guiding principles of the policy addresses of General Secretary Xi Jinping and his new vision, concepts and thoughts about the governance of China. We have guided Party officials to build up their confidence in the path, theory, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Through these efforts, we are calling on all Party officials to enhance their political integrity, develop a better understanding of the general picture, follow the core leadership of the Central Committee, and act consistently with its policies, thus closely following the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in terms of thinking, political stand and actions.

Under the overall arrangement of the CPC Central Committee, activities have been undertaken to heighten awareness of and thus implement the CPC's mass line. We have implemented educational programs on the "Three Guidelines for Ethical Behavior and the Three Basic Rules of Conduct" and have launched Party-wide education in regard to the "Two Studies, One Action." Intraparty education has been expanded from "the essential few" to the vast number of Party members, and developed from concentrated to regular education. Through involvement in these three programs, Party officials have experienced intensive political education, and a number of longstanding problems have also been addressed. We have also organized regular Party activities and strengthened political and cultural development within the Party. The political performance of the Party has undergone fundamental and profound changes.

At the same time, Party organizations at various levels have launched training courses for accurately targeted officials and have thus constantly improved their leadership and professional competence. Over the past five years, some 100 million officials from all levels have received full-time training.

Second, we have selected good people for Party work and made important progress in building the ranks of key high-caliber officials. We have carefully implemented the standard for good officials under the new circumstances by revising and promulgating regulations for their appointment, refining the way officials are recommended democratically, improving the way they are elected on a competitive basis, improving the system for assessing and evaluating performance, ensuring that officials are not selected simply based on votes received, overall scores, GDP and age, thus establishing the correct approach in selection and appointment. All this has made it possible for a large number of loyal, honest and pragmatic officials willing to take up the responsibility to become leading officials.

We have also strengthened the leading and guiding role of Party organizations. In order to prevent officials with a poor record of conduct from being promoted, we have ensured that when an official is being considered for advancement, the relevant files are carefully examined, the reports on personal matters are checked, the opinions of commissions for discipline inspection are solicited, and the complaints lodged by the masses in letters or calls with clear clues are investigated. We have also ensured that, when an official is to be promoted, his or her promotion form is signed by the chief of the Party committee and the chief of the commission for discipline inspection confirming incorruptibility and a good sense of self-discipline. During the recent election of new municipal, county and township leaderships, over 9,300 officials were not promoted due to their failure to pass these reviews.

We have formulated regulations on promoting and demoting officials and worked hard to establish a mechanism for the selection and appointment of officials, whereby competent people are promoted while incompetent ones are demoted or eliminated. So far, we have handled more than 22,000 officials at and above the county and section chief level in accordance with these regulations.

In the follow-up of the inspection tours made by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, we have sent inspection teams to check the selection and appointment of officials in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, as well as in the central government and Party departments. In particular, in the recent elections of local leaders, we worked to give proper guidance, warned candidates on unacceptable behavior, and tried to prevent malpractice. We sent inspection teams to inspect the process of the elections on a circuit basis to ensure sound conduct for the elections of new leaders.

Third, we have tightened the governance of officials and sought to enhance the system of managing and supervising them. We have worked to nip problems in the buds and prevent them from arising. We have conducted strict routine oversight and supervision. In recent years, the organizational and personnel departments at all levels wrote to officials and issued admonishment on over 600,000 occasions.

We have established a sound system with Chinese characteristics whereby officials report their personal affairs, with a focus on their family matters and property closely linked to their exercise of power, ensuring that the results of the reviews are put to good use and problems identified are investigated. So far 1.25 million reviews have been carried out nationwide, 125,000 officials have been punished for submitting falsified reports.

We have focused on addressing prominent problems such as overstaffing, "naked" officials, falsified filing, and have regulated the business activities of relatives of Party and government officials. Preliminary achievements have been made.

We have also made efforts to give officials positive incentives. We have established a system that allows public servants below county level to be able to rise up the career ladder through either promotion in regard to their post or a rise in rank. This has benefited more than a million public servants concerned.

Fourth, to promote exercising strict governance over the Party down to grassroots Party organizations, the vigor and vitality of grassroots Party organizations and of the Party members involved has been greatly enhanced. According to the general requirement of "controlling overall size, optimizing structure, improving quality and playing the due role," we have insisted on strict procedures for new recruitment and installed a candidate's political integrity as a precondition so as to ensure the quality, structure and proper size of Party membership. Compared with 2012, the number of party members has increased by 4.32 million with an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent, which is line with our goal of managing membership growth.

Daily education and management of Party members has been strengthened, including regularly organizing "three meetings and one class" and dealing with Party members considered unqualified. Party building at the grassroots level has been promoted in a coordinated manner in different areas. We have worked continuously to straighten out weak and lax grassroots Party organizations, and the role of grassroots Party organizations in rural areas as the core leading force has been further strengthened; we have explored new ways for Party building and grassroots-level governance in neighborhoods and streets; we have strived to enhance any weakness and marginalization of the leading role of the Party and Party building in SOEs and universities. Efforts have been made to increase the coverage of Party organizations and the coverage ratio in the non-public business sector and social organizations. We have comprehensively promoted and strengthened Party building at the grassroots level.

We have worked to serve the Party's mission of poverty alleviation through our overall work in Party building. We have selected 195,000 officials from county and above-level government organs to work in poor villages as first Party chiefs so as to ensure the Party's political and organizational strength is turned into a driving force for development.

We have also improved the accountability system for Party building work and initiated appraisal of municipal and county level Party chiefs of their performance in this regard, and are gradually applying this practice to other government institutions, enterprises and universities, aimed at urging Party organizations and Party chiefs at various levels to earnestly perform their duty of governing Party affairs.

We have further deepened institutional reform for the development of talents to give more autonomy to employers of talents and remove obstacles for talent development, so as to motivate their creativity. By now, the overall size of China's talent pool has reached 175 million persons, up by 43.8 percent compared to five years ago. The contribution ratio of talents to China's economic and social development has witnessed a big increase.

We have continuously pushed forward institutional reform of the Party building work by formulating important institutions and strengthening their enforcement. Until now, the institutional reforms for Party building decided by the 18th CPC Central Committee have been basically completed.

That is what I would like to introduce so far. Thank you.

Guo Weimin:

Thank you. I now give the floor to Mr. Yang Xiaodu.