Leadership of Party guarantee for success of deep-water reforms that are now needed

People’s Daily has documented 72 key conferences of the central reform body that President Xi Jinping has presided over since 2012. In this time, more than 600 guideline documents on deepening reforms have been issued, prompting the release and execution of over 3,000 action plans.

At the ongoing third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Party’s central decision-making body will not only review the implementation and effects of these plans, policies and measures but also chart the course for future reforms of the country. This will be set out in a milestone document the plenum is expected to issue upon its conclusion on Thursday.

It has been the relaying of the baton of reform from one generation of reformers to the next since the country began to implement its reform and opening-up policy in 1978 that has enabled the country to always keep its development on the right track.

In this process, the country has unflinchingly adhered to its own socialist path under the leadership and guidance of the Party. This has not only ensured material benefits for people’s well-being, but also since 2012 produced solid progress in developing whole-process people’s democracy and law-based governance across all fields of endeavor, and enhanced the country’s ecological conservation.

These achievements have been possible because of the Party’s own insistence on self-revolution to ensure its own cleanness and efficiency, which has enabled it to retain the confidence of the public that the country will be able to overcome any challenges it may face. So unlike some countries that experience unsettling social divisions when it comes to reforms touching the cheese of some, China has a strong social consensus on the necessity of carrying out deeper reforms.

Reform is not plain sailing. There are certainly pains and setbacks to be suffered. But the prospect of these has never hindered or deterred the Chinese people from forging ahead on the path of modernization.

With the proof of past experience, the people are confident that the Party’s leadership can ensure any pains are borne for future gains. The past more than 40 years have shown that development has its laws and stages, which means before the pie is baked, it is too early to argue over how to cut it fairly.

Even those who keep a critical watchful eye on China cannot deny the Party has done a good job in eradicating extreme poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, making the most of the country’s endogenous advantages and the benefits of being open and inclusive to the rest of the world. Nor that the Party has addressed many of the acute problems and challenges that emerged as a result of its rapid development, which has enabled it to maintain long-term stable governance.

By ensuring that Party members are more conscious of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership, the guarantee for the success of what are now deep-water reforms has been effectively strengthened. Problems will inevitably arise in the reform, opening-up and socialist modernization endeavors but the right answers suited to the realities of China and the needs of the day are there to be found.

At their gathering in Beijing this week, the Party’s central decision-makers will once again roll up their sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of reform work, so the country can continue to forge ahead.

Editorial, China Daily