Op-Ed Contributors

Keeping close to the people

By Zheng Qingyuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-03 07:56

Improving the mass work of the Party is fundamental to solid social and economic development in a new era

Next year, we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Looking back on our Party's magnificent course of development, the most valuable lessons we have learnt are that we must attach great importance to mass work, adhere to the central role of the people, give play to people's creative initiative, and always maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the masses.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee profoundly expounded on major subjects such as the mass viewpoint and methods of mass work. It enriched and advanced the Party's mass line, and put forward new and higher requirements for doing mass work as fundamental guarantees for realizing the goals of the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015).

"To continue to seize and make good use of the period of significant strategic opportunities for our country's development, and to fulfill our country's goals and tasks in economic and social development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, we must closely rely on the broad masses, and strengthen and improve mass work under new situations."

The masses are the real heroes, and our Party's source of strength and the foundation of victory. Our Party has always attached great importance to mass work, and has compared the relationship between the Party and the masses to those of fish and water, flesh and blood, and between seeds and earth. Our Party's achievements in all the historical periods - revolution, construction and reform - have been made by uniting and leading the people. Whether the cause of the Party and the people can develop smoothly, relies ultimately on whether the Party can maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the masses, and whether it can give full play to the people's enthusiasm, initiative and creativity.

Since its 16th National Congress, proceeding from a new historical start and conforming to the people's new expectations, the Party has taken strengthening and improving mass work as an inevitable requirement for implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development. It has emphasized resolution of the most direct and practical issues people are concerned about, and made new headway in mass work as well as in relations between the Party and the masses.

However, we also clearly see that, as the situation has developed and changed, a lot of new conditions, problems and challenges have emerged in mass work, which require both serious attention and vigilance.

With power in hand, one should be aware of the weight of responsibilities. In a position of high authority, one should not lose the conscience of a public servant. After wining the ruling status, we should not forget that our Party's biggest political advantage is its close ties with the masses, and the biggest danger it faces is divorcing itself from the masses. Nor should we forget that those who win the people's hearts win the world, and those who lose the people's hearts lose the world. Power comes from the people, and power can only be attributed to the people and used for the benefit of the people.

All Party members must - proceeding from the strategic perspective of consolidating the Party's ruling status, fulfilling the Party's mission to govern, and ensuring the Party's and the country's long-term peace and stability - achieve a profound understanding of the dangers of these problems, and a profound understanding of the importance of mass work. In this promising period of important strategic opportunities, only through enhancing the mass line with a more distinct mass viewpoint, safeguarding the people's interests with a more steadfast stand, and building closer ties between the Party and the masses with more colorful working methods, can the masses be the source of strength for the Party to govern and rejuvenate the country