Maintaining Party’s fundamental bond with the people seen paramount to effective leadership, observers say

Before leaving a budget hotel in Fuping county, Hebei province, on Dec 29, 2012, Xi Jinping instructed his staff to ensure the dinner bill was paid, recalled Jia Chunhong, the hotel’s catering manager.

The meal itself was simple: four homestyle dishes, soup, and some staple foods, with no alcohol served. The two-day field trip to Fuping county came just six weeks after Xi was elected general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Some 25 days before the dinner, Xi chaired a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee that adopted the eight-point decision on improving work conduct and maintaining close ties with the people, setting out requirements for officials on matters ranging from grassroots research to meetings and official receptions.

At that meeting, Xi said, “Only when we are under pressure and supervision can people enjoy a more comfortable and satisfying life and have a higher opinion of us.”

The eight-point decision became an early step in the CPC’s broader drive to exercise full and rigorous self-governance, extending strict requirements in areas ranging from officials’ conduct to Party building as a whole.

At a gathering marking the CPC’s 95th anniversary in July 2016, Xi warned that the Party could eventually lose its qualifications to govern if it failed to enforce strict self-governance and address serious internal problems that drew strong public complaints.

In the same speech, Xi described standing with the people as the Party’s fundamental political position, saying the people’s support, approval, satisfaction and consent should serve as the fundamental criteria for evaluating its work.

For Xi, the Party must always guard against and correct with resolve the practices the people oppose and resent.

“We will focus on enhancing the Party’s capacity for long-term governance, preserving its advanced nature and integrity, and maintaining its close bond with the people,” he said while addressing a gathering marking the CPC’s 105th anniversary in July this year.

Xie Maosong, a senior researcher at Tsinghua University’s National Institute of Strategic Studies, said that full and rigorous Party self-governance was not simply about enforcing discipline, but about preserving the CPC’s fundamental bond with the people.

“Public oversight and the Party’s self-reform reinforce each other. Both are essential to ensuring that power is exercised in the public interest and that officials remain committed to serving the people,” he said.

Former Ethiopian president Mulatu Teshome said the CPC’s internal rules and discipline have made the Party “stronger and stronger”, helping sustain its leadership and maintain policy continuity in China’s development.

Teshome said that corruption could drive a wedge between a governing party and the people it served, eroding public trust and undermining national development. He stressed that misconduct by officials should not be tolerated and that maintaining close ties with the people is essential to effective governance.

Gulnar Shaimergenova, director of the China Studies Center in Kazakhstan, said stricter Party governance should translate into better-performing institutions and concrete benefits for the public.

“Full and rigorous Party self-governance goes beyond combating corruption. It is also about improving the way institutions function, ensuring that officials fulfill their responsibilities and that government policies produce tangible benefits for the people,” she said.

She pointed to the CPC’s eight-point decision as an effort to tackle formalism and bureaucratic inefficiency, allowing officials to devote more time to employment, public services and other everyday concerns, rather than unnecessary paperwork and procedural formalities.

Beyond improving work practices, Shaimergenova said the real test is whether officials can deliver lasting improvements in people’s lives. “Effective administration should not be measured simply by economic indicators or the number of policies introduced, but by whether development produces sustainable improvements in people’s well-being,” she said.

That emphasis also underpins this year’s Party-wide education campaign on establishing and practicing a correct view of governance performance, which shows China’s unequivocal philosophy — governance is for the people.

Tongan Deputy Prime Minister Viliami Uasike Latu said the CPC’s internal governance mechanisms help hold individual members accountable for their conduct and ensure that they fulfill their responsibilities. Latu said he is impressed by the emphasis that Chinese leaders have placed on listening to public concerns and remaining accountable to the people.

Nigerian lawmaker Satomi Alhaji Ahmad said clean governance requires leaders to put their people’s interests ahead of their own. “They put the country first,” he said, praising what he saw as Chinese leaders’ commitment to serving the public, rather than pursuing personal interests.

The concern for public interest is reflected in efforts to tackle corruption and misconduct at the grassroots level. Since 2024, China’s top disciplinary and supervisory authorities have led a nationwide campaign targeting corruption that directly affects people’s livelihoods.

Figures reported in October showed that since the campaign began, authorities nationwide had investigated and dealt with 2.253 million instances of misconduct and corruption affecting the public and disciplined 1.555 million people. Disciplinary and supervisory bodies had also helped resolve 6.98 million pressing problems affecting the public, in areas including education, healthcare and other essential services.

Former British lawmaker Mark Logan, who has followed China’s development for about two decades, said he has witnessed a marked change in the country’s approach to corruption.

“You can definitely say today that China has much less corruption,” he said.

Contact the writers at zhaojia@chinadaily.com.cn