The Party Shall Exercise Strict Self-Governance in All Respects

Another component of the four-pronged comprehensive strategy. To govern the country, we must first govern the Party and govern it strictly. Exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party requires to strictly govern the Party in all fields of Party building and all levels of Party organizations and regularizes and institutionalizes the strict governance of the Party.

In November 2012, Xi Jinping proposed at the meeting of the new standing committee of the political bureau and Chinese and foreign journalists that “it takes good blacksmiths to make good steel” and stressed that the Party should manage the Party and do it strictly. On October 8, 2014, at the summary meeting of a campaign to educate Party members about the mass line, Xi Jinping put forward for the first time “promoting strict full and rigorous governance over the Party”. In December of the same year, Xi Jinping proposed exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party side by side with building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, comprehensively deepening reforms and comprehensively promoting law-based governance during his research in Jiangsu, thus determining the four-pronged comprehensive strategy.

The proposal of exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party reflects the Party’s new understanding of strengthening and improving Party building, endows it with a new connotation, and presents new characteristics that meet the requirements of the times. Exercising the governance rigorously over the Party is an important experience of our Party. During the period of democratic revolution, Mao Zedong called Party building a “great project” and listed it as one of the three magic weapons of the Chinese revolution. In this period, our Party accumulated rich experience in Party building.

After the founding of New China, the Communist Party of China ushered in a new stage of long-term governance. Under the new ruling conditions, our Party attaches great importance to self-construction. Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, China has implemented Reform and Opening-up and established a socialist market economic system. In order to enable the Party’s organizations at all levels and the broad masses of Party members, especially the leading cadres of Party members, to withstand the test of being in power and Reform and Opening-up, to maintain the advanced nature of the Party and to build the Party into a strong core for leading the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we must adhere to the principle of administering the Party strictly. The more we advance Reform and Opening-up and develop the socialist market economy, the stricter governance should be exercised over the Party.

In July 2013, Xi Jinping proposed that “the tests” faced by the Party is far from over. The key to whether we can continue to hand in the satisfactory answers lies in the self-building of our Party, that is, whether our Party can always maintain the advanced nature and purity, and maintain strong creativity, cohesion and combat effectiveness. To exercise full and rigorous governance over the Party is an inevitable requirement for withstanding the test and defusing the danger. The foundation of exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party is to maintain the advanced nature and purity of the vanguard of the working class of the Party. To maintain the advanced nature is to get constantly adapted to the development of the times and the requirements of the people, always be in the forefront of the times and the people, and constantly improve the Party’s ruling ability and level.

To maintain purity means to unremittingly strengthen the ideological and theoretical armed forces, resolutely fight against all kinds of erroneous ideas that violate Marxism, strictly enforce the Party’s discipline and rules, and always maintain the Party’s ideological purity, organizational purity and work style purity, to ensure that our Party will never fade or deteriorate. It is necessary to always maintain the flesh-and-blood relationship between the Party and the masses, strengthen the ability of self-purification, self-improvement, self-innovation and self-improvement through strict administration of officials, improvement of Party conduct and anti-corruption, and strict Party discipline, and ensure that the Party will always become a strong core of leadership in the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party is an important part of the four-pronged comprehensive strategy.

Exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party is the key to promoting the four-pronged comprehensive strategy and provides political guarantee for its coordinated promotion. While building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, comprehensively deepening reform and comprehensively advancing law-based governance, we must adhere to the leadership of the Party.