[Li Xiang China] To comprehensively deepen reform, we must uphold the people’s interests first

Grasping reform and promoting development, in the final analysis, is to let the people live a better life. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader emphasized in the Explanation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Modernization that "the people should be supreme, and the reform should be planned and promoted from the overall interests, fundamental interests and long-term interests of the people". This profoundly embodies the value orientation and goal orientation of further deepening the reform in an all-round way, and provides an important theoretical basis and methodological guidance for how to realize the people’s interests in the reform.

The question of why people are the touchstone to test the nature of a political party and a political power. Our reform insists on taking the people as the center, relying on and for the people’s reform. The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that "reform is meaningful only if it is for the people", and that "to promote any major reform, we must grasp and handle major issues involving reform from the standpoint of the people, and we must plan reform ideas and formulate reform measures from the interests of the people". Insisting on planning and promoting reform from the people’s interests is determined by the nature and purpose of our party, the initial mission and the socialist nature of our country, and it is also the source of power to promote reform and development.

First, the inherent basis for upholding the people’s interests first

Insisting on planning and promoting reform from the interests of the people is an inevitable requirement for practicing the party’s initial mission. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed: "All the work of the Party is for the benefit of the common people", "We must persist in realizing, safeguarding and developing the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people as the starting point and the end result of promoting reform, so that the development results can benefit all the people more fairly. Only in this way can reform make a big difference". It is the fundamental difference between Marxist political parties and other political parties to always be with the people and fight for their interests. The Communist Party of China (CPC) is a political party for the benefit of the people. Its nature, purpose and initial mission determine that our party always represents the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, without any special interests of its own. The century-old history of the Party is a history of working wholeheartedly for the interests of the people and connecting with the people. Adhering to the people’s interests above everything else is the fundamental principle for communist party people to deal with interests. Only by firmly grasping the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people can we ensure that the comprehensive deepening reform will not be lost, deviated or distorted in the complicated situation and arduous tasks, and that our party will practice the fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, persist in building the party for the public and governing for the people, and benefit the people through reform and development.

It is Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s inherent requirement to persist in planning and promoting reform from the people’s interests. Chinese-style modernization is not the modernization of a few people, but the modernization that focuses on the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and it is an all-round development modernization centered on all the people. The core idea of this modernization is to uphold the people’s interests first, aiming at realizing people’s all-round development and ensuring that the fruits of development are shared by the people. The advancement of Chinese-style modernization, whether from the economic, political, cultural and social levels, is closely focused on the interests and needs of the people, reflecting the deep concern for the people’s well-being. Marx and Engels pointed out: "In the past, all movements were for or for the benefit of a few people. The proletarian movement is an independent movement for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of people. " The purpose of promoting reform is to constantly promote the self-improvement and development of China’s socialist system and give socialism new vitality. This determines that the reform is to better realize people’s interests, better enhance people’s well-being and promote people’s all-round development.

Insisting on planning and promoting reform from the interests of the people is the source of power for the smooth progress of reform. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed: "Only by relying on the people to carry out reform can reform have motivation." The success of China’s reform lies in the fact that the reform has brought tangible benefits to the people and won their support and support. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core has persisted in promoting reform with the people as the center, always put the interests of the people in the supreme position, and grasped the most concerned, direct and realistic interests of the people to promote reform in key areas. From focusing on solving the problem of "difficult and expensive medical treatment" to promoting the centralized procurement of drugs and consumables organized by the state, to promoting the reform of ecological civilization system by adhering to the principle that "a good ecological environment is the most inclusive welfare of people’s livelihood", and then to the reform of judicial system to make people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case … … Practice has fully proved that persisting in planning and promoting reforms based on the interests of the people, fully demonstrating the gold content of the reform plan, and making reforms better meet the needs of development, the hopes of the grassroots, and the aspirations of the people, and further deepening reforms in an all-round way will have the most solid support, the most powerful confidence, and the most surging motivation.

Second, adhere to the people’s interests first throughout the whole process of further deepening reform in all aspects.

Governing the country is regular, and benefiting the people is the foundation. As a profound and great revolution in the new era, comprehensively deepening reform is essentially a readjustment of the existing interest relationship, a reconstruction of the existing interest pattern, and a reform of the current system and mechanism. However, no matter how to adjust, construct and change, it is always to realize, safeguard and develop the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. Therefore, realizing, safeguarding and developing the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people is not only the starting point, but also the foothold of further comprehensive deepening reform. Adhering to the supremacy of people’s interests is not abstract and vague, but concrete and realistic, which must be reflected in all aspects of economic and social development and in the practice of better satisfying people’s yearning for a better life.

Ask for the needs of the people and listen carefully to the interests of the masses. With the rapid development of economy and society, people’s interests are increasingly diverse. Insist on planning and promoting reform from the interests of the people, first of all, we must understand the interests of the people. We should always take the demands of the masses as the "first signal", the interests as the "first pursuit" and the satisfaction as the "first standard", take the Party’s mass line well in the new era, visit the fields more often, often sit in farmers’ homes, listen to expectations and understand needs in the complaints of the masses, and be a good "public opinion collector". Practice the correct outlook on political achievements, actively respond to the concerns of the masses, take the people’s "voice" as the "starting point" of reform, turn the people’s "demand list" into a "task list" of deepening reform, start from what the masses expect most, and start from what the masses are most dissatisfied with, so as to ensure that what the people care about and expect, what the reform should grasp and promote, and make the reform ideas, decisions and measures better reflect the people’s demands.

Focus on solving the real interests of the masses. The problem is the voice of the times, and the human heart is the biggest politics. Adhering to problem orientation is a consistent fine tradition of our party, and it is also an important principle and thinking method for comprehensively deepening reform at present. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "We should put the reform measures into practice to test, let the grassroots judge and let the masses score". How much the people gain depends to a great extent on how well the problems that are needed for development, urgent for reform, desired by the grassroots and desired by the people are solved. Adhere to the problem-oriented and comprehensively deepen the reform, we must attach great importance to and focus on solving the painful and difficult problems in the field of people’s livelihood. Starting from the problems that the people are generally concerned about, strongly reflect and recur, we should try our best to solve the practical problems that the people care about, such as employment, education, medical care, social security, housing, pension, food safety and social security, and face the "hard bones" in the people’s livelihood reform through precise efforts to ensure that the reform measures respond to the urgency of people’s livelihood, conform to the will of the people.

Correctly handle all kinds of interest relations. Reform will inevitably involve the adjustment of interest relations. The deeper the reform, the more we should correctly understand and handle various interest relations, and seriously consider and give consideration to the interests of people of different classes and aspects. The fundamental standard for dealing with all interests is to realize the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. If we stick to this principle, we can correctly grasp and handle the contradictions among various interests. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that in the process of comprehensively deepening the reform, we should seriously think about the actual situation of the masses when we encounter interests that are complex and difficult to weigh. What are the people expecting? How to protect the interests of the masses? Are the masses satisfied with our reform? Insisting on planning and promoting reform from the people’s interests, we should correctly handle the relationship between the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, the common interests of the masses at the present stage and the special interests of different groups, enhance the coordination of reform measures, development measures and stability measures, and grasp the relationship between current interests and long-term interests, local interests and overall interests, personal interests and collective interests, so as to not only solve the problems that affect the vital interests of the masses, but also guide the masses to correctly handle various interests, express their interests rationally and legally, and create a stable and United social atmosphere.

Let the fruits of reform and development benefit all the people more fairly. The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "The fundamental purpose of our reform is to make the country richer, the society fairer and more just, and the people’s livelihood better." If the reform can’t bring tangible benefits to the people, if it can’t create a fairer social environment, and even lead to more unfairness, the reform will lose its meaning and can’t be sustained. Under socialist conditions, national construction is the common cause of all the people, and the process of national development is also a process in which all the people share the fruits. Let the broad masses of the people share the fruits of reform and development, which is the essential requirement of socialism, the concentrated embodiment of the superiority of the socialist system, and the important embodiment of our party’s fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly. This requires us to persist in taking the people as the center, put people’s interests at the core of the reform, divide the "cake" further while doing a good job, and strive to let people share the fruits of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological development, so as to gain more, more direct and more realistic sense of gain, happiness and security, and constantly promote people’s all-round development and common prosperity of all people.

Reform is complicated, and the people’s interests are the purpose. Only when the reform is scientific can the effectiveness of implementation be guaranteed. On the new journey, we should unite more closely around the CPC Central Committee with the supreme leader as the core, always adhere to the people-centered reform principle, deeply engrave the "people’s interests first" on the new journey of comprehensively deepening reform, and constantly promote social fairness and justice and enhance people’s well-being, so as to surely turn people’s longing for a better life into reality step by step and strive to write a new chapter in building a socialist modern country in an all-round way.

(About the author: Yan Liu, Ph.D. candidate, School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University. )