[Guangming Forum]

Author: Zhang Jing (Director and Associate Professor of the Teaching and Research Department of the Party School of Fengtai District Committee of Beijing)

Rural governance is the cornerstone of national governance. Without effective governance of rural areas, there would be no comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. Recently, the 13th Central Document No. 1 to guide the "Three Rural Affairs" work since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China - "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Further Deepening Rural Reform and Solidly Promoting the Comprehensive Revitalization of Rural Areas" was released, clarifying the direction of the "Three Rural Affairs" work this year, refining the relevant task arrangements, and making a number of specific arrangements on "focusing on improving the rural governance system".

In 2024, my country's grain output exceeded 1.4 trillion jin for the first time, and the per capita disposable income of rural residents increased by 6.3% year-on-year. The impressive report card is not only due to the continued increase in support of the Party and the country in the "three rural issues" and the introduction of a series of favorable policies, but also inseparable from the exploration and efforts of the vast number of grassroots cadres and the masses to deepen rural governance, so that the Party's rural policies can be implemented.

Improving rural governance and reducing burdens for grassroots units are important means to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities, and the Party Central Committee has always attached great importance to this. In recent years, with the gradual improvement of relevant systems and mechanisms, the work of reducing burdens has shown a trend of focusing on reality, doing things in detail, and moving towards the long term. The most difficult and arduous task to comprehensively build a modern socialist country is in the countryside. If the rectification is not deepened, it will inevitably lead to waste of resources and inefficiency, damage the enthusiasm of grassroots cadres and the masses to do things and start businesses, and affect the effectiveness of rural construction and the people's sense of gain. This year's Central Document No. 1 will list the items separately for "continuously rectify formalism and reduce burdens for grassroots units" and put forward specific requirements, which is very realistic and targeted, and has important guiding value and significance.

To reduce the burden on grassroots units, formalism must be continuously rectified. To comprehensively establish a list of responsibilities for townships (streets) to perform their duties, we must clarify and standardize township responsibilities and powers, avoid unclear power and responsibilities, overreaching power, and multi-head commands to increase their responsibilities at all levels, so that people can do their duties according to their responsibilities and do their things according to their systems, and effectively solve the problem of "small horses pulling big cars" in grassroots governance. The list of responsibilities is a yardstick for the boundaries of work. The essence of clarifying the list of responsibilities is to clarify "what to do, who will do it, how to do it, and how to evaluate it", thereby compressing the breeding space for formalism. The formulation and execution of the list of responsibilities should be based on reality, and the "infinite decomposition" type of recurrence of responsibilities should not be carried out, and efforts should be made to avoid using tediousism to rectify formalism. The list of responsibilities has been decided, and execution supervision must be strengthened and dynamic adjustments must be made according to changes in the situation and tasks.

Since 1978, the urbanization rate of my country's permanent population has increased from 17.92% to 67.00% at the end of 2024. Urban-rural relations have tended to be deeply integrated, which not only opened up a new situation for the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, but also brewed new changes in the field of rural governance, expanding new ideas for rectifying grassroots formalism. For example, the establishment of a government service center can be included in the village-level system reform, and the government service work that is responsible for the existing village committees can be unified, and the village committees tend to be subject to the government's tendency to be administrative; for example, the services that fall within the scope of government responsibilities in the fields of rural people's livelihood and social governance and are suitable for market-oriented are included in the government's service purchase directory, so that professionals can do professional things, which will help activate the rural service industry market; for example, vigorously promote the digital reform of rural construction, accelerate the digitalization and intelligence of management services, promote the extension of intelligent government affairs to the grassroots level, and improve governance efficiency and standardize work processes through digital empowerment.

To continuously rectify formalism and reduce the burden on grassroots units, it is necessary to make building and strengthening grassroots party organizations the top priority. An important reason for the emergence of formalism is that it deviates from our party’s ideological line of seeking truth from facts, which leads to distortion and deformation of the working methods. Rural governance practice shows that the more the role of grassroots party organizations in combat fortresses is not well played and their creativity and cohesion is not strong, the more likely they are to have problems such as potential growth of formalism. To revitalize rural areas, the key is to build grassroots party organizations well and strengthen them. By strengthening the ideological construction of rural party members and cadres, we will learn, understand, and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, establish a correct view of political achievements, stimulate responsibility, and leave subjectivism, utilitarianism, and formalism without a breeding ground. By giving full play to the role of party building in leading rural governance, we will promote the learning and application of the "Ten Million Project" experience to go deeper and more practical, use autonomy to activate endogenous momentum, use rule of law to regulate the operation of power, and use moral governance to build consensus on development, and ensure that everyone is in their position, plan their politics, and perform their duties. By maintaining close contact and serving the masses and doing a good job in mass work, we will devote our sincerity to solving the urgent needs of farmers, focus on our main responsibilities and main business, and implement them well. Improve the level of work style construction, create a good atmosphere of clean and upright atmosphere, and do things and start businesses, so that the vast number of rural cadres and the masses can have a more sense of gain.