Unremitting efforts seen as key to progress

For years, Xingtang county in Hebei province was shadowed by a local saying that played on its name: "Xingtang bu xing" — Xingtang cannot do it.

The saying reflected more than a play on words. Along the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains, several counties had long struggled with constraints of terrain and resources. In Xingtang, a traditional agricultural county, quality farm products often failed to reach wider markets because they lacked strong brands and sales channels.

When Zou Guoyu arrived in Xingtang, he saw that changing the county's prospects would require more than short-term assistance. He was among the 13 officials assigned by the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee to work in the county over the past decade. Their work focused on opening markets, building brands and strengthening the county's own capacity for development.

Those efforts gradually paid off. Xingtang red dates were selected as State gifts, honey produced in the county reached Southeast Asian markets, and the county's public brand for local specialties gained wider recognition.

What happened in Xingtang was not a single breakthrough, but a relay — one group of officials after another carrying the work forward and helping turn an old saying of resignation into a new confidence: Xingtang can.

That relay offers a window into the CPC's emphasis on establishing and practicing a correct view of governance performance, a theme repeatedly stressed by President Xi Jinping since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 and one that became this year's focus of a Party-wide education campaign. It is a view that values sustained work, long-term public benefit and results that can stand the test of time.

The logic behind such a relay can be traced to Xi's earlier poverty reduction work in Ningde, Fujian province, where he served as Party secretary from 1988 to 1990, when the region was among the poorest areas in Fujian.

In Up and Out of Poverty, which collects Xi's speeches and articles from his work in Ningde, he wrote that fundamentally changing poverty and backwardness required the people to carry forward the tenacity of "dripping water piercing stone" and make long-term, unremitting efforts.

In Xi Jinping in Ningde, a book published in 2020 that collects 19 interview accounts about Xi's work experiences in Ningde, an interview account recalled that Xi cautioned local officials against expecting poverty to be fundamentally solved simply by projects, or expecting to become rich overnight.

The emphasis on patience, local realities and sustained effort later became part of China's nationwide fight against absolute poverty. In the new era, poverty alleviation was pursued not as a short burst of assistance, but as a systematic effort carried out across regions, levels of government and successive stages of policy.

By 2021, China had secured a complete victory in the fight against absolute poverty. Under the current standard, 98.99 million rural residents living in poverty had been lifted out of poverty, 832 impoverished counties, including Xingtang, had been removed from the poverty list, and 128,000 impoverished villages had shaken off poverty.

However, the achievement was not treated as the end of the task. Even before that milestone was reached, the central leadership had begun planning the next stage. At the Central Rural Work Conference in December 2020, Xi called for efforts to consolidate and expand poverty alleviation achievements and align them with rural vitalization, in order to ensure a smooth transition without gaps in work or policy support.

For long-term tasks, Xi has always stressed the need to maintain a strategic resolve and patience, and to follow through on sound blueprints with sustained effort. He once said that existing plans and arrangements should be carried forward from one term to the next if they are sound, suited to new practical requirements and in line with the people's aspirations.

Zheng Changzhong, a professor at Fudan University, said the experiences of Ningde, Xingtang and China's national poverty alleviation campaign all point to the same logic: Development cannot rely on a single push, and neither can governance performance be measured only by what is immediately visible.

What matters, Zheng said, is whether policies solve real problems, build lasting foundations and continue to benefit the people over time. He said this logic of sustained effort can be seen not only in poverty reduction, but also in broader development fields that require long-term planning, policy continuity and steady implementation.

Aisake Valu Eke, former prime minister of Tonga, said China's success in lifting nearly 100 million rural residents out of poverty was "a remarkable achievement for any country".

Eke said China's progress was supported by a system in which plans and strategies are developed by the CPC and carried out across different levels of government, from provinces and cities to villages. Information from the grassroots feeds into development planning, while coordination, monitoring and evaluation help keep implementation on track, he said.

Planning system hailed

Nur Rachmat Yuliantoro, professor of International Relations at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia, said China's five-year planning system, with its emphasis on long-term strategic planning and policy continuity, is one of the defining features of China's development.

He said that this approach enables China to pursue national goals while delivering immediate benefits to the people and advancing broader development objectives over time, a balance that can be seen in areas such as infrastructure, poverty alleviation, technological innovation, natural resource conservation and cultural heritage preservation.

"At the heart of this planning strategy and balance is sustainability," he said, adding that China has provided valuable experience for many countries, particularly those in the Global South.

Nichita Iris Liga, a member of the Executive Bureau of the Romanian Socialist Party, said that unlike some other countries, where systems and priorities may change every few years with electoral cycles, planning in China is not limited to a single five-year period, but is linked to longer-term goals, including the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country by the middle of the century.

zhaojia@chinadaily.com.cn