A Study of Innovating the Systematic Construction of the Party by Hu Jintao

Reform and innovation is the trend of the times and the theme in contemporary China. The great changes of situations of the world, China and the CPC require strengthening the Party building work with the spirit of reform and innovation. The CPC Central Committee with Hu Jintao as general secretary has deeply studied the new situations of the new century and brought about new innovative concepts in four aspects of the guideline of systematic construction of the Party, basic principles, concrete content and building approaches. Thereby, the new range of the Party building is broadened and new channels are explored, as is of important significance to improve the governance capability, construct and better the socialist market economy and build a harmonious socialist society.


The Innovation of systematic construction of the Party by Hu Jintao
In the new century, the situations of the world, China and the Party are undergoing profound and complicated changes.The Party Central Committee with Hu Jintao as general secretary has deeply explored the new situation in the governance and innovated in four aspects of the guideline, basic principles, concrete content and approaches of the systematic construction of the Party in order to strengthen the systematic and institutional construction within the Party.

The innovation of guideline is that the systematic construction of the Party is commanded by the Party constitution
The thought of systematic construction of the Party is a great innovation for the Party building thought by Deng Xiaoping.Mr. Deng Xiaoping, in the perspective of history and reality, stressed the importance of systematic building and institutional reform.Jiang Zemin on the basis of inheriting the spirit of reform by Deng Xiaoping put forward the thought of adhering to the fundamental system of the Party and bettering the specific systems to strengthen the systematic construction of the Party in all aspects.Hu Jintao, the general secretary, based on absorption and inheritance, proposes the establishment of systematic and institutional construction of laws and regulations with the Party constitution as the core within the Party.In the sixth Plenary Session of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, He emphasized that great efforts should be made to further strengthen the institutional construction and improve the system to be scientific, systematic and authoritative so that institutions can be used to govern power, deal with affairs and personnel to promote the construction of clean government and the work of anticorruption institutionalized and standardized."(China Daily, 2006).In September 2009, general secretary Hu Jintao, in the restatement of the systematic construction commanded by the Party Constitution in the CPC Central Committee's decision on strengthening and improving some major issues about the Party building in new situations passed at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Party's 17th Session, pointed out that "we should adhere to the combination of inheritance and innovation and examining ourselves to meet the requirements of the times, improve ourselves with the spirit of reform and innovation, constantly promote the innovation of the Party's constructional practice, theory and institution, establish and improve the institutional system with the Party Constitution as the fundamental and the democratic centralism as the core, promote the Party building to be scientific, institutionalized and standardized, develop the inner-party democracy, protect the Party's unity and enhance the creativity of the Party." Both "the Party Constitution as the core" or "the Party Constitution as the fundamental" reflect the thought of general secretary Hu Jintao that the Party Constitution commands the systematic construction.The guideline considers studying the Constitution, abide by the Constitution, carry out the Constitution and protect the Constitution as a major task and present it before the whole Party.It inherits and sticks to the thought of stressing the systematic construction in the theory of the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the "Three Represents" and gives the direction and approach to further strengthen the Party systematic construction.The innovation of systematic construction about the guidelines is an important conclusion made by the Communist Party of China for many years of work, as makes the Party's systematic construction into a new stage.

The innovation of the basis principles: Stick to the unified ideological, institutional and work style construction
General secretary Hu Jintao believes that to fight against corruption, ideological education should be carried out to make people consciously think and behave cautiously and systems can constrain people not to do whatever they want.The ideological and moral construction is used to improve the consciousness of abiding by the systems and institutional building is adopted to enhance the effectiveness of ideological and moral construction.Therefore, Comrade Hu Jintao, in the seventeenth session of the Second Plenary Session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, pointed out that "anti-corruption must be effectively promoted and combining the moral and ideological construction and systematic construction must be strengthened" (Liao, 2009).This strategic thinking inherently reflects the concepts of running a country of the Party Central Committee headed by General Secretary Hu Jintao, uphold the combination of rule by law and rule by virtue, and the combination of ideological and institutional construction.
General secretary Hu Jintao, in the CPC Central Committee's decision of several major issues on strengthening and improving the party building in the new situations at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Seventeenth National Convention, further pointed out that "ideological and theoretical building must be put in the first to raise all Party's level of Marxism"; "the ruling party's work style determines the image of the Party, and the success of the cause of the Party and the people.The style of combining theory with practice, keeping close ties with the masses, performing criticism and self-criticism must be vigorously promoted in the whole party.we should be always modest and prudent and hardworking all the time, take ideological education, system improvement, centralized rectification and strict discipline as the starting point and make great efforts to resolve the grim issues and form promote good civil style with good working style of the Party and government and a powerful force to agglomerate the thought of the Party members and morale."This statement shows that Party Central Committee headed by general secretary Hu Jintao, while strengthening the party systematic construction, adhere to the unity principle of ideological construction, systematic construction and the work style construction.It deepens and develops the thought of organic combination of ideological construction, organizational construction and work style construction with systematic construction running through".(Note 1)

The content innovation: setting up a studying system for the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC
Stressing learning and diligence in learning is a fine long-standing tradition followed by the Party.Strengthening study and arming ourselves with scientific theory is a basic way to maintain the advanced nature of Marxist political parties.Our party has always attached great importance to learning, and considered it as a strategic task concerning the prosperity of the Party.The three generations of leading core of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin stressed and paid great attention to learning.Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out that "those who do not pay attention to learning but busy affairs are easy to become vulgarized in thinking.The vulgarized thought is a dangerous starting point."(Note 2).The CPC Central Committee Political Bureau headed by general secretary Hu Jintao, have vigorously promoted the collective learning institutionalization, as sets up a good example for the entire party and the whole society.On December 26, 2002, general secretary Hu Jintao, in his lecture when the Central Political Bureau studied the Constitution for the first time, pointed out that "in addition to self-education, the Politburo should be engaged in collective learning, which is considered as a system to adhere to for a long time."(Note 3) Since December 26, 2002, the collective learning has become a system.By September 28, 2007, the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau has conducted group study for 44 times.For 5 years, 89 experts and scholars have given lectures to the leaders on the major issues concerning economy, politics, law, culture, science and technology, history, society and the Party building, and the international and military issues as well in Huairen Tang of Zhongnanhai.The collective learning is institutionalized to be carried out persistently and constantly"(Note 4).The comrades in the central committee are busy every day but they as a group can adhere to studying, showing a high degree of consciousness in studying and setting a very good example for all the Party members particularly for the leading cadres at all levels.It is a vivid demonstration to propel the whole party to study and to build a learning political party.Politburo's collective study plays a very important role in promoting the political decision-making more scientific and democratic, developing researches of social science and natural science, and constructing the learning political parties and a learning society.

The innovation in construction: from institutional factors to institutional system
The emphasis of systematic construction has been shifted to the building of institutional system from the construction of systematic factors in the past when one by one requirement was raised and regulation was set up, as is another innovation in systematic construction of the Party by general secretary Hu Jintao and the symbol marking that the Party's central leading group has gradually matured in terms of the systematic construction of the Party.(Wang, 2009.09.15).On June 25, 2007, Hu Jintao, in his speech to the class of cadres of the provincial and ministerial level at the Central Party School about controlling the corruption within the Party, said, "the Party committees at all levels should adhere to the policy of treating the primary and the secondary aspects at the same time, of comprehensive treatment, of punishment and prevention at the same time, and of the emphasis of preventing, establish and improve a sound system of punishment and prevention against corruption of education, institution and supervision.While corruption is cracked down, more attention should be paid to the root cause, the prevention, and the institutional building."(Note 5).The 17th CPC National Congress creatively proposed the new ideas and new measures."To achieve the main objectives of strengthening the Party's governance capability and vanguard nature, we must ensure that the Party exercises self-discipline and is strict with its members, and work to fulfill the requirement for serving the people and being pragmatic and incorruptible.We must strengthen Party building in all respects.Ideologically, we will focus on fortifying the convictions of Party members.Organizationally, we will put emphasis on bringing up Party members and cadres of quality.In improving the Party's style of work, we will stress the maintenance of its close ties with the people.Institutionally, we will emphasize improving democratic centralism.In enhancing the Party's capacity to fight corruption and uphold integrity, we will focus on improving the institutions for punishing and preventing corruption.All this will enable the Party to remain a ruling Marxist party that is built for public interests and exercises governance for the people; a party that is realistic, pragmatic and committed to reform and innovation; a party that is hardworking and clean; and a party that is full of vigor and enjoys solidarity and harmony."(Note6).The above discussion shows that the construction of institutional system based on institutional elements involves a very broader range, including comprehensive and systematic institutional system of adhering to and bettering the democratic centralism, improving inner-party supervision system and deepening the reform of selection and appointment of leading cadres of the party and government, innovating the anti-corruption system and establishing the collective studying system for the Central Political Bureau.

The realistic significance of the systematic construction of the Party by Hu jintao
Adhering to the new requirements of guidelines, basic principles, content and construction approaches by Hu Jintao, the general secretary, is of great realistic and far-reaching significance in the current situation.

Innovating the systematic construction of the Party by Hu Jintao is an important guarantee for improving the ability of governance
Comrade Deng Xiaoping once said, "good system can stop the evil run amok and bad system can make good people not do good deeds, or make them even go in the opposite."(Note 7).These words indicate the importance of the system to nation building.To rely on system to implement the rule is a common norm and law in the contemporary political rule and an important symbol of contemporary political civilization.Systematic construction can safeguard that the power can be run scientifically and normally in governing capacity construction to avoid the disorder ruling and that the Party can make decisions more scientific, democratic and standardized.Meanwhile, systematic construction is the propeller of the Party's five ruling capacities construction.Therefore, it is a guarantee to improve the Party's ability to govern.Only when a ruling party has a set of scientific systems and regulations and abide by them effectively and continually, can it be sure to have sufficient ability to govern.Only when the Communist Party of China is built into a party with mature theory and sound systems, can it have the necessary ability to govern, to consolidate its ruling position.(Li, 2006).The systematic construction raised by Hu Jintao, the general secretary, with the Party Constitution as the fundamental and democratic centralism as the core, in particular, the collective learning system for Central Political Bureau, are conducive to the building of a learning political party and society and play an important role in improving the Party's ruling ability.

The innovation of systematic construction of the Party by Hu Jintao meets the demand of agreeing with the development of the marketing economy
An important task of economic development in China today is to improve the socialist marketing economic system.The ability to control the marketing economy is an important symbol for the Party to have modern ruling ability or not.Marketing economy, in a certain sense, is the economy ruled by law, which requires the realization of fair competition and normalized activities, the establishment of dynamic mechanism, incentive mechanism, reward and punishment mechanism, discipline mechanism, interest and monitoring mechanism, and the building of a comprehensive external assurance system.This requires that the ruling party's behavior must be standardized, institutionalized and legalized.Otherwise, it is difficult to establish the legal authority and to include all economic activities in the legal system.Marketing economy is independent and profit-seeking.Such erroneous ideas of laissez-faire doctrine, egoism, money worship and hedonism, even the negative and corruptive activities are easy to grow and spread.Life within the Party must be in line with these characteristics of the marketing economy.And we must uphold and improve the democratic centralism within the party and the inner-party supervision system in order to stop the negative effects of marketing economy on the ruling party to guarantee the normal operation of the marketing economy.In January 2005, Implementation Outline of Establishing and Improving the Punishing and Preventing System against Corruption of Education and Institution and Supervision revised and issued by the central committee is to gradually establish and perfect the educational, institutional and supervisory punishing-preventing system against corruption in line with the socialist marketing economic system.

The innovation of systematic construction of the Party by Hu Jintao meets the necessary requirements of building a socialist harmonious society
Institution is a series of regulations used to reasonably deal with social conflicts, build justice, establish social honesty and stimulate social energy and creativity to shape a good social order.Regulations can be followed to do with things and the relevant responsibilities can be implemented.A sound system is a guide for building a harmonious society, which helps to the access of a state of harmony society.Resolving social disharmonious factors to the maximized degree needs good institutional basis.Therefore, the refinement of various systems is the necessary requirements to build socialist harmonious society.The systematic construction raised by Hu Jintao, the general secretary, with the Party Constitution as the fundamental and democratic centralism as the core will promote social equity and justice and provide important guarantee for building a socialist harmonious society.