No 1 Document for 2010

V. Strengthening the Communist Party's grassroots organizations in rural areas and consolidating the ruling basis of the CPC in rural areas.

25. Strengthen and improve grassroots Party construction in rural areas. Promote innovation in grassroots Party work, expand the Party organization's coverage in new rural organizations, and build branches of the Party in farmer cooperatives, associations, and places with high concentration of migrant workers. Select competent township Party Secretaries and supporting members of township Party Committees. Raise the quality of village-level Party organizations, and give priority to veterans, young migrant workers that returned to the countryside, and party members with high "getting-rich abilities" in selecting village Party secretaries. Strengthen supervision over the Party organization's leadership in township and village levels and make quick adjustment if the Party organization is weak. Implement policies that provide preferential treatment in terms of salary and benefits to cadres that work in the grassroots and in remote areas. Further improve the "one specification, three haves" policy (specified responsibilities and objectives, have secure income, have hopes for promotion, and have pension after retirement) for village cadres. Select outstanding village cadres for public servant positions in townships and as candidates for township officials. Establish a stable system to guarantee funding for grassroots Party organizations. Speed up construction of venues for village-level Party organization's activities and a network for Party members’ distance education. Continue to select college graduates to take positions in villages. Strengthen the Party’s work among migrant workers. Educate Party members about the nature and rules of the Party and promote clean governance at the grassroots level in rural areas.

26. Continue to improve grassroots governance in rural areas that are suitable for China's national conditions. Develop and improve village-level democratic self-governance led by the Communist Party, and establish standardized procedures for democratic village election, democratic decision-making, democratic administration, and democratic supervision. Learn from experiences from various places, promote the practice that, for major village issues, the village Party Branch will make a proposal, the Party Branch Committee and the village committee will have joint discussions, all Party members of the village will meet to review the issue, and villager representative meeting or villager meeting will reach a decision. The decision will be public and outcomes from implementation will also be made public. Strengthen leadership and guidance to elections of village Party branches and village committees, and strictly punish actions such as soliciting votes and bribing voters to ensure smooth and orderly elections. Prevent religious and clannish forces from intervening rural public affairs. Strengthen management of collective funds, assets and resources and enhance transparency of village affairs. Strengthen the construction of service facilities and build community organizations that provide public services and facilitate mutual assistance. Strengthen the social management and public service functions of township governments and build comprehensive service platforms. When feasible, townships should set up service centers and villages should set up service stations to provide one-stop service for farmers.

27. Maintain social stability in rural areas. Improve the Party and government-led mechanism for protecting people’s rights and interests and earnestly solve a series of outstanding problems that might hurt farmers' interest, such as land acquisition, pollution, resettlement, and management of collective assets. Strengthen legal education in rural areas, keep an open channel for farmers to petition, and guide farmers to express their demands and protect their rights legitimately and rationally. Make progresses in comprehensive law enforcement with regards to agriculture. Improve public safety in rural areas by relying on the masses. Improve rural policing and forcefully crack down the evil forces, gangs and all kinds of crimes. Strengthen fire prevention and build emergency response systems in rural areas. Comprehensively implement the Communist Party’s ethnic policy and religious policy, speed up the economic and social development in minority ethnic regions, and administer rural religious affairs according to law.

Party Committees and governments at various level should strengthen the Party’s leadership in rural work from the strategic perspective of promoting overall economic and social development and solidifying the Party's ruling basis. The evaluation of the Party and government leadership should be based on the requirement of scientific development. Grain production, farmers' income increase, farmland protection, environment management, and social harmony and stability – these all should be included as indicators in the performance evaluation systems for Party and government leaders. The importance of rural-related work should be reflected in the division of responsibilities among the leaders, institutional set-up as well staffing of related agencies. Continuously improve leadership for rural- related work. Rural policies need to be better implemented and special inspections need to be carried out. Leaders at various levels should maintain the Party's good tradition of staying in close touch with the masses and carry out their work creatively. Give full play to the role of democratic parties, people's organizations, social organizations and industrial and commercial enterprises so as to form a powerful force for the development of modern agriculture and the construction of new socialist countryside.

It is of great significance to manage well agriculture and rural-related work in 2010. We shall be united around the Central Committee of the Communist Party headed by Hu Jintao as the general secretary and strive for new achievements in the work on agriculture and rural development.