A real understanding

Solid work matters

It is important to be down-to-earth.

Gu Yanwu, an ideologist and scholar who witnessed the collapse of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and rise of the successive Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), partly attributes the fall of the Ming to intellectuals and their "empty words to stress the clarity of mind instead of using real knowledge to improve themselves and contribute to the country".

Gu was among intellectuals at the time who promoted the idea of jingshizhiyong.

It is a philosophy reiterated by Xi in his report to the national congress on Oct 16: "Empty talk will do nothing for our country; only solid work will make it flourish."

Born in a well-to-do family in Hong Kong, Lu Yonggen (1930-2019), once an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an expert in rice breeding, set his mind to saving the Chinese nation and contributing to its development upon seeing Hong Kong fall to Japanese invaders in 1941.

He joined the Party in 1949, worked toward liberation, and soon devoted himself to an academic career in agriculture after the founding of the People's Republic of China later that year.

Throughout his academic life, he traveled across hills and rivers to seek and collect wild rice species and developed more than 30 new varieties. Colleagues and students dubbed him a "commoner academician".His colleague Dang Linxi told China Daily in a 2019 interview that Lu worked like a farmer as he conducted field research and looked for wild rice, rolling up his trousers to walk through rice paddies.

Lu once said: "True scientists must be loyal patriots and take the needs of the country and the people as the driving force of their work."

He served as the principal of South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, from 1983 to 1995, and in 2017, he and his wife, Xu Xuebin, also a professor there, donated all their life savings, totaling around 8.8 million yuan ($1.21 million), to the university to set up a special education fund for young teachers and students in need.

Also among the delegates to the 20th CPC National Congress are Zhu Youyong, 67, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering who specializes in plant pathology, and Lin Zhanxi, 79, a professor at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University who invented Juncao technology in the 1980s, which uses chopped grass as a surface for growing edible and medicinal mushrooms, and as forage for livestock. Both, over a long period, worked in the countryside for research and contributed to poverty-alleviation trials.

As the country strives to build a better life for its huge population of rural people and revitalize their hometowns to reach common prosperity, agricultural scientists, whose achievements have also been helping the world tackle poverty issues, are gaining greater respect, especially from the younger generation.

Four years ago, Zhu presented a huge potato that local farmers of Lancang county, Southwest China's Yunnan province, had grown with his guidance, at an interview during the "two sessions" — the annual gatherings of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body. A short video of the scene became popular on social media. Zhu introduced and promoted the potato and the techniques used to grow it.

This time, in the interview before the opening session of the CPC national congress, he introduced the updated research findings of his team that have enabled locals to grow rice on arid mountainous land in rural Yunnan.

"Jingshizhiyong provides wisdom to settle ourselves," says Cao Runqing, an associate professor at the philosophy teaching and research department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC in Beijing, noting that people can fulfill themselves by serving society, and such a process maximizes the benefit for all.

Chinese people show a strong tendency to participate and make a change, and reflect on actions to improve future practice, Cao adds.