A century's journey proves China's choice

At the founding of the Communist Party of China in July 1921, China was a poor backward country, known as the "sick man of Asia", wallowing in its century of humiliation. Today, under the leadership of the CPC, China has regained its position as a global leader. Having lived in China for most of this century, I've observed that China has become a global leader again due in large measure to the CPC's strict self-governance and its ability to continually reinvigorate itself, thereby continuing to enjoy the trust of the Chinese people.

Strict self-governance means the Party accords the highest priority to serving the people with honesty and integrity.

A great source of the Party's strength is that it gets its inspiration not only from philosophers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but also from China's 5,000-year-old history.

For example, the Party also learns from Chinese classics like the 2,000-year-old Book of Han, whose lessons include seeking truth from facts, and a government's duty is to serve the people. The Party has also taken cognizance of imperial China's recurring cycle of dynasties' rise and fall, which were related to moral corruption and decay, and the need to continuously confront and address this weakness in order to honestly serve the people.

A key element of China's governance is the rigorous use of five-year plans as goal-setting and measurement tools to better serve the people. In a whole-of-government effort at all levels, China gathers input from all stakeholders for planning, sets targets, and then keeps reviewing the results in light of the five-year plan targets and making operational changes based on interim results.

China is now going to formulate the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30). The process reminds me of what Austrian management guru Peter Drucker once said: "The best way to predict the future is to create it." China is creating the future on a daily basis.

Another factor for China's success is the development and evaluation of government cadres and State-owned enterprises' officials for their placement, performance and promotion. Only CPC members who have sincerely served the people can be promoted to higher levels of responsibility. While in China, the cream rises to the top, in the United States, comparable appointments, especially at the top, are often made on financial contributions, not on merit. In Washington the conventional wisdom is that "money talks and BS walks", that is, you have to "pay to play". As the father of The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter, said, in the West, the "cream rises until it sours".

Strict Party self-governance demands that Party members serve the people instead of serving their own interests. Unfortunately, human nature pushes many people the world over to be corrupt in the private and public spheres, especially in the absence of strong deterrents. From time immemorial, officials everywhere have been tempted to dip their hands in the cookie jar when they believe nobody is watching. China was no exception, but it is a rare exception in that it vigorously addressed the problem on an institutional level.

President Xi Jinping has targeted corruption as a major factor impeding China's further development, launching a comprehensive anti-corruption campaign focusing on high-level corrupt officials ("tigers") as well as lower-level corrupt officials ("flies"), vowing that any official suspected of corruption would be investigated, and if found guilty, punished accordingly.

One of the most unique ways strict Party self-governance is practiced is the periodic self-criticism sessions, right from the top ranks to the lower levels, with every Party member engaging in a self-examination, including self-criticism, in regard to their individual conduct and collective responsibilities.

The bottom line is that China's strict Party self-governance model is a success in the eyes of those to whom it matters most: its people. To me, of the many surveys that ask respondents to rate how their own government serves them, the most authoritative is the "Democracy Perception Index", sponsored by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, whose head is a former Danish Prime Minister and a former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

According to the 2024 DPI, respondents in China have very positive opinions about their country's political system, with 91 percent saying that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a few), and 85 percent saying all people have equal rights before the law.

The respondents to this survey in China are more positive than those in the US and in most European countries on these points. Chinese people had some of the most positive results globally of the more than 100,000 respondents across 100 countries.

Strict Party self-governance clearly works, and works well under the CPC's leadership. Here's wishing a happy 104th birthday to the Communist Party of China and many more years of success in serving the people.

The author is a US scholar and senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. The views don't reflect those of China Daily.

If you have a specific expertise, or would like to share your thought about our stories, then send us your writings at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.