Party being forged to meet challenges

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the 6th plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in Beijing, Jan 12, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

As top leader of the ruling party of the world's largest and fast-growing developing country, what kind of political party Xi Jinping is resolved to forge and how does he plan to govern a party with a 95-year-old history and more than 88 million members that aims to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation?

The answers to such questions were offered by the just-concluded Sixth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee four years after Xi became the Party general secretary. At the plenum, Xi made clear the ruling party will be forged to deal with various crises and challenges within and outside the Party and the nation, and to implement the Party leadership's decisions without reservations. He also said the ruling party will have a strong executive capability and revolutionary spirit.

Several political parties emerged in modern China to free the country and its people from foreign oppression and aggression, but all failed in their mission except the CPC. The CPC's success can largely be attributed to the extensive support and endorsement it gained from the Chinese people. Without any selfish interest, the CPC made unremitting efforts for the benefit of the Chinese nation and its people. It is this consistent revolutionary spirit that has won for the CPC the Chinese people's extensive approval and backing in modern times and given it the status of the ruling party.

Despite its past revolutionary victory, the CPC today faces a series of severe tests. For any political party, the biggest challenge after becoming the ruling party is how to prevent decadence. Such tempting factors as power, status, money and other material benefits usually start to erode the revolutionary spirit of a political party after it comes to power.

As Xi said on the 95th anniversary of the founding of the CPC on July 1, the biggest test for a ruling party is how to resist corruption. Since the CPC became China's ruling party in 1949, some of its members and cadres have violated the law and Party discipline and isolated themselves from the public. While making remarkable economic achievements since the adoption of reform and opening-up in 1978 and building socialist market economy in the country, the CPC has also faced serious problems such as the vanishing of its long-cherished revolutionary spirit.

For a ruling party, spiritual decadence is the same harmful as physical decadence. The greatest threat to its ruling status is the disappearance of its belief, lax discipline and the abuse of power by officials for selfish gains. A very important goal of the CPC is to lead the people to strive for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. If the CPC depended on an unyielding revolutionary spirit to found New China in 1949, then it still needs such a spirit on the "New Long March" it has embarked on to resist temptations and overcome difficulties.

Bad behaviors of some of its members in their political life and working style, if unchecked, will weaken the Party's power and governing capability, distance it from the public and eventually endanger its ruling party status. It is because of such concerns that Xi has launched an unprecedented campaign to combat corruption and the unhealthy tendencies within the Party since taking office as top Party leader. A series of very strong measures he has taken to fight decadent behaviors among Party members also reflects his determination to better inherit the revolutionary spirit for the ruling Party.

It is the effective measures pushed by Xi to promote better governance within the Party that have brought about positive changes in the CPC and won the public praise for being a governing party with resolute beliefs and good working-styles established during the revolutionary era.

The author is a researcher at the Beijing municipal Party school.