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This remark highlighted a universal and profound question: should one evaluate an official’s performance based on short-term economic gains, visible projects, formal accolades, or tangible improvements in people’s well-being?

Xi answered with what he described as “a correct understanding of what it means to perform well,” a guiding principle for officials that prioritizes people’s well-being and values long-term, tangible results that may not be immediately visible, yet delivered through sound decision-making and concrete actions.

In late February, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, with Xi at the core, initiated a Party-wide study campaign, prodding its members, particularly officials at the county and director level and above, to fix their mindset regarding governance performance so as to deliver results that “stand up in practice, in the eyes of the people, and over the course of time.”

The campaign, which will run until July, aims to correct misguided views on governance that often breed vanity projects, hidden risks, heavy burdens on local communities, and public discontent.

It marks the latest effort by Xi, who is now general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, to strengthen the Party’s self-governance, following last year’s initiative on improving conduct.

“The ever-improving effectiveness of the Party’s self-governance is the ultimate guarantee for economic and social development,” Xi said.

That emphasis was reiterated during an inspection tour on Monday, when Xi stressed Party leadership and Party building in developing the Xiong’an New Area — a fledgling modern city about 100 km south of Beijing — into an innovation hub and a model of high-quality development. Xi urged Xiong’an officials to step up to their responsibilities, devote themselves to policy implementation and deliver good results.

Party theorists said the latest study campaign focuses on strengthening the Party’s political development and its ranks of officials. As China has entered the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), the fulfillment of its development goals will largely depend on whether officials act with a proper understanding of governance achievement and a down-to-earth approach.

Eduardo Regalado, a researcher at Cuba’s International Policy Research Center, said fostering a correct view on performance among officials has emerged as a key concept in the CPC’s governance framework for the new era, and will help China transform its development model toward greater quality, efficiency, and equity.

People first

A key target of the campaign is to stamp out the tendency among some officials to sacrifice public well-being in seeking to polish their performance records.

At a high-level meeting, Xi condemned the squandering of funds on facade painting in some rural areas at a time when they had freshly shaken off poverty or were still grappling with poverty.

Xi said spending lavishly to whitewash the walls there — something that neither feeds nor clothes the people — is “futile and a waste of public funds.”

While some officials err on the side of recklessness, some others deliberately choose inaction. Some play it safe and shy away from responsibility, believing that “the more dishes you wash, the more you break.”

Xi has on many occasions lashed out at such non-acting “nice guys” and “fence-sitters,” saying that those who lack dedication will achieve nothing and jeopardize critical endeavors.

Conversely, one paragon of good governance frequently cited by Xi is Jiao Yulu, a humble Party chief of the little-known rural county of Lankao in central China’s Henan Province in the early 1960s.

Confronted with sandstorms, floods and widespread soil salinization that left many residents struggling to feed themselves, Jiao and his colleagues worked tirelessly to plant shelter-belts in combating encroaching sands and flooding, and help Lankao gradually overcome chronic food shortages. However, Jiao did not live to see the full results of these efforts, succumbing to liver cancer at age 42 in 1964.

Xi was deeply moved when he first read Jiao’s story as a middle school student. He said Jiao’s spirit, defined by a people-first approach and tireless, selfless dedication, had served as a guiding light throughout his own journey from a grassroots official to China’s top leader.

In the early 1980s, while working in Zhengding County in north China’s Hebei Province, Xi helped cut the state grain procurement quotas that had earned the area a reputation as a “high-yield county” — after learning that some farmers there were left without enough to eat.

“Zhengding would rather give up the fame as a national model for high grain production than compromise the well-being of our people,” he said.

For Xi, governance should be guided by the needs of the people rather than political showmanship. An official’s true pursuit, he has said, should not be high office, but living up to people’s expectations.

Drawing on his firsthand experiences of rural hardship as a teenager, Xi launched a nationwide campaign to eradicate extreme poverty shortly after assuming the Party’s top post in November 2012, mobilizing the entire Party apparatus toward the goal. Under his leadership, China lifted nearly 100 million rural residents out of absolute poverty in eight years.

Viewing poverty alleviation not as an endpoint but a stepping stone toward the people’s expectations of a better life, Xi then pivoted to a broader vision — pursuing common prosperity for all, and building a great modern socialist country by the middle of the century.

But setting the right goals is only part of the task. Xi has therefore placed strong emphasis on improving the institutional framework governing officials’ conduct. He has stressed that, alongside fostering the right mindset, it is essential to strengthen systems that constrain and supervise the exercise of power.

Meanwhile, to encourage officials to take on responsibilities, Xi set clear selection and appointment benchmarks.

Officials who make errors with good reform intentions or due to lack of experience must be protected and distinguished from those who violate discipline and the law deliberately or to seek illegal gains, according to the “three distinctions” principle he proposed.

“Officials should be selected and promoted based on what they have done, what they have accomplished, and whether their work is recognized by both the Party and the people,” Xi said in remarks published in Qiushi, the Party’s flagship magazine, in March after the study campaign’s launch.

“Preference must be given to those who dare to take responsibility, show initiative, deliver results adeptly and demonstrate outstanding performance,” Xi said.

Proceed from reality

The latest campaign on fostering a good governance culture underlines the need to proceed from reality and respect objective laws.

This call aims to address problems such as some localities slavishly replicating others’ successes, which reflects an over-reliance on a single model and a lack of pragmatic, well-conceived decision-making.

At last year’s Central Economic Work Conference, Xi criticized certain localities for blindly chasing trends irrespective of local conditions, either by jumping on the bandwagon of developing the chip industry or being eager to follow suit with the “new trio” projects — electric vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaics.

Xi has on many occasions stressed the importance of grounding solutions in local conditions, which is also a hallmark of his governance approach.

He has often likened policy-making to finding the right key for each lock — an idea that rejects one-size-fits-all solutions and emphasizes tailoring policies to different conditions.

Whether discussing urban development or energy policy, Xi has cautioned against ideas detached from reality. Under his leadership, China has made solid progress in green transition and set ambitious goals to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Yet these commitments do not mean pursuing an unrealistic sweeping shutdown of traditional energy projects such as coal.

In 2024, during a visit to Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, Xi emphasized that while green development must advance, ensuring a stable energy supply is vital.

“Fill the belly first, then eat well,” he said, cautioning against an overly idealistic approach.

Xi has also warned against misguided views on achievements that lead to “inflated statistics,” sham project launches or “invoice-driven” GDP — a phenomenon where local authorities use rebates to attract shell companies and engineer a false boom.

This practice is now listed as a key rectification task for 2026.

Xue Jiping, chairman of an optical fiber manufacturer, noted that curbing such abuses has given law-abiding firms a true sense of security, boosting their confidence in expanding investments.

The fight against fabrication echoes Xi’s longstanding insistence on integrity. In 2017, after Liaoning Province in northeast China reported negative growth following a crackdown on falsified economic data, Xi affirmed the value of such honesty.

He said while the real figures might not appear impressive, they were “truly good-looking” because they were authentic, pledging the central authorities’ unwavering support for those exposing real conditions rather than promoting fake prosperity.

On March 12, China’s national legislature approved a GDP growth target of 4.5-5 percent for 2026, while promising to “strive for better in practice.”

The same pragmatism is reflected in the 15th Five-Year Plan, approved by lawmakers on the same day. It says GDP growth will be kept within a reasonable range, with annual targets set in light of circumstances. Other targets set in the blueprint also demonstrate a down-to-earth approach.

“These arrangements reflect a clear value orientation: development cannot rely on flashy gestures or grandstanding. Officials must roll up their sleeves and focus on real results,” said Yu Shaoxiang, a research fellow at the National Academy of Chinese Modernization under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“As we embark on the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we must clear away the mire and purify the air,” Xi said, urging officials to adopt a truth-seeking and pragmatic approach when drafting national and local plans.

“All plans must be grounded in reality, pursuing solid growth without inflated figures, and promoting high-quality, sustainable development. Those who act rashly, escalate targets layer by layer or launch projects indiscriminately will be held accountable,” he said.

Long-term perspective

Since the outset of his tenure as a public servant, Xi has stressed that serving the country’s long-term interests, instead of seeking personal recognition or immediate acclaim, is what matters.

This approach reflects a particular understanding of governance — one that treats development not as a sprint within a single term of office. Xi has warned against the temptation to chase quick wins or “instant results” through short-term, high-impact projects, likening such practices to exhausting resources for fleeting gains.

Few areas illustrate the need for such long-term thinking more clearly than cultural heritage preservation and environmental protection, where the benefits often take years, even decades, to fully emerge.

When working as the acting governor of Fujian between 1999 and 2000, Xi chose to halt a mining project in the city of Sanming, after the site was found to contain fossils and artifacts that shed light on early human activity in that region. It was later recognized as one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in southern China.

This approach was again spotlighted years later while Xi was working in neighboring Zhejiang Province. During a local inspection tour, officials guided him to an industrial park they were eager to showcase. But when Xi learned that many of the factories there were little more than outdated industries relocated from more developed neighboring regions, his face darkened.

“What is there to see here?” he asked. “Leverage your own strengths and protect the green mountains and clear waters here — that should be your greatest governance achievement.”

The message was unmistakable: chasing quick economic numbers at the cost of long-term ecological health was not the kind of achievement that counted.

About a decade later, the same calculus, namely prioritizing long-term ecological security over short-term expansion, shaped Xi’s policy toward the Yangtze River, China’s longest river and a vital economic artery.

In 2016, at a high-level meeting focused on the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Xi opened with a blunt message to local officials: “You may be disappointed today — this is not a discussion about development, but about protection.”

He made clear that environmental recovery should be placed at the top of the agenda, highlighting a comprehensive assessment of development not only based on speed, but also on sustainability and long-term benefits.

The implications of this emphasis on the health of the environment extended far beyond the river itself. It confirmed that strategic foresight, conscientious planning and thorough execution should be the defining features of China’s development model.

The study campaign on governance mindset, meanwhile, was launched right before the rollout of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the penultimate one in China’s drive to basically achieve modernization by 2035.

Since the 1950s, these plans have served as both metronomes and navigators of China’s development, guiding the country’s transformation from scarcity to the world’s second-largest economy.

“The scientific formulation and sustained implementation of five-year plans is important governance experience of our Party and a key political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” said Xi, who led the mammoth effort behind the drafting of the country’s three most recent five-year plans.

This planning system places a premium on foresight. Hou Yongzhi, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said the 109 major projects outlined in the 15th Five-Year Plan span multiple key areas of Chinese modernization, with a considerable share focused on cultivating new industries and emerging sectors.

Designed to lay foundations for the future, these projects will provide strong support for China’s economic growth and people’s well-being, Hou noted.

Alexander Davey, analyst at Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel that China’s five-year plans act as a compass for Party cadres and government officials. For them, the plans signal how they should work and what they need to achieve.

Emphasis on long-term planning also helps explain why Xi has repeatedly urged officials to value not only visible achievements, but also the less visible work that lays the groundwork for future development.

“The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is a relay race, in which the baton must be passed on from one generation to another, with each generation striving to run its own leg well,” Xi said.