Author: Professor Xue Xinguo of xihua university Institute of Marxism.
On April 27th, 2020, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader presided over the 13th meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and delivered an important speech. He emphasized that the fundamental reason why China’s epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production can be vigorously promoted is that the leadership of the party and the advantages of China’s socialist system have played an unparalleled and important role. We should be soberly aware that fighting the epidemic is not only a big battle, but also an in-depth test of China’s governance system and governance capacity. We must give full play to Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s institutional advantages and governance efficiency, and promote epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development.
The test of ruling ability.The Communist Party of China (CPC)’s leadership is the most essential feature and the biggest institutional advantage of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it is also the most fundamental political guarantee to uphold and improve the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The COVID-19 epidemic is a major public health emergency with the fastest spread, the widest infection range and the most difficult prevention and control since the founding of New China. In the face of the sudden epidemic, the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core insisted on putting people’s life safety and health first, relying on the people closely, giving full play to the vanguard and exemplary role of Communist party member and the fighting bastion of grass-roots party organizations, and launched a people’s war, a general war and a blocking war against the COVID-19 epidemic in China. At present, the epidemic situation in COVID-19 has been effectively controlled in general, and the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s outstanding leadership, mobilization, organization, coordination and execution have been fully demonstrated in the anti-epidemic process. The national governance system and governance capacity are the concentrated expression of a country’s system and system execution. In case of major public health emergencies, we should give full play to the ability of the CPC Central Committee to centralize and unify leadership, take the overall situation into account and coordinate all parties. We should be decisive and resolute in implementing the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee. Under the unified command, coordination and dispatch of the CPC Central Committee, the whole country played a game of chess, the whole party, the whole army and the people of all ethnic groups in the country moved at the news, adopted the national system with one heart and one mind, and built the "Great Wall of Steel" to stop the epidemic.
The manifestation of institutional advantages.Institutional advantage is the most fundamental advantage of a country. The greatest advantage of the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system is to concentrate on doing great things. The national governance system is an institutional system for managing the country under the leadership of the party, and it is a set of closely linked, coordinated and coordinated national systems; The ability of national governance is the ability to manage all aspects of social affairs by using the national system. The national governance system and governance capacity are an organic whole and complement each other. The fight against COVID-19 epidemic this time is a big test and a test of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s institutional advantages and effectiveness. Facts have fully proved that in the face of major public health emergencies, we must give full play to the effectiveness of the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system, which is the fundamental experience and an important magic weapon for China to achieve significant results in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic. In the post-epidemic era, we must continue to uphold and improve Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s institutional system, and constantly promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.
People are the key to winning the epidemic prevention and control of people’s war, general war and blocking war, and medical material support is an important basic support. This time, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core, the relevant departments cooperated and took various measures simultaneously, and the vast number of medical personnel went to war as quickly as possible. They urgently dispatched a large number of medical personnel from all over the country to help Hubei and Wuhan, organized enterprises to quickly resume production, expanded production capacity and increased production in various ways, implemented unified national dispatch, and established a green channel to ensure the supply of medical materials in key areas. This epidemic tells us that to improve the ability and level of responding to public health emergencies, we must strengthen top-level design, optimize departmental coordination, and improve the system and mechanism of public health emergency work in accordance with the requirements of centralized management and unified allocation.
Perfection of governance system.At present, the situation of epidemic prevention and control in China has been further consolidated, but the epidemic situation in foreign countries continues to spread. We still have to adhere to the bottom line thinking, make ideological preparations and work preparations for dealing with changes in the external environment for a long time, focus on the "six stabilities" and the implementation of the "six guarantees" task, continue to do a good job in external defense input and internal defense rebound, and make overall plans for epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work.
Engels pointed out that there is no great historical disaster that is not compensated by historical progress. This epidemic has also exposed some shortcomings and problems in our system and governance. We should deepen our understanding of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, constantly improve our system and governance system according to changes in the objective situation, and further improve the ability and level of the party and the government to respond to sudden major public health incidents. To promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is to make all aspects of the system more scientific and perfect, to realize the institutionalization, standardization and proceduralization of the governance of the party, the state and society, to be good at using systems and laws to govern the country, and to improve the level of the party’s scientific, democratic and legal governance.
Engels pointed out in the article "Family, Private Ownership and the Origin of the State" that the State is the generalization of a civilized society. The impact of the epidemic on human beings, regardless of religious culture and values, social system and development level. Due to the differences in cultural background, political system and governance system in different countries, the overall strategy and anti-epidemic effect of dealing with the epidemic situation are quite different. We should learn from the beneficial achievements of human political civilization, but we must never copy the western political system model. Promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is by no means westernization or capitalism. This epidemic has once again proved that the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system conforms to China’s national conditions and has strong vitality.