Prior Alignment Archives - understand-culture

Talks on Stretchers

During the Long March, before the Zunyi meeting, Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang spent their days together. Wang had been badly wounded and was carried on a stretcher. In 2016, Xinhua asked in a headline what the “conspiracy” on the stretchers had been. Its answer: “Days and nights together on stretchers and by the campfire gave Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang a good chance to exchange views.”

From January 15 to 17, 1935, the enlarged Politburo meeting at Zunyi made four decisions. One of them elected Mao to the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

Opinions Before the Plenum

On May 7, 2024, the draft of the Central Committee’s Decision on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively was sent out “within a certain scope inside the Party to solicit opinions.” The opinions of veteran comrades were sought, and so were those of the democratic parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, non-Party figures, enterprises, experts and scholars.

Xi Jinping gave the result in his explanation of the decision. The consultation produced 1,911 proposals for changes. The document drafting group “absorbed as much as it could” and made 221 revisions.

Four Deliberations, Two Disclosures

Under the method of four deliberations and two disclosures, a village decides a major matter in four steps. The Party branch proposes it. The joint meeting of the Party branch committee and the village committee discusses it. The meeting of all Party members reviews it. The last step is the resolution of the meeting of village representatives, or of the whole village. The decision is made public, and so is the result of carrying it out.

The method, siyi liang gongkai (四议两公开), comes from Dengzhou in Henan. It was promoted at a national meeting in Zhengzhou in November 2009, and the Central No. 1 Document of 2010 listed it among the measures for village governance.

Business at the Wine Table

“Once, ‘a good deal must be done at the wine table.’ For many officials in charge of attracting investment, this had become a fixed way of thinking.” The business paper National Business Daily wrote this in June 2017.

In June 2016, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection reported a campaign in Anhui against jiuzhuo bangong (酒桌办公), “doing office work at the wine table.” It targeted officials who used the wine table “to ask for funds, to chase projects, to compete for places in evaluations or to seek improper benefits.”

Study It, Study It

In May 2016, a commentary in the Procuratorial Daily, republished by People’s Daily Online, criticized officials who hide behind procedure. It described their habits with two set phrases: “When something comes up, they do not handle it, but ‘wait and see.’ They kick the ball back and forth and ‘study it, study it.'” (遇事不办”等等再看”，来回踢球”研究研究”。)

The Work Conference Before the Plenum

The Third Plenum of December 1978 is remembered as the start of reform. Before it, the Central Work Conference met in Beijing from November 10 to December 15, 1978. On December 13, Deng Xiaoping gave his speech “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts, Unite and Look Forward” at the closing session of the work conference.

The plenum itself met from December 18 to 22. A Party website calls Deng’s speech “in fact the keynote report of the Third Plenum.” It adds: “Without the Central Work Conference before it, there would have been no Third Plenum.”

The Vocabulary of Sounding Out

打招呼 To call out a greeting. Also to tell someone about a matter beforehand or afterward, or to remind them of it.

吹风 To blow wind. To let information out, or to make an opinion known.

通气 To let the air through. To keep each other informed.

摸底 To touch the bottom. To find out the real situation and the inside story.

探口风 To probe the wind from the mouth. To sound out what another person thinks. The Handian dictionary’s example comes from marriage. Instead of proposing a match, the other side first sent someone to “throw a stone to test the road” and sound things out.

One by One, Then the Meeting

Article 10 of the Party Constitution sets the rule for decisions in Party committees. “All important questions are to be discussed and decided collectively by the Party committee, according to the principle of collective leadership, democratic centralism, individual deliberation and decision by meeting.”

In the original, the four steps are 集体领导、民主集中、个别酝酿、会议决定. The third, 个别酝酿, is deliberation with members one by one, before the meeting. The meeting comes last.

2,958 to 2

On March 11, 2018, the National People’s Congress voted on amendments to the Constitution. After about forty minutes of handing out, filling in, casting and counting ballots, the result was read out at 3:51 pm: 2,958 in favor, 2 against and 3 abstentions.

Deliberation Before the Meeting

China’s 2019 Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Leading Cadres set out how leaders are chosen. Article 34 says that before a candidate is discussed and decided, the choice “shall be deliberated” (进行酝酿) among the leading members of the Party committee, the standing committee of the people’s congress, the government and the political consultative conference.

Only after that does the formal meeting vote, “on the basis of full discussion,” by voice, by show of hands or by secret ballot. The word 酝酿 originally means the fermentation of wine.