1.2　Guiding the collaboration and participation of diverse entities in social governance

As social governance more and more depends on the collaboration of the government and society, it is necessary to bring out the vigor and capabilities of the social sector. That is, it is necessary to adhere to Party committee leadership and government guidance, to invigorate non-governmental support and public participation, and to further encourage diverse entities to play their parts in social governance. This is what we mean by “participation”. In the task of developing social ventures, we focus on issuing a series of policies based on the principle of the leadership of the government and the collaboration of the government and society, in the areas of education, healthcare, employment, social insurance, social services, etc., to create more opportunities for market players and various non-governmental organizations to play their roles. In the task of improving public welfare, we will protect the people’s sense of fulfillment, of happiness and of security, with established institutions. During the process of establishing the public finance system, the income distribution system, and the social security system, the Party and government should not only play a leading role, but also actively prepare the institutions and mechanisms for the orderly participation of various sectors of society and the public. In the task of social development, we regard the promotion of healthy development of non-governmental organizations as a necessary part of social governance. We have gained from experience a deep understanding of the significance of non-governmental organizations in social governance of the new era. We see non-governmental organizations as partners of the Party committee and government in social governance and public service. We respect the important role of non-governmental organizations in governance modernization as a major influence on social order and stability, and as a leader in public welfare.

1.2.1　Serving and leading, to consolidate the Party’s ruling foundation at the community level

In the affairs of different levels, the Communist Party of China plays the core leading role, commanding the overall situation and coordinating the efforts of all quarters, and is committed to people-centered service in an organized manner. Now Zhejiang has a total of 3.856 million CPC members. Among the 205,000 community-level Party organizations, 41,000 are in rural areas, 14,000 are in community neighborhoods, 31,000 are in government departments, 34,000 are in public institutions, and 18,000 are in state-owned enterprises. Moreover, 50,000 community-level Party organizations are established in 92.4% of the private enterprises, and 9,000 in 72.9% of the non-governmental organizations. To implement the policy of shifting the focus of social governance to the community level and the policy of improving the service, 33,010 Party-run service centers (stations, posts) have been established in the province, covering over 96% of the administrative villages and 100% of the urban neighborhoods.

Based on these, Zhejiang adheres to the idea of “focusing on governance at the community level, shifting social governance to the community level, showing love and concern at the community level”. For ten years in a row, we have kept promoting community-level Party building, each year with a new theme. We have drawn nationwide attention with our experience, such as “20 lessons from the community-level Party building in rural areas of Zhejiang Province”. For example, Zhejiang has persisted in the policy of the “Four Visit-Alls”(5) of Party secretaries at the provincial, municipal, county, and town levels during their terms of office. Carders of all levels are urged to go to every household in their visits to each village. Carders and Party members in each village are required to play a leading role in the grid-based governance and team service. They must try to be present on “Four Occasions”: where there are grievances, emergencies, conflicts and disputes, and weddings and funerals; they must visit “Four Kinds of Families”: families with financial difficulties, with people critically or seriously ill, with empty nesters or left-behind children, and with petitioners. In the past eleven years, 315,000 carders of the provincial, municipal, county and town levels have been selected to work as “instructors of rural work”, to ensure that every administrative village of the province has at least one liaison carder and one instructor, who maintain a permanent presence in the village. These measures have effectively urged government agencies of all levels to shift their focus and resources to the lower levels. Supervisory committees are established in all villages to ensure that village affairs are handled in an open, fair and just manner.

To enhance social governance in urban and rural communities, Zhejiang promotes service-oriented community-level Party building. By advancing the creation of Party committees and working committees at the town, township, and sub-district levels, promoting community-level Party building with a focus on villages and neighborhoods, strengthening community-level Party organizations’ leadership in village and neighborhood affairs and their leadership of other organizations, pushing forward Party building in non-governmental organizations, boosting service-oriented Party building at the community level, expanding regionalized Party building(6), and promoting the Party’s strict self-governance in urban and rural communities, Zhejiang actively explores efficient ways to govern urban and rural communities through Party building. These measures provide a reliable organizational guarantee for efforts to see that the government’s governing efforts on the one hand and society’s self-regulation and residents’ self-governance on the other reinforce each other, to comprehensively improve governance in urban and rural communities, and to push on with modernization of the governing system and capabilities in urban and rural communities. These measures have also further consolidated the CPC’s ruling foundation in Chinese society at the community level.

1.2.2　Transforming the function, to give better play to the role of the “visible hand”

Zhejiang’s government administrative resources are included in the province’s 11 cities, 89 counties, county-level cities, and districts, over 3,300 government agencies at the provincial, municipal and county levels, and 1,378 towns, townships and sub-districts. Under the leadership of the Party committee, the government has performed drastic cuts. Aiming at transforming government functions, Zhejiang has taken the lead with resolute reforms adhering to the idea of “cutting government powers to boost market vitality”. Starting from 2014, every year Zhejiang streamlines government powers, and releases the Four Lists: the list of government powers, the list of government responsibilities, the negative list of enterprise investment, and the list of special funds administered by provincial government departments. At the same time, with the help of the Internet and information technology, Zhejiang has established the Zhejiang Government Services Website, an e-government platform linking the provincial, municipal and county levels and combining the functions of government review and approval, service for the public, transparency in government affairs, open data consultation, interaction and communication, etc. Based on the “Four Lists and One Website”, to fulfill the people’s wish to further improve the government’s efficiency, and to fulfill the people and enterprises’ wish to handle affairs at government offices in one visit at the most, after plenty of consideration and discussion, we decided to launch the reform of “one visit at the most” in December 2016. Our goal is to suit the convenience of the people and enterprises with the use of data and the work of carders. We will ensure that affairs should be handled with one visit to the government office at the most. We will try to see that normal affairs can be handled with no need to visit the government office. Only in rare exceptions should one visit the government office more than once. With the cooperative effort of governments of different levels, the carders of Zhejiang showed the usual “Zhejiang speed”. With the mode of highly intensive development, we are committed to ensuring that departments of government review and approval move to the government service centers in different areas, that government services are offered on the Internet in an organized way, that government information is issued in a concentrated and open manner, and that all data and information are collected and organized for sharing. Thus, we have made a great progress in the reform. Within a year, in all provincial government services, 87.9% of the affairs are handled in one visit to government offices, and 94.7%(7) of the visitors to government offices are satisfied. Zhejiang is likely to become the province with “the least needs for approvals, the highest working efficiency, the best government service and the greatest satisfaction for the people and the enterprises”. This reform is praised by the people and applauded by the enterprises, and fully approved by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, who have clearly demanded nationwide promotion of the reform of “one visit at the most” in 2018.

At the same time, we spare no effort to strengthen the responsibility system in the government’s social governance at all levels, to enhance top-level design, overall planning and coordination, to establish and improve the system of power list and the system of accountability in social governance, and to form a chain of responsibility with clarified powers and responsibilities, clear incentives and sanctions, proper segregation of duties, and concerted efforts. In other words, we endeavor to accelerate the transformation from the “all-around government” to the “limited government” and the “active government”. The government should delegate responsibilities that it is not supposed to undertake to society in order to focus on matters that fall within its mandate, and to play its due role of the “visible hand”. The responsibilities and functions of the government are adjusted to: maintaining the stability of the macro economy, enhancing and improving public services, safeguarding fair competition, consolidating market supervision, maintaining market order, promoting sustainable development, promoting common prosperity for everyone, compensating market failure, protecting the environment, and so on. For example, in the past few years, Zhejiang has made outstanding achievements in maintaining public security. First, we have improved the prevention and control mechanism of public security, established the prevention and control network of public security, and enhanced the overall capabilities of prevention and control network of public security. We have effectively maintained prevention of violent terrorist crimes and individuals’ crimes of extreme violence, which threaten public security, and frequent occurring crimes and public security incidents, which threaten the people’s sense of security. Second, we have improved the quality and safety of agricultural products, increased the control of the quality and safety of agricultural products, and improved the supervisory system of the quality and safety of agricultural products. We are committed to ensuring that quality and safety are treated as the key element in the transformation of the mode and structure of agriculture, so that the people can eat safely with peace of mind. Third, we have enhanced the capabilities of resisting and dealing with natural disasters. We adhere to the principles of integrating preparedness, resistance and relief with the focus on preparedness, and of integrating disaster reduction in normal situations and disaster relief in special situations, to improve the whole society’s comprehensive capabilities for resisting natural disasters in every aspect. Fourth, we have increased workplace safety. In a people-oriented manner and valuing life over anything else, we have implemented the system of responsibility for workplace safety and the measures of management, prevention, supervision, examination, and incentives and sanctions; we have specified the responsibilities of the government of all levels as the leaders, of relevant departments as the supervisors, and of enterprises as the main practitioners; we have reinforced the efforts to implement the plans for special rectification, and to effectively eliminate hidden hazards. Fifth, we have strengthened food and drug safety administration. With the most rigorous standards, the strictest administration, the most severe punishment, and the most rigid accountability system, we spare no effort to establish a scientific and sound system of food and drug safety administration. We lay equal stress on production and administration, with rigorous quality check in every procedure from the farm to the dinner table, from the lab to the hospital.

In October 2018, Zhejiang responded to the call of the central government and launched a new round of institutional reform on the basis of its reform initiatives such as “One Visit at the Most” reform, big data management, integrated administrative enforcement, and four platforms of community-level governance. Through the reform this time, 60 Party and government organizations were set up at the provincial level, including 18 under the provincial Party committee and 42 under the provincial government. Such reform will also be introduced to the provincial people’s congress, the provincial committee of the CPPCC, non-governmental organizations and public institutions. Institutional reform on the municipal and county levels is expected to be completed before March 2019.

1.2.3　Fostering and guiding non-governmental organizations, to actively promote their development

In the 40 years since the beginning of reform and opening-up, Zhejiang has formed a favorable market environment and developed market players. Yet the social coordination in social governance has lagged behind, compared to the economic development. In the last 10 years and more, we have actively addressed the issue and explored the ways to bring more non-governmental organizations into the collaboration of social governance at the community level, and to foster diverse entities for the development of social governance.

We attach great importance to fostering, developing and building non-governmental organizations. On the one hand, we have included the reforms “to improve the system and mechanism of stimulating the vitality of non-governmental organizations”, “to establish the system and mechanism for the government to purchase public services from non-governmental organizations”, and “to promote the separation of government administration from social governance in commerce and trade associations” in the provincial Party committee and government’s key reform projects. We have successively issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Building of Modern Non-governmental Organizations”, “Notice of Distributing the Implementing Plan of Separating Administrative Organs from Commerce and Trade Associations in Zhejiang,” and “Opinions on Reforming the System of Managing Non-governmental Organizations and to Promote the Healthy Development of Non-governmental Organizations”. We have planned the system to foster and develop the province’s non-governmental organizations, and we have established the key criteria for fostering and developing community non-governmental organizations, boosting the registration and certification of non-governmental organizations, intensifying the supervision of the funds, activities and members of non-governmental organizations, and advancing Party building in non-governmental organizations, etc. On the other hand, Zhejiang has pushed on with the decentralization of government functions by purchasing public services from non-governmental organizations. After 2014, the provincial government successively promulgated the “Opinions on the Government’s Purchase of Services from the Social Sector” and “Opinions on Promoting the Decentralization of Government Functions to Non-governmental Organizations” to build the system for non-governmental organizations to take over government functions, which was backed up by the administrative measures and supporting the catalogue promulgated by the Province Department of Civil Affairs soon after. According to the statistics, 6,709 non-governmental organizations in the province are listed in the catalogue as qualified contractors for government purchase of public service, covering a broad range of areas in public governance and service, including retirement, marriage crises, protection of minors, care for aged parents bereft of the only child, assistance for persons with disabilities, fostering public welfare organizations, etc. Zhejiang also raised funds from various sources by means of encouraging venture philanthropy, setting up special funds, establishing foundations for the development of non-governmental organizations, etc., to support the participation of community non-governmental organizations in community governance and social service. With the continuous efforts in the past few years, as of the end of 2017, Zhejiang had 49,359 non-governmental organizations registered with civil affairs authorities according to law; there were 140,000 such organizations in total, including registered community non-governmental organizations. These organizations have become an indispensable force in social governance.

Zhejiang steadily implements the separation of provincial commerce and trade associations from government agencies. So far, we have finished two pilot rounds of separation of provincial commerce and trade associations from governmental agencies, and 200 provincial commerce and trade associations have been separated from governmental agencies in terms of administrative relation, function, personnel, funding, Party building, foreign affairs, etc. Some trade associations have been deregistered. Some that once functioned as the government’s extension have recovered their roles as non-governmental organizations. The separation of city-level and county-level provincial commerce and trade associations from governmental agencies is being carried out in an orderly manner.

Besides, Zhejiang has made great efforts to develop new pivotal and supportive commercial platforms for non-governmental organizations. Now the province has established 189 service platforms at the city and county levels for non-governmental organizations, covering all cities and counties. In some areas, various types of service platforms have been established, such as NGO service centers, public welfare incubation parks, NGO federations, NGO development foundations, etc. In most areas, the service platforms have been extended to the levels of sub-districts and communities, with 2,500 sub-district and community service platforms. The service platforms in different areas have kept incubating non-governmental organizations by means of venture philanthropy, service purchase, and function transformation, showing their role as the “pivot” and “bridge”.

1.2.4　Invigorating the people, to actively encourage their self-governance

To truly transform the monologue of the government to the chorus of society, Zhejiang actively innovates all kinds of platforms, to arouse the sense of ownership in every member of society, to promote the forces of social self-governance, social autonomy, and to help to bring about a social governance model with the whole society’s participation. In the prevention and resolution of social conflicts, the maintenance of public order, the fulfilment of major security tasks, and the handling of public security emergencies, the people’s self-governance organizations have played an irreplaceable role.

For example, we have launched the volunteering movement, and promoted volunteerism throughout the province. The province founded 11 corps of peace-guarding volunteers at the municipal level, and established volunteer detachments, brigades, and squadrons respectively at the county (county (county-level city, district), town (township, sub-district), and village (community) levels. With unified signs, assigned numbers and centralized command, the volunteers provide assistance in all kinds of work, including emergency rescues, city operation, culture and education, care services, community services, environment protection, healthcare, psychological consultation, legal aids, and so on. As of 2017, Zhejiang has over 35,000 registered volunteer teams in the province, with a total of over 2.3 million members. Some volunteer teams with Zhejiang characteristics, such as “Wuzhen Managers”, and “Wulin Aunties” that have become famous.

In the peace-building campaign, some parts of Zhejiang launched activities such as “I patrol one night for everyone; everyone guards me for a whole year.” Based on the traditional self-governance mass organizations, such as village guards, factory guards, school guards, etc., we have integrated various kinds of self-governance forces, including village (community) security committees and boards of conciliation, town (township, sub-district) full-time security patrol teams, security service teams, enterprise or institution security teams, village (community) volunteer patrol teams, and so on. In recent years, we have pushed on with the industrialization of public security, with widely established professional security patrol teams, property management, and security service companies. We have broken through the regional and organizational limits in the old models of the people’s self-protection and self-governance, and have established the mechanism to improve the forces of the people’s self-protection and self-governance in the joint prevention and control. We have built a network of joint prevention and control, with guarded locations, patrolled routes and supervised areas. We have established the idea that “the police force is limited but the people’s force is unlimited,” and have mobilized all possible social forces to participate in peace-building.

A representative case:

February 16, 2016 was the ninth day of the first month in the lunar calendar, one of the days in the Chinese Spring Festival season. In Jianguang Village, a village surrounded by mountains and close to the river in Pujiang County of Zhejiang, three children from two families, 12, 8 and 7 years old respectively, were missing. The parents could not find them after they left home at 10:00 AM. The police received the phone call at 6:00 PM and immediately started the search. The situation was reported to the county Party committee and the county government. The main leaders of the county Party committee at once gave the instructions that “the police, the media and the towns and townships should work together in the search for the three children” and that “leaders of relevant departments of the county Party committee and the county government should guide the search personally on the mountains”. Two hours later, several non-governmental rescue teams who heard the news joined the local police, the town and township carders, the villages. With police dogs and flashlights, the five hundred people went to the mountains where the temperature was 4 degrees below freezing, and had an inch-by-inch search in the nearby mountains of 7 km2 in area. They found nothing after a whole night.

In the small hours of February 17, the whole Pujiang County was mobilized. The political and legal affairs commission, the organization department and the publicity department of the county Party committee, along with the public security bureau, the education bureau, the transportation bureau, the health bureau, the forestry bureau and the emergency management of the county government participated in the rescue. The headquarters were established with the county deputy secretary as the commander and the director of the county public security bureau as the field commander. Based on the surveillance video of the public security department, the headquarters examined information from various sources and came to the conclusion that it was not a criminal case and that the children had lost their way near their homes. The headquarters decided to undertake an inch-by-inch search with the hilltop east of the village as the point of departure and with focus on the reservoir, river and mountains nearby.

With the headquarters’ unified instruction, the County Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau sent out the reinforcement promptly; the Department of the People’s Armed Forces organized militias to go to the mountains in groups; the Bureau of Education mobilized all teachers and students of the county to help with the search; the Youth League organized volunteers; the media kept broadcasting notices about the search around the clock; the towns and townships all organized rescue teams... As the saying goes, “when one place suffers misfortune, aids come from all sides.”

The news about the lost children was spread through the media and WeChat Moments. More and more professional teams and non-governmental forces came to Jianguang Village and joined in the rescue. Total strangers fought side by side for three children. At 11:50, a helicopter of the non-governmental emergency rescue association of the neighboring Yiwu County arrived at the searching site. At 11:55, helicopters of the provincial Department of Public Security’s Police Aviation Force arrived to carry out the air search. Despite the dangerously steep mountains and dense forests of the area, the helicopters tried to fly as low as possible. Two searchers observed and searched the area with their eyes, while the rescuers dropped tens of bags full of firelighters, food, water and other supplies in areas of mountains and forests where the children were more likely to appear. That night, two amphibious vehicles provided by Yiwu Non-governmental Rescue Team came to Jianguang Village and carefully searched the river. Two rescue teams from the neighboring county and city searched the valleys closely with thermal imagers. After a sleepless night, the search with the participation of more than a thousand people had no result.

On February 18, the third day of the search, with the temperature lower than freezing, less and less was left of the 72-hour “golden window” for survivors. The search in the mountain continued with 31 searching team of over 2,100 people. With the point of the last contact as the center, the search expanded from the original area of over 30 km2 to a new area of 70 km2, which was divided into 15 grids. Different grids were assigned to different professional rescue teams. Areas of complicated geological features, such as feet of cliffs, bottoms of valleys, and sides of ditches were searched again. Still no result.

At 1:00 AM on February 19, the rescue headquarters made another decision to expand the searching area with an enlarged searching team, and with the mountains as the focus. At 3:00 AM, the rescue headquarters issued an emergency notice to call up township militia emergency teams to join in the rescue. The searching area was expanded from 70 km2 to 110 km2. At 6:30 AM, 25 local rescue teams of over 780 members started searching from the surrounding towards the center, while 24 professional rescue teams from within and without the province, with over 560 members, searched from the surrounding towards the center. Finally, at 10:20 on the 19th, a township militia emergency team found the three children by a stream in the forest. The search had gone on for three days and three nights, and the miracle happened at the moment close to the rescue limit. On the same morning, 12 experts led by the president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University came to Pujiang County to give the three children an examination. The child with a more serious wound was sent to Hangzhou, the provincial capital, for more treatment. At last, the three children were reunited with their parents safely.

In the 70 hours of life-and-death race against the time, care and concern gathered from every corner to the mountain village in the remote area. Different public welfare organizations, enterprises and institutions of Pujiang County sent food, drinks, drugs and other supplies. The whole Jianguang Village was mobilized. A temporary kitchen was built on the big open ground at the entrance of the village to prepare meals for the rescuers. The Ministry of Health sent medical workers to attend to those wounded in the search. Volunteers came. Townsfolk came. The running figures warmed up Jianguang Village in winter. Worried about the battery life of the rescuer’s cell phones, people from all parts of society generously donated over 1,300 portable power banks. Volunteered service rushed to Jianguang Village from all directions. When there was a need, there was a supply. The whole county made a concerted effort in the orderly rescue and its well-organized logistic support. This wilderness rescue at an unusually large scale involving 151 rounds of search, 7,700 rescuers and the participation of over ten thousand people in a mountains area of 110 km2 demonstrated the institutional strengths and the caring society in the social governance system featuring Party committee leadership, government guidance, non-governmental support and public participation.

From the mid-1990s on, the people’s self-governance in Zhejiang’s rural areas was met with new challenges. As the urbanization went on, an increasing number of villagers left their native land and the rural society began to lose the atmosphere and condition of China’s traditional gentry governance. Many areas showed the tendency of rural hollowing, and thus the social governance at the community level was weakened. To invigorate the force of village worthies, to give full play to village worthies’ role in social governance and public service, and to increase the capabilities of diverse participation and consultative co-governance, different areas of the province called together the village worthies living in both the urban and rural areas, the village worthies living away from hometown, and village worthies originally from other towns, according to the various local conditions. They were encouraged to participate in the economic and social development efforts in the rural areas with activities of social governance at the community level, such as giving advice on policies, reporting the people’s feedbacks, supervising and evaluating the governance, organizing social assistance and mutual aids, etc. In 1995, a council of village worthies was founded in Lishui City in the mountains areas of Zhejiang, the native land of many overseas Chinese. Such councils have been founded throughout the province in recent years. By the end of 2016, 1,690 councils (or boards) of village worthies had been founded at the community level in the 11 cities of the province, with a total of 24,130 members. These village worthies include those who have moved to the cities or even other countries (the Chinese have strong emotional ties with their homes and people who have left the rural area to work in other places keep a connection with their home villages) and those originally from other areas who invest or run businesses in the villages. With specialized skills, general learnings and moral prestige, they make an importance force that supports the self-governance at the community level. Facts show that they play an effective role as mediators, leaders, innovators and advisors.

Thus, the collaboration-oriented growing main force of social governance with “one leader and diverse participation” is developed at full speed in Zhejiang, propelling forward the governance system led by the Party committee and featuring government guidance, non-governmental support and public participation.