Ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) fifth plenary session of its 20th Central Committee, which will focus on full and rigorous Party self-governance, authorities announced routine inspections of the Ministry of Education and 31 universities under central administration nationwide. At a meeting to mobilise and deploy inspection teams, Politburo Standing Committee member and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection secretary Li Xi called for thorough scrutiny of strict Party governance and university management, leadership teams, staff and grassroots Party organisations, to provide strong support for the high-quality development of higher education.
According to Xinhua, authorities announced on Saturday (24 October) the universities covered by the 20th Central Committee’s eighth round of inspections. They include Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Xi’an Jiaotong University.
The other universities to be inspected are the University of Science and Technology of China, China Agricultural University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beihang University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, Sichuan University, Nankai University, Tianjin University, Wuhan University, Sun Yat-sen University, Northwest A&F University, Jilin University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shandong University, Southeast University, Xiamen University, Tongji University, Central South University, Dalian University of Technology, Chongqing University and Lanzhou University.
Speaking at the meeting on national disciplinary inspection work recently, Li called for higher standards and more concrete measures to advance high-quality inspection work on the country’s “New Journey”. He said inspections should serve more effectively as a powerful instrument for governing the Party and the country.
He also called for firm adherence to the strategic policy of full and rigorous Party self-governance, to maintain a strict approach and ensuring that political responsibility for Party governance is fully shouldered. He urged an integrated approach combining strict punishment, targeted measures to address problems and effective prevention, to strengthen inspections’ deterrent effect, ability to uncover deep-seated problems and capacity to drive action, while fully harnessing their comprehensive oversight role.
Li also called for thorough checks on efforts to fulfil the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education as well as advancing education, science and technology, and talent development in an integrated manner. Inspections should also scrutinise risk prevention and mitigation, strict Party governance and university management, and the development of leadership teams, staff and grassroots Party organisations. He urged a focus on identifying and resolving outstanding problems, to provide strong support for strengthening Party leadership and Party-building in universities and advancing the high-quality development of higher education.
Earlier, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping chaired a Politburo meeting on Friday (23 October) to review a comprehensive report on the 20th Central Committee’s seventh round of inspections. In that round, 15 inspection teams were dispatched in April this year to conduct routine inspections of 36 institutions over two and a half months. These included Party and state bodies such as the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Politburo meeting commended the inspections as thorough and solid, with effective results. It said the inspections showed that central Party and state institutions had made positive progress in their work, but that some problems remained and must be taken seriously and addressed in earnest.
The meeting called for clear accountability for rectification and stronger oversight of the process. It urged the Party organisations inspected to address problems identified in the inspection findings, in conjunction with studying and implementing Xi’s thinking on Party-building, and to consolidate and build on the results of the education campaign on establishing and practising a correct view of performance in office. They should tackle difficult issues head-on and make genuine, substantive corrections.