Song Fufan: Confining Power Within the Cage of Institutions Through Strict Systems and Rigid Execution
In his important speech delivered at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "the Party's self-revolution focuses on the governance of power, and confining power within an institutional cage is an important task for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party in the New Era." This is an inevitable requirement for upholding and strengthening the Party’s overall leadership and advancing the Party’s self-revolution in the New Era. It also serves as a solid guarantee for the implementation of the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee. It holds far-reaching significance for highlighting institutional power governance, managing power according to regulations, and standardizing the exercise of power within the practice of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, ensuring that power always operates on the correct track through rigorous systems and rigid execution.
I
"The Party's self-revolution focuses on the governance of power" is a major thesis proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping at this meeting. This thesis fundamentally reveals the key orientation of the Party's self-revolution under the conditions of long-term governance and is of great significance for advancing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party with higher standards and stricter measures. The issue of power has always been the core issue facing the construction of a governing party. Power is a double-edged sword; once it loses its constraints, it may degenerate into a tool for seeking private gain, thereby eroding the Party’s advanced nature and purity, damaging the relationship between the Party and the masses and between cadres and the masses, and ultimately undermining the Party’s foundation for governance. As a Marxist party in long-term power, the Communist Party of China (CPC) emphasizes that "the Party's self-revolution focuses on the governance of power." This is not a general work requirement, but the "ox's nose" [1] that must be pulled to advance the Party's self-revolution, and a key link in pushing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party to deeper levels.
From the perspective of the laws governing the building of a Marxist party, the greatest risk for a governing party is often not a lack of governing capacity or level, but rather the political risks caused by the lack of standardization in the exercise of power. Particularly under conditions of long-term governance, the national governance system becomes more complex, and corruption often occurs through channels such as rent-seeking, power-for-money deals, and the conveyance of interests. The roots of these corruption problems all point to the supervision and constraint of power. Focusing self-revolution on the governance of power means resolving major issues at the institutional level—such as where power comes from, for whom it is used, how it is used, and by whom it is supervised—placing the operation of power under supervision and constraint, and squeezing the space for corruption to breed at its source.
From the experience of Party building in the New Era, since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee began its breakthrough by formulating and implementing the Eight-Point Regulations, establishing ironclad rules and strong constraints, which led to a complete renewal of the Party and government conduct. The reason the Eight-Point Regulations possess such penetrative power and long-term efficacy in the construction of a clean government is that they start from the links most prone to the breeding of privileges and the erosion of Party-mass and cadre-mass relations. They use institutions and discipline to clarify the boundaries of power operation and reduce the space for the arbitrary exercise of power, thereby bringing about profound changes in the political ecosystem. Practice has shown that confining power within an institutional cage is an effective path for advancing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party and purifying the conduct of the Party and government, as well as an important guarantee for improving national governance efficiency.
From the perspective of the missions and tasks undertaken by our Party on the new journey of the New Era, the "15th Five-Year Plan" period [2] is a critical period for laying a solid foundation and launching a comprehensive effort to basically achieve socialist modernization. The tasks are heavy and the requirements for coordination are high. The more critical the period, the more necessary it is to ensure that major decisions and deployments are not distorted or deformed through the standardization of power operation and the strengthening of institutional constraints. Only by taking the governance of power as the key focal point for advancing self-revolution can we achieve the integrated connection of rectifying conduct, disciplining the Party, and fighting corruption at a deeper level, and provide a strong guarantee for the smooth realization of the goals and tasks of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period with a clean and upright political ecosystem.
II
The effectiveness of power governance depends on whether the institutions are scientific, whether their execution is rigid, and whether constraints are in place. This requires that we must take the supply of scientific institutions as the foundation, the rigid execution of institutions as the key, and the maintenance of institutional authority as the guarantee, so that the entire process of power operation is always under institutional constraint. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that to confine power in an institutional cage, we must both continuously improve institutional regulations to make them "dense but not cumbersome, effective and useful," and strive to improve institutional execution while strengthening rigid constraints. We must insist that everyone is equal before laws and regulations, there are no privileges for observing laws and regulations, and there are no exceptions for executing laws and regulations, ensuring that institutional regulations truly become "live high-voltage wires." This important thesis systematically answers key questions about how the institutional cage can be truly tightened, "electrified," and effective from the three levels of institutional supply, institutional execution, and institutional authority, profoundly revealing the basic methodology of governing power through institutions.
To confine power in an institutional cage, there must be a scientific and effective "cage." The key to institutional building lies in comprehensively integrating the key links and risk nodes of power operation into the institutional track, ensuring clear powers and responsibilities, explicit procedures, and distinct boundaries. At the same time, institutions are not the more the better; the point is whether they are systematic, coordinated, and operable. "Dense but not cumbersome" emphasizes that institutional coverage should be comprehensive rather than fragmented, while "effective and useful" emphasizes that institutional design should point directly to problems and vital areas rather than remaining at the level of declaring principles. Only by adhering to a problem-oriented and practice-oriented approach, and improving the institutional system around key areas, key positions, and key matters, can the supply of institutions truly become a stable framework for standardizing the operation of power.
The vitality of an institution lies in its execution. If institutional building remains at the textual level and lacks rigid execution, it will be difficult to form actual constraints. General Secretary Xi Jinping places the improvement of institutional execution and the enhancement of rigid constraints side by side, emphasizing exactly that institutions must possess real coercive force and stable expectations. "Execution" addresses whether the institution can be strictly implemented, while "rigid constraint" addresses the issue that violating the institution must carry a cost. The two support each other, aiming to prevent selective implementation, flexible execution, and discounted execution of institutions, ensuring that the operation of the institution is not arbitrarily dissolved or eroded by power.
The core of institutional authority does not lie in the institutional articles themselves, but in whether the institution can constrain the most powerful people. The three aspects of "equality for all," "no privileges," and "no exceptions" advance step-by-step, clearly negating any space for exceptionalism or elasticity in institutional execution, reflecting the unshakeable rigid principle of governing power through institutions. The essence of this requirement is not a technical issue of execution, but a serious issue of political principle. Only by maintaining institutional authority through strict execution and forcing the standardized operation of power through institutional authority can we ensure that the institution truly manages and governs power.
III
The key to tightening the institutional cage lies in making it effective on the ground. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "top leaders" [3] must take the lead in executing institutions. It is necessary to strengthen the publicity and education of laws and regulations, guiding Party members and cadres to understand the law and discipline, be clear about the rules, and maintain a sense of awe. It is necessary to further improve the transparency of Party and government affairs, allowing power to operate in the sunshine. These requirements constitute a complete chain for institutional execution to move from requirements to actual results from the three aspects of leadership responsibility, ideological cognition, and the operating environment.
Whether the institutional cage can be tightened depends not only on the rigor of the text but also on whether the "key minority" [4] observes it. Whether an institution can be executed depends first on whether those with the most concentrated power take the lead in following the rules. "Top leaders" hold the primary power and bear key responsibilities; their attitude and behavior toward executing institutions have a strong demonstrative effect. If "top leaders" strictly exercise power according to regulations and take the lead in observing rules and discipline, they can promote the firm establishment of institutional authority within the organization. Conversely, it will quickly weaken the seriousness of the institution and even cause the operation of power to deviate from the track, triggering a "broken window effect." Therefore, we must insist on leading by example from the top, taking the lead in executing institutions as an important standard for testing the political quality and political ability of leading cadres, and placing the supervision of "top leaders" in a prominent position, promoting a favorable situation where the "key minority" sets an example and all cadres follow suit.
If institutions remain only at the level of external constraint, they easily evolve into "passive compliance." Only through continuous education on laws and regulations—making Party members and cadres truly understand, identify with, and hold awe for the institution—can the institution be transformed into stable behavioral norms and conscious action. Understanding law and discipline solves the problem of "knowing or not knowing"; being clear about the rules solves the problem of "clear boundaries or not"; and maintaining awe solves the problem of "daring to cross the line or not." Only by educating and guiding Party members and cadres to truly form a reverence for the institution, an awe for discipline, and a sober understanding of power in their thoughts can the institution rise from external constraint to internal consciousness, and can power be transformed from passive constraint to active supervision.
The more closed the operation of power, the easier it is for institutions to be evaded; the more open the operation of power, the easier it is for institutions to be executed. Improving the transparency of Party and government affairs is essentially about reducing the space for "black box" operations and institutional circumvention through information disclosure, process visibility, and result traceability, placing institutional execution in an environment where it can be supervised and held accountable. "Allowing power to operate in the sunshine" is not a simple matter of disclosure, but rather an enhancement of the visibility, supervisability, and accountability of the institution through transparent operation mechanisms, thereby increasing the rigidity of institutional execution. This requires promoting standardization through openness and strengthening supervision through transparency, placing the operation of power under the supervision of the masses and institutional supervision, so that the institutional cage is truly visible and capable of restraint.