Chen Yi: A Four-Dimensional Analysis of Xi Jinping's Important Expositions on the Family Tradition Construction of Leading Party Officials
The family conduct of leading officials is a vital link in the strategy of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Xi Jinping has discussed the cultivation of family conduct for leading officials on many important occasions, proposing numerous new viewpoints and judgments. These discourses demonstrate the foresight in governing the Party and the wisdom in state governance of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, providing fundamental guidance for Party members and officials to strengthen their family conduct. Clarifying the ideological content and theoretical significance of these discourses is of great importance for promoting the cultivation of family conduct in the New Era, nurturing new socialist civilizational trends, and supporting the steady development of the cause of the Party and the state.
I. The Historical Dimension: High Regard for Inheriting Excellent Traditional Chinese Family Conduct and Red Family Conduct
“The foundation of the world lies in the state, and the foundation of the state lies in the family” [1]. For over five thousand years, throughout the continuous unfolding of Chinese civilization, the family has always played an irreplaceable and key role. The family is the starting point for an individual’s moral shaping and character formation; the influence and teachings of relatives living together day and night have a profound impact on the formation of an individual’s worldview, outlook on life, and values. “The reliance on family life is irreplaceable, the social functions of the family are irreplaceable, and the civilizational role of the family is irreplaceable.” Precisely because they recognized the special status and educational function of the family, ancestors since ancient times have valued family education and family conduct. This led to the formation of a unique culture of excellent family conduct and household instructions, which has become an important civilizational hallmark of the Chinese nation.
Excellent traditional Chinese family conduct carries the precious experience and wisdom of ancient family education. Its educational thought primarily revolves around the cultivation of the self, the regulation of the family, and conduct in society.
“Those who wished to regulate their families would first cultivate their persons” [2]. Ancient families placed extreme importance on the cultivation of the moral character of their youth; “cultivating the self to be a proper person” was placed in a position of paramount importance. Gao Panlong of the Ming Dynasty once pointed out in Master Gao’s Posthumous Writings: Household Instructions: “For us who stand between heaven and earth, the primary meaning of life is simply to consider how to be a proper person; all other matters are of no consequence.” This educational mindset, which advocates for progress in virtue and self-cultivation while pursuing the perfection of moral character, shaped the Chinese nation’s tradition of family education—honoring virtue and seeking goodness, and cultivating the self to rectify the heart. This provides a valuable reference for contemporary family conduct construction. Xi Jinping emphasized: “The Chinese nation has always valued the family... ‘When the family is rectified, the world will be stable.’” [3] In ancient times, those prestigious families whose descendants were mostly virtuous and eminent, and whose achievements were mostly outstanding, were without exception closely related to the inheritance of their good family conduct.” This points out the contemporary value of traditional family conduct. A survey of ancient household instructions reveals that integrity, self-discipline, and uprightness were important educational contents. The Zheng Family Rules [4], a household instruction passed down through generations, set strict regulations: “Anyone known for corruption shall have their name erased from the Genealogy while living, and their memorial tablet shall not be allowed into the ancestral hall after death.” This practice of integrating the bottom line of official integrity into family rules and clan agreements provides important enlightenment for today’s Party members and leading officials in building a family line of defense against corruption and degeneration.
As an important component of the spiritual pedigree of Chinese Communists, Red family conduct [5] absorbed the excellent cultural genes of traditional family conduct and continued the Red lineage. It centrally reflects the advanced nature of the Party and has forged a unique foundation for nurturing the good family conduct of Communists in the New Era through the family practices of the older generation of revolutionaries. Mao Zedong took the lead in adhering to the principle of “loving one’s kin but not seeking private gain for them”; Zhou Enlai set “Ten Prohibitions” for his family regarding food, housing, and travel; and Yang善洲’s [6] practice of integrity, such as not allowing his family to “hitch a ride” on official vehicles, are all true portrayals of Red family conduct. These outstanding examples not only interpret the “truth, goodness, and beauty” of the family and reflect the value choice of prioritizing the interests of the Party, the state, and the people, but also provide deep cultural nourishment for cultivating excellent family conduct among officials in the New Era.
Xi Jinping pointed out: “Leading officials at all levels, especially high-ranking officials, must inherit and promote excellent traditional Chinese culture, inherit and promote the Red family conduct of the revolutionary predecessors, learn from comrades such as Jiao Yulu, Gu Wenchang, and Yang Shanzhou [7], set an example in family conduct construction, and put self-cultivation and family regulation into practice.” This demonstrates the high importance the Party Central Committee attaches to the construction of family conduct for leading officials and highlights the contemporary value of inheriting excellent traditional and Red family conduct. For the vast number of Party members and officials, actively absorbing spiritual nourishment from these sources and integrating it into family construction is not only a historical mission to uphold the creative transformation of traditional virtues, but also an essential measure to solidify Party conduct and official ethics [8] and to purify social trends.
II. The Reality Dimension: Interpreting the Value Meaning of Family Conduct in State Governance
Family conduct begins in the domestic sphere, yet its influence extends far beyond the front door. The family conduct of Party officials reflects the family’s foundation of integrity, demonstrates the image of the political party’s style of work, and mirrors social values. Therefore, taking the lead in grasping family conduct construction is not a private matter, but an inevitable requirement for strictly governing the Party and leading social trends.
(1) The corruption of family conduct is often an important reason for leading officials to violate discipline and the law. The essence of family conduct is family education, which imperceptibly influences the moral standards, value pursuits, and behavior of family members. Xi Jinping once pointed out: “The corruption of family conduct is often an important reason for leading officials to move toward serious violations of discipline and the law.” In other words, whether family conduct is pure or turbid concerns the developmental trajectory of a leading official’s family. As the saying goes, “A single unrestrained thought allows a hundred evils to exploit the opening.” Looking at a large number of corruption cases investigated in recent years, the collapse of family conduct has become one of the important inducements for leading officials to go astray. Liu Tienan, the former deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, and his son are typical examples of “kinship corruption.” The prominent feature of this case was “the son collecting the money, the father handling the business.” Most of the bribes Liu Tienan was accused of accepting were received through the hands of his son, Liu Decheng.
Many cases show that those with corrupt family conduct are prone to placing private demands above Party discipline and state laws, turning the family into a field for the privatization of public power, which ultimately triggers corruption. “A family that accumulates goodness will have surplus blessings; a family that accumulates evil will have surplus calamities.” [9] Good family conduct is precisely an important line of defense against corruption. Leading officials must persist in maintaining a clean household, educating and supervising their relatives and those around them to walk the upright path, and making the family a “whetstone” for tempering character rather than a “breeding ground” for the transfer of interests. Xi Jinping has emphasized many times: “In the future, if anyone comes to you to handle business under the banner of being my relative or friend, there are only two ways to handle it: first, resolutely ensure they do not succeed; second, report it in a timely manner.” It is evident that strengthening internal family constraints and guiding relatives to be “virtuous assistants for integrity” [10]—making strict adherence to rules and not crossing the line a family consensus—is vital for preventing violations of law and discipline.
(2) The family conduct of leading officials is an important manifestation of their style of work. The construction of family conduct for leading officials may appear to concern the elegance of a single household, but in reality, it is an extension and test of public power in the private sphere. The influence of power on the private domain of the family cannot be isolated; family conduct should become an important window for testing the Party spirit [11] of leading officials. The scrutiny of officials’ behavior by society and the organization naturally includes their family performance. Family conduct and education are not small private matters; they reflect the public responsibility and political commitment of leading officials.
Family conduct mirrors Party conduct; moral integrity concerns the image of the political party. The family conduct of leading officials is an important manifestation of the Party’s work style and should be consistent with the Party’s tenets and fine traditions. Since its birth, the CPC has regarded the construction of its work style as a fundamental issue concerning the vitality of the political party. Its core is to maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the masses and to practice the fundamental tenet of serving the people wholeheartedly. Family conduct is precisely the true projection of this sense of purpose within the basic social unit of the family. Among leading officials with an excellent work style, the internal family environment is often imbued with an atmosphere of clearly distinguishing between public and private interests and practicing self-cultivation with integrity. From Chen Yun’s “strictly abiding by rules and not seeking privileges” to Gu Wenchang’s “maintaining a clean household and dedicating oneself to the people,” the Red family conduct of the older generation of revolutionaries is a model of integrating the Party’s ideals, beliefs, and strict discipline into family life—a point of concretization for the Party’s fine style of work at the family level. Therefore, leading officials taking the lead in establishing good family conduct is not only a protection for themselves and their families but also a safeguard for the Party’s image and work style. Only by nurturing an excellent work style with pure family conduct can we unify the hearts of the Party and the people, improve the Party’s level of leadership and long-term governing capability, and maintain its advanced nature and purity.
(3) The family conduct of leading officials concerns the overall social atmosphere and the construction of family civilization. When family conduct is upright, the people’s customs will be honest; when the people’s customs are honest, the state will be secure. Family conduct is not only passed down among family members but also exerts influence through the interaction between the family and society. Values and healthy moral qualities nurtured by an individual under the influence of good family conduct will follow them into society and become a “mobile carrier” of family education, affecting social trends and popular customs. If every family has good conduct and advocates mainstream social values, the cultivation of new civilizational trends in the New Era will have a solid mass foundation. “All families should carry forward fine family conduct, supporting the good atmosphere of the whole society with the good family conduct of thousands upon thousands of families. Especially, leading officials at all levels must take the lead in grasping family conduct.” As the “key minority,” [12] leading officials’ family conduct construction is not only an internal requirement for personal self-cultivation and family regulation but is also regarded as a “vanguard” [13] for the construction of social and family civilization. As the saying goes, “Trends are formed at the top, and customs are transformed below.” The CPC’s governing status and advanced characteristics determine that the construction of family conduct by Party officials is a top-down exemplary behavior. It relates to the Party’s prestige and image among the masses and has a demonstrative function for the shaping of family civilization and the cultivation of social trends. Xi Jinping pointed out: “Take the construction of family conduct as an important part of the construction of leading officials’ work style, create a social atmosphere of honoring virtue and seeking goodness and emulating the virtuous, and promote a significant improvement in social trends.” Leading officials should drive social and popular customs toward goodness through good family conduct. For example, the clean family conduct of comrades like Jiao Yulu and Gu Wenchang provides a behavioral reference for society and families, guiding people to pass on family virtues and pursue civilized lifestyles. Conversely, the corruption of family conduct among leading officials not only erodes public order and good customs but may also overdraw the credibility of the Party and the government, weakening social cohesion and centripetal force. Therefore, the construction of family conduct for leading officials is a public and serious matter concerning the effectiveness of social atmosphere and family civilization construction. Every Communist should nurture good family conduct with political consciousness and become a builder and guardian of excellent family conduct.
III. The Content Dimension: The Core Essence of Xi Jinping’s Important Discourses on the Family Conduct Construction of Party Leading Officials
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Xi Jinping has attached great importance to family conduct construction from the height of the long-term development of the cause of the Party and the nation. He has formed a systematic, complete, and profoundly meaningful set of discourses on the family conduct construction of leading officials, providing fundamental guidance for officials in the New Era to cultivate themselves, regulate their families, and build a family line of defense against corruption and degeneration.
(1) Shaping a political character of loyalty to the Party and firm ideals and beliefs. Loyalty to the Party and firmness in ideals and beliefs are the primary political qualities of Communists and the soul of the family conduct construction of leading officials. Xi Jinping emphasized: “Party leading officials must incorporate loyalty to the Party into family education and family conduct construction, guiding relatives and children to resolutely listen to the Party and follow the Party.” As the backbone of the family, the political stance and value position of leading officials serve as an example for family members. In reality, when some leading officials have problems, the root cause is often a weak political awareness and a shaky sense of purpose within the family, leading to spiritual degradation and the collapse of defenses, ultimately ruining their future. Based on this, leading officials must incorporate loyalty to the Party into family education and family conduct construction, take a clear-cut political stand, set a benchmark by example, and construct a “family fortress” that resists risks and temptations and upholds political principles.
Loyalty stems from faith; ideals and beliefs are the ideological foundation of loyalty. “Firmness in ideals and beliefs is closely linked to loyalty to the Party. Only with firm ideals and beliefs can one be loyal to the Party, and loyalty to the Party is the best interpretation of firm ideals and beliefs.” Firmness in ideals and beliefs means unswerving faith in Marxism and unswerving belief in Communism and socialism with Chinese characteristics. When Party officials internalize sincere beliefs as core family values, they can shape an intergenerational inheritance of party identity. Conversely, if leading officials lack “calcium” [14] in their spirits and their ideals and beliefs waver, they easily fall into the abyss of disciplinary and legal violations, triggering a chain reaction of political degeneration, economic greed, moral decay, and life depravity. “The wavering of ideals and beliefs is the most dangerous wavering, and the erosion of ideals and beliefs is the most dangerous erosion. The decline of a political party often begins with the loss or absence of ideals and beliefs.” To this end, leading officials must often blow the “wind of belief” and strike the “bell of discipline” in family education, so that family members can solve the “master switch” [15] problem of worldview, outlook on life, and values, and stay of one heart and one mind and walk in the same direction as the Party.
(2) Abiding by the family education principles of combining strict management with deep love, and clearly distinguishing between public and private. Strict management with deep love [16] and clearly distinguishing between public and private, as basic principles to be upheld in the family conduct construction of leading officials, reflect the dialectical unity of governing the Party and managing the family. The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC emphasized: [Text continues in next part]
"Persist in combining strict management with deep affection, strengthen the comprehensive management and regular supervision of officials, implement the 'three distinctions' [17], and motivate officials to dare to take responsibility and act proactively." Strict management and deep affection are dialectically unified in family education, embodying the inherent requirement for both responsibility and care, and conveying a mature and rational orientation for governing the family. Strict management is the external manifestation of deep affection; the strict constraints of the family can timely rectify ideological deviations among relatives and neutralize risks, which constitutes the most sincere and fundamental protection for family members. Xi Jinping's instruction to his relatives and friends—"You must not engage in any commercial activities in the places where I work, nor do anything under my banner; otherwise, do not blame me for turning my back on my own kin" [18]—is a vivid manifestation of strictly managing family tradition. Deep affection is not doting; rather, it is legitimate care based on kinship and blood ties, creating a long-term favorable environment for the healthy growth of family members by establishing rules and clarifying direction. In reality, some leading officials have failed to manage or educate their relatives, or have indulged their pursuit of private gain due to doting, ultimately breeding corruption and swallowing the bitter fruit of their own making—a profound lesson indeed. The principle of strict management and deep affection provides a value paradigm for optimizing the family construction of leading officials, demonstrating how to balance the relationship between love and responsibility, and between emotion and reason.
Drawing a clear line between the public and the private is the bottom-line thinking that leading officials should follow in the practice of family education. Whether one can persist in distinguishing public from private within the family is a deep test of a leading official’s Party spirit [19] and concerns whether they can become "a pure Communist." Xi Jinping pointed out that Party members and officials must correctly understand and handle interpersonal relationships: "When personal feelings conflict with Party spirit principles, or private relationships conflict with the interests of the people, one must unhesitatingly stand firm on the position of Party spirit and resolutely safeguard the interests of the people, even if one is accused of being 'heartless' or 'incompetent'—one must remain unmoved and undeterred." The power in the hands of Party officials is bestowed by the people and must not become a tool for family members to seek private gain. Yet in real life, the family is often regarded as a private domain "outside of the eight hours" [20], which blurs the bottom line of discipline. "The fundamental yardstick for measuring the strength of Party spirit is the two words: public and private." Leading officials must draw a clear line between public and private, educate their relatives and children to establish a correct outlook on power, and resolutely prevent privileged behaviors such as "using the [official's] banner" or "carrying the basket" [21], ensuring that the family becomes a strong fortress against corruption and degeneration rather than an interest community for rent-seeking.
(3) Cultivating the Self-Disciplinary Consciousness of "Cautious Singularity" and "Guarding Against the Microscopic"
Being cautious when alone (shèndú) and meticulous in small matters (shènwēi), and nipping problems in the bud (fángwēi-dùjiàn), are important methods for leading officials to temper their Party spirit cultivation, and are the "golden keys" to nurturing a clean family tradition and building a solid ideological frontline within the home. Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that leading officials must "be the same on stage and off, the same in front of people and behind their backs; especially in private, when alone, and in small matters, they should be as if treading on thin ice or standing on the edge of an abyss, never indulging themselves, overstepping boundaries, or violating regulations."
"Cautious singularity" (shèndú) emphasizes that Party members and officials should be able to strictly follow their integrity even when alone, practicing self-discipline and self-restraint without deceiving themselves in the dark; in essence, it is an internal steadfastness independent of "heteronomy" (external regulation). In How to Be a Good Communist, Comrade Liu Shaoqi regarded shèndú as the highest realm of Party spirit cultivation, noting that even when "an individual is working independently, without supervision, and has the possibility of doing various bad things," they should still maintain their integrity and be consistent in speech and action. For leading officials, shèndú is not only self-restraint but also an extension of responsibility in family tradition building. In reality, some relatives of leading officials utilize the hidden opportunities "outside the eight hours" to seek private gain under the official's banner, ultimately dragging down the entire family. Therefore, leading officials must integrate the consciousness of shèndú into family education, teaching their family members the logic that "if one is not intentionally 'cautious when alone,' one will inevitably stumble."
"Being meticulous in small matters" (shènwēi) emphasizes maintaining vigilance toward minor issues, small details, and small interests to prevent minor problems from evolving into major errors. Xi Jinping emphasized: "Small matters and details are a mirror that can reflect one's character and style of work. There is Party spirit, principle, and personality in small matters and details." The corruption problems of many leading officials began with a failure to be "meticulous" regarding minor flaws, starting from "small things" like accepting a single gift or attending a single banquet, and eventually sinking into the quagmire of corruption. Therefore, leading officials should start strictly from small matters, grasp things from the fine details, and manage those close to them, educating family members in the self-disciplinary consciousness of "do not commit an evil deed because it is small, and do not fail to do a good deed because it is small" [22], building a defense against corruption and degeneration in the fine details, and achieving the ability to see the first signs of a development and forestall its conclusion.
Being cautious when alone and meticulous in small matters are complementary to nipping problems in the bud within the family tradition building of leading officials. The former serves as the endogenous moral guarantee for the advanced nature of Party members and officials, while the latter emphasizes process-oriented control and timely rectification; together, they isolate the risk of corruption transforming from quantitative change to qualitative change. Xi Jinping exhorted the vast number of Party members and officials: "You must take this to heart; sometimes family matters might slip by unnoticed, so you must pay attention and nip problems in the bud—do not protect the calf [23]." Being cautious when alone and meticulous in small matters defines the value standard that "no matter how small an issue, if it concerns principle, it is a major matter," while nipping problems in the bud reinforces the practical necessity of adhering to these principles from the perspective of practical application. Together, they constitute a dual line of defense against the loss of values among Party members and officials.
(4) Adhering to the Basic Integrity of Maintaining a Clean Home and Being an Upright Person
Maintaining a clean home (liánjié qījiā) and being an upright person, as the basic requirements for a good family tradition, directly test the breadth and depth of a leading official’s family construction. Xi Jinping used the comparison between the characters for "home" (jiā) and "tomb" (zhòng) to vividly illustrate the importance of family tradition: "The characters for 'home' and 'tomb' are very similar; the difference lies in where that 'dot' is placed." [24] An uncorrupted family tradition can lead to a happy home, while a failure in family tradition may destroy the "home" and turn it into a "tomb." This profoundly reveals the important role of clean family tradition in the survival and development of the families of leading officials.
Maintaining a clean home is both a fine tradition of the Chinese nation and a political responsibility for leading officials in the New Era. The family instructions of Zeng Guofan stated: "In the homes of the scholar-official class, do not accumulate silver and money, so that the younger generation will feel they have nothing to rely on." His concept of "not leaving behind gold and silver, but only passing down family tradition" set a model of clean family governance for future generations. A clean family tradition benefits generations, while an improper one leaves behind hidden disasters. In the context of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, maintaining a clean home has become a basic disciplinary requirement that leading officials must follow. As Xi Jinping emphasized: "Party members and officials, especially leading officials, must be upright in character, thrifty in managing the home, clean in doing things, and honest in governance; they must manage themselves and their families well, and nurture the fine family tradition of Communists in the New Era." Only by setting an example and resolutely promoting the cleaning of the home can leading officials ensure that power is not "kidnapped" by kinship and preserve the clean nature of Communists.
Being an upright person is both a principle of conduct for leading officials and a basic requirement for family members. Being upright interprets a state of "being what one is," which is essentially a resolute rejection of "two-faced people" and "pseudo-loyalty." In an era where power often becomes the target of "hunting" [25], internal adherence to uprightness is the moral support that makes one "impervious to all poisons" when resisting various temptations. At the same time, the bottom-line tests faced by the families of Party members and officials far exceed those of ordinary families. As the saying goes, "To love someone without following the proper Way is precisely how to harm them." [26] It is necessary to educate and guide family members to uphold integrity and establish themselves through uprightness. This is both a total rejection of feudal dross such as "titles for the wife and protection for the sons" [27] and "human-relationship corruption" [28], and an inevitable strategic measure to purify the political ecosystem and establish a good image for the political party.
IV. The Dimensionality of the Path: Practical Logic for Implementing Xi Jinping's Important Expositions on the Family Tradition Building of Party-Member Leading Officials
The family tradition building of leading officials concerns the Party's governing foundation and the long-term peace and stability of the country. We must persist in taking Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as guidance, systematically advancing from the aspects of strictly observing the moral bottom line, fortifying the family defense line, and establishing social benchmarks, while integrating the rigid constraints of the system throughout the entire process to promote a favorable situation of individual self-awareness, family participation, and social synergy.
(1) Strictly Observing the Moral Bottom Line of Resisting Corruption and Degeneration
Xi Jinping emphasized: "Leading officials, especially high-ranking officials, must be clear about 'great virtue' (míng dàdé), observe 'public virtue' (shǒu gōngdé), and be strict with 'private virtue' (yán sīdé), serving as models of integrity, self-discipline, the honest use of power, and maintaining a clean home." Virtue is the foundation of governance; the integrity and self-discipline of leading officials depend centrally on their solid moral steadfastness. Whether political virtue can take root depends not only on an official's proclamations in meeting halls or before cameras but also on whether their words and deeds are consistent in the private sphere of the family. Therefore, the moral defense line of leading officials must be fortified, and an ideological dam against corruption must be built, so that integrity and self-discipline become a conscious practice and cultivation integrated into their very blood.
From the dimension of internal cultivation, leading officials need to nurture their moral character with excellent traditional Chinese family traditions and instructions. Management departments at all levels need to take multiple measures to consolidate the foundations and enhance the anti-corruption capabilities of Party members and officials. It is necessary to organize Party members and officials to study classics such as The Family Instructions of Master Yan (Yánshì Jiāxùn), The Zheng Family Rules (Zhèngshì Guīfàn), and Maxims for Managing the Home (Tíngxùn Géyán) [29], inheriting the fine family traditions of advocating thrift, loving integrity, upholding the fundamentals, and valuing virtue, while cultivating value pursuits of self-discipline in the public interest, loyalty, and dedication. At the same time, themed education on "red family traditions" should be carried out to help officials understand the family rules and education of revolutionary predecessors and deepen their understanding of the importance of family tradition building. Furthermore, Party members and officials' families should be encouraged to formulate new family rules that meet the requirements of the times and internalize them as common moral standards for family members through family activities and holiday rituals.
From the dimension of ideological education, a normalized mechanism for family tradition moral education needs to be constructed. Xi Jinping emphasized: "A good system can make it impossible for bad people to run rampant, while a bad system can make it impossible for good people to do good things fully, or lead them to move in the opposite direction." Therefore, family tradition building must be integrated into the mechanisms of ideological education, supervision, and selection of leading officials. First, Party organizations at all levels can incorporate family tradition moral education into the training system for leading officials, strengthening moral alerts through specialized Party lectures, moral forums, and visits to clean-governance education bases. Second, family tradition building should be included in the daily assessment of leading officials, guiding Party members and officials to write diaries on family tradition and education, formulate family moral covenants, and conduct regular self-checks to internalize moral norms into behavioral standards. Furthermore, the status of family tradition building should be included in the indicator system for the selection, appointment, and evaluation of officials, using pre-appointment talks and clean-governance assessment interviews to provide timely reminders, ensuring they act with awe in their hearts and restraint in their actions.
(2) Fortifying the Family Defense Line of "Eliminating Evil and Promoting Good"
The family is the basic unit of family tradition building; constructing a family ecosystem that "eliminates evil and promotes good" (jīzhuó-yángqīng) [30] is a key barrier against the abuse of power by leading officials. "Eliminating evil and promoting good" requires Party officials to consciously clear away unhealthy family atmospheres while actively promoting fine styles of work. Countless cases prove that "pillow talk" turning into "corruption talk" and children or relatives becoming "power brokers" are important triggers for leading officials to violate laws and discipline. Therefore, creating a clean and harmonious family ecosystem is both protection for the official and a safeguard for family happiness.
In terms of positioning roles within the family, the supervisory and reminding role of the spouse should be fully utilized. As the core of the family, the spouse of a leading official should serve as a "sentry" for identifying integrity risks and blocking corruption, fulfilling the responsibility of a "clean internal assistant" (lián nèizhù). Guidance can be strengthened through specialized seminars and warning education, organizing the study of intra-Party regulations regarding relatives' conduct to clarify the pros and cons of certain behaviors and help them establish concepts of assisting in integrity and self-disciplinary consciousness. Units with the necessary conditions can open training classes for "clean internal assistants" to strengthen supervisory awareness. Furthermore, Discipline Inspection Commissions, Organization Departments, and Women's Federations can carry out diverse activities around the construction of "clean families," such as setting up "Family Tradition Days," visiting integrity education halls, signing integrity commitment letters, and selecting "Most Beautiful Clean Internal Assistants" to guide spouses to participate in family tradition building and jointly guard the gate of integrity.
In the governance of family relationships, the boundary between public and private must be strictly drawn. On one hand, leading officials themselves must lead by example, proactively clarifying "red lines" to their families, explaining Party discipline and regulations, and expressing a firm stance of "not passing notes, not opening back doors, not accepting improper gifts, and not visiting improper places," while publicly promising to accept supervision from their families. On the other hand, a strict distinction must be made between public power and the private domain, with clear requirements that relatives must not use the official's position to seek private gain or interfere in governmental decision-making, preventing occurrences such as "sending greetings" (dǎ zhāohu), "going through the back door," or "human-relationship exchanges." Meanwhile, management departments should organize a normalized mechanism of "integrity family visits" to deeply understand the family environment, ideological trends, and social circles of leading officials, timely correcting budding or symptomatic problems in family relationships. The system for reporting personal matters must be strictly enforced to ensure that leading officials truthfully report the employment, business, and overseas study status of their spouses and children, with serious handling of concealment or omissions, thereby forming a two-way synergy of internal consciousness and external supervision.
(3) Establishing the Social Benchmark of Honoring Integrity and Cleanness
The family tradition building of leading officials is not only a manifestation of individual moral cultivation but also has a significant leading and shaping function for social atmosphere. To transform the value concept of honoring integrity and cleanness into a behavioral norm followed by society as a whole, it is necessary to persist in the synergistic force of typical role models and warning education, providing strong support for the definition and implementation of social benchmarks.
Using typical role models to establish benchmarks of integrity...
“When the superior acts, the inferior follows; this is what is called ‘Wind.’ When the hearts of the masses are settled, this is what is called ‘Custom.’” [31] The influence of a paradigm stems from human identification and emulation. The stories of Communists’ noble family traditions and family education serve both as vivid carriers of value orientations and as realistic benchmarks for moral practice. To fully leverage the exemplary and leading role of advanced models, we must not only vigorously publicize the family stories of the older generation of revolutionaries such as Jiao Yululu, Gu Wenchang, and Yang Shanzhou [32], but also provide in-depth displays of the images of contemporary upright cadres rooted in the border regions or working in grassroots poverty alleviation. By incorporating their excellent family tradition stories into the resource bank of "integrity culture" [33] construction, they serve as vivid materials for the education of Party members and cadres, guiding them to learn, think, practice, and gain realization [34], and to engage in self-reflection, thereby achieving the value transformation from “knowledge” to “action.” At the same time, through activities such as “Family Tradition Story Collections” and “Integrity Family Tradition Lecture Tours,” and by seizing opportunities to enter government organs, communities, and campuses—using multiple forms such as on-site narrations and media broadcasts—we can ensure these typical deeds strike a chord in people's hearts. This promotes the diffusion of clean family traditions from the families of Party members to the wider society, extending from the individual to the collective, and transforming moral guidance into established social atmosphere.
Building an ideological defense line through negative warnings.
“Using antiquity as a mirror, one can know the rise and fall [of dynasties]; using people as a mirror, one can understand gains and losses.” [35] To cultivate a good family tradition, we must both establish benchmarks through positive guidance and sound the alarm by relying on negative cases. We should deepen warning education by systematically categorizing typical cases of "corrupt family traditions" investigated and handled since the 18th CPC National Congress, analyzing common root causes of problems to achieve “precision irrigation” [36]. At the same time, we must adhere to educational methods that advance with the times and evolve according to the situation, effectively realizing the governance effect of “investigating one case, warning a group, and educating a whole area.” Furthermore, we must improve joint prevention and linkage mechanisms. This involves smoothing communication and cooperation between departments such as discipline inspection and supervision, organization and personnel, and letters and visits [37], establishing information-sharing mechanisms to promptly discover and correct budding problems, and maintaining the authority of family tradition discipline through serious discipline enforcement and accountability. We must let leading cadres profoundly realize that family tradition construction is a major matter concerning the political ecosystem and social atmosphere, thereby promoting the formation of a social trend that esteems virtue, pursues goodness, and maintains integrity.
About the Author: Chen Yi, Professor at the School of Marxism, Fuzhou University. Source: Theoretical Horizon (理论视野), Issue 11, 2025. Editor: Huihui