Yang Xin: Polishing the Mirror of the Outlook on Political Performance | Marxism Research Network

Numerous provinces, autonomous regions, and cities have successively lowered their GDP growth targets. Hebei Province would rather sacrifice economic growth rates to reduce steel production capacity. The recently unveiled urban classification rankings by the media no longer use total GDP as the simple standard for Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. Recently, the central leadership has exerted great effort and taken substantive measures to rectify the "GDP-only" ^[1] orientation in certain localities, eliciting a strong response across various regions and sectors. From this, people can observe a welcome momentum: a performance outlook ^[2] once held hostage by pure economic growth is now returning to the Scientific Outlook on Development ^[3].

The type of performance outlook a leading official possesses directly determines their choices and actions. If the answer to the question "what constitutes political performance?" is unscientific or biased, then the practice of "pursuing performance" will inevitably involve blind and reckless action ^[4]. One might see GDP rise while the income distribution gap widens; one might acquire "mountains of gold and silver" while losing "lucid waters and lush mountains" ^[5].

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during a recent inspection tour of Shandong that "not everything picked up in the basket is a vegetable" ^[6]. The performance outlook is a mirror that reflects a leading official’s awareness of development and their sense of responsibility and mission. To polish this mirror of the performance outlook, one must transcend the narrow mindset of "making a name for oneself and soliciting a promotion" and instead integrate "what the Central Committee looks for," "what the masses desire," and "what one must do." One must establish the conviction to persist over the long term, doing more to benefit long-term interests and the people's livelihoods. Only in this way can the quality and speed of development improve in tandem, and the relationship between the Party and the masses, as well as between officials and the masses, be further strengthened.

Notes

↩ [1] 唯GDP (wéi GDP): "GDP-onlyism" or "GDP fetishism." This refers to a long-standing critique within the CPC regarding officials who prioritize numerical economic growth at the expense of social welfare, environmental protection, or sustainable development.

↩ [2] 政绩观 (zhèngjì guān): Translated here as "performance outlook." It refers to an official’s fundamental philosophy regarding what constitutes political achievement and success. In the Chinese context, it is a moral and ideological metric used to evaluate whether an official is serving the people or their own career.

↩ [3] 科学发展观 (kēxué fāzhǎn guān): The Scientific Outlook on Development. This was the signature socio-economic ideology of the Hu Jintao administration (2002–2012), incorporated into the Party Constitution in 2007. It emphasizes sustainable, person-centered development to balance the raw growth of previous decades.

↩ [4] 盲目抓瞎 (mángmù zhuāxiā): A colloquial idiom meaning to act blindly or grope in the dark without a clear plan or understanding. In political discourse, it criticizes haphazard decision-making.

↩ [5] 绿水青山 (lǜshuǐ qīngshān): "Lucid waters and lush mountains." This is a reference to Xi Jinping’s famous dictum: "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" (绿水青山就是金山银山), which serves as the core principle of "ecological civilization" (生态文明), asserting that environmental protection and economic gain are not mutually exclusive.

↩ [6] 捡进篮子都是菜 (jiǎn jìn lánzi dōu shì cài): Literally "everything picked up into the basket is a vegetable." This folk metaphor is used by Xi Jinping to criticize indiscriminate investment attraction or blind industrial expansion where officials accept any project regardless of its quality, pollution levels, or long-term viability just to boost short-term figures.