BEIJING, Dec 4 (APP): “A few days ago, I visited an old neighborhood in Beijing where quadrangle courtyards are still preserved. Old streets and narrow alleys still snaked out from behind high-rise buildings. Many elderly people and migrant workers live in the houses along the alleys. I expected to find the same urban chaos and loneliness here, but that was not the case.”
These views were expressed by Ishida Ryuji, Research Fellow of the International Peace Research Institute at Meiji Gakuin University.
The community has a self-governing organization called “neighborhood committee.” Approximately 10 neighborhood committee members serve every 1,000 households, and they are responsible for providing daily public services to residents and organizing various cultural activities. These committee members communicate with the residents directly and handle their concerns and demands. Since there are many elderly people in the community, they also offer various assistance such as medical escorts, grocery shopping, and smartphone operation guidance.
For the seniors living alone, the committee also arranges dedicated personnel to provide care services.
Since the manpower of the neighborhood committee is limited, young people and retired residents in the community also participate in relevant activities as volunteers. The office of the neighborhood committee often hosts discussions to deliberate on solutions to community issues such as classified garbage disposal and spaces for parking. The office also serves as a community space where residents gather to socialize, read, practice calligraphy, and enjoy other cultural activities together. Through these activities, the neighborhood committee has established closer ties with the residents and gained a better understanding of their demands. Nowadays, diverse community programs are enhancing residents’ quality of life, complementing their material well-being.
During the visit, an accompanying Japanese scholar was reminded of the weakened function of the Japanese Town Association (a type of grassroots self-governing organization in Japan). He asked a neighborhood committee member: “What do you do about elderly people with cognitive impairments or residents who stay at home for a long time without communicating with the outside world?” The committee member replied with visible confusion, explaining that young volunteers check in on everyone regularly and that the elderly people communicate with them. “Almost no one stays shut in without interacting with the outside world.” I was pleasantly surprised that even in a big city, residents could still maintain “a relationship of face-to-face mutual assistance.”
Why has a system of mutual assistance among residents taken root in China after vanishing long ago from the big cities of Japan? When confronted with such issues, we tend to explain with vague concepts such as “national character.” But in fact, perhaps we have too little understanding of the social reality in China.
The Japanese edition of the book series Xi Jinping: The Governance of China has become important material for understanding the development practice of contemporary China. The book systematically expounds on China’s key areas of focus: socialist modernization, people’s democracy, new development philosophy, law-based governance, people’s well-being, harmony between man and nature, a community with a shared future for humanity, and others.
After examining the part of the book on “people’s democracy,” readers will be able to understand that the practice of the neighborhood committee in establishing intimacy with the people and serving the residents is exactly the embodiment of “serving the people,” the traditional democratic practice of the Communist Party of China (CPC). President Xi Jinping makes annual inspection tours to various regions, engaging directly with grassroots communities to identify their needs and inform responsive policy solutions.
“Through my field trips to different places, I have seen and heard a lot of things which I find very inspiring and rewarding,” reported President Xi in his 2022 New Year Address. “Every time I visit people in their homes, I would ask if they have any more difficulties, and I would remember everything my folks have to share with me.”
The Party members and cadres at all levels, including communities, have also provided support and services to residents in the same spirit. Since many deputies to the National People’s Congress (equivalent to members of the Japanese Parliament) are elected from the grassroots level, the actual situation of the communities can be directly reported to the governments at different levels. A few years ago, China won the battle against poverty, which was also the result of continuous and focused assistance to rural areas that lagged far behind cities.
These achievements were not accomplished overnight. Since its founding over a century ago, committed to building a country where the people are the masters of the state, the CPC has consistently centered its efforts on addressing the profound hardships suffered by the people such as poverty, exploitation, and foreign aggression. It has strictly enforced organizational discipline and striven to solve problems for the people. In the late 1980s, facing the widening gap between the rich and the poor along with reform and opening up, China once again attached great importance to mutual assistance and unity at the grassroots level. Looking at China from the historical and social development context of the CPC may offer useful references for navigating current issues in Japan.
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