The Base of Social Governance
Community management is a key part of China’s social governance since this ecology of residential life directly affects people’s living standard and life experience.
Among more than 25,000 residential communities in Beijing, community staff members have come up with various ways to improve services. The Huilongguan and Tiantongyuan areas in Beijing’s northern outskirts are a highlight, not because they are among the biggest ones in the city, but because of the quality of local social governance.
The management departments have received positive feedbacks from residents following a series of measures, which include improving the living environment, increasing public space, better managing convenience services, enhancing public security and creating cultural activities.
In China’s mainland, a community which usually has 1,000 to 5,000 households is managed by a residents’ committee of 1020 members elected every three years by residents.
The committee not only provides services to residents, but also acts as their voice by expressing ordinary people’s concerns to the local government and a window for the local government to get a sense of people’s needs.
Residents can submit any suggestions to the committee, which will be transferred to related departments in the local government. That’s how the majority of people’s livelihood-related policies are created.
Huilongguan and Tiantongyuan’s improved infrastructure is an example of residents’ needs that were reported to and met by the local government.
In late October, the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluded its fourth plenary session in Beijing, adopting a decision on some major issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and advance the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance.
The decision underlines the importance of boosting community-level social governance, which includes a mechanism that facilitates public participation in social governance.
China plans to improve the system of community management and services that contribute to political and social governance. It demands a lot from community workers, but ultimately, it will better people’s life experience.