Chapter Fifty-One Definitely Not A Dream
PS: Thursday is coming, double updates at noon and evening, first update arrives.
Ladies and gentlemen:
The Third People's Congress of the Western Autonomous Region held its first plenary session this morning, during which a series of civil laws including the "Autonomous Region Civil Administrative Law" were discussed and adopted. We firmly believe that these important laws will soon play a crucial role in ensuring the rule of law in the future development and construction of the Western Autonomous Region, becoming an essential part of building a socialist country under the rule of law. Now, on behalf of the People's Government of the Autonomous Region, I present to you the 2018 annual work report for your deliberation.
First, I will lead everyone in a brief review of 1918, a year full of variables and glorious course.
In 1918, it was an extraordinary year. My autonomous region experienced unprecedented major challenges, faced with the severe domestic situation, the party and government made relatively correct actions and achieved certain results.
Under the joint efforts of the people and the army, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Shaanxi, four important western provinces, have successively become members of the autonomous region. All regions have undergone unprecedented major changes. Through hard work, we overcame a series of difficulties, solved the long-standing warlords and bandits that plagued the local area, carried out effective land revolution and regime construction, and successively started a series of fruitful measures to improve the local economic structure and lead the people to get rich.
The international situation is changing dramatically. Last year, Britain formally completed its strategic blockade of the Allied countries, and various major powers agreed to declare war on the Allied countries by the puppet central government. This year, the United States of America, the world's largest neutral country, also joined the war for various reasons. The economic trade exports of my autonomous region faced unprecedented challenges, but after effective adjustments, the foreign trade exports of the autonomous region were not severely affected, and the economic development showed a good growth trend.
Under the leadership of the Revival Party, people of all ethnic groups have overcome difficulties and made great efforts to overcome various hardships and dangers. The construction of all aspects in the autonomous region has achieved new and more significant achievements on the basis of last year.
Firstly, the autonomous region's economy continues to maintain a relatively fast growth rate.
In the fiscal year of 2018, excluding new provinces that were merged, our autonomous region achieved a total annual production value of over 500 billion yuan for the first time, with a growth rate of 12 percentage points compared to the previous fiscal year. The price level within the autonomous region has changed and is under effective control, with all changes within a healthy range. This year, the profit level of state-owned enterprises continued to grow, with a significant increase in tax revenue, and government fiscal revenue exceeded 120 billion yuan, growing by nearly 20 percentage points. Grain production within the district has maintained a relatively fast growth rate for four consecutive years, with crops such as rice, sugarcane, corn, and wheat continuing to increase in production. This year's total output reached 41.025 million tons, setting a historical high.
Secondly, infrastructure construction continues to advance.
This year, including the newly incorporated provinces. Our autonomous region has built more than 1,300 kilometers of new highways and nearly 500 kilometers of railways. It is expected that by the end of next year, the construction of the trunk railway from Liuzhou to Guiyang will be completed, and the construction of highways covering important cities in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces will be completed, among which the railway from Chengdu to Chongqing is expected to be completed ahead of schedule.
According to the plan, all provinces under the jurisdiction of the autonomous region should have railways and first-class highways connecting provincial capitals, ensuring that important cities are connected by first-class highways, and railway construction can be temporarily delayed. Townships must have highway access, and road quality can be temporarily lowered.
In addition, the Hongshui River Cascade Hydropower Station development plan is also under smooth construction, with progress and results meeting expected design; The expansion projects of Beihai and Sanya ports are progressing smoothly, and various provinces within the province have successively completed navigation preparation work on rivers, and rivers in Sichuan and Guizhou will successively meet navigation requirements.
Thirdly, social undertakings have developed rapidly and people's lives have been further improved.
This year, 23 new primary schools were built, with over 100,000 new students and a continuous increase in the number of teachers, with their level gradually improving. The rural and township dilapidated house renovation project received great support, and more than 3,000 renovation works have been completed. By the time of the Lunar New Year this year, more than 2,000 households will move into new homes. In the newly merged province and city, 13 social welfare institutions for the elderly were built, 11 municipal people's medical institutions, 5 technical schools were newly built, and the expansion project of the Industrial University was successfully completed, and the preparation work for the second university is progressing smoothly.
This year, more than 1.2 million new jobs were created in the social employment sector, with the per capita disposable income of urban residents reaching 374 yuan and the per capita net income of rural residents reaching 192 yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of 9% and 12%, respectively. A total of 198 civil dispute cases were handled, with economic disputes accounting for a large proportion, but all were resolved through coordination. There were 62 criminal cases, all of which were solved, ensuring social harmony.
In the past year, we have done the following main work:
Firstly, in response to the sudden changes at home, promptly and decisively adjust government policies, fully maintain the two major constructions of economy and people's livelihood within the autonomous region to develop steadily at a relatively fast speed.
Last year, a large-scale and far-reaching war of law protection broke out in the country, which was also a war against the destruction of temporary laws and opposition to Duan Qirui's autocratic rule. The flames of war soon spread to the border areas of my autonomous region. In order to ensure that the interests of the people within the district were not infringed upon, to eliminate the backward militarist government and feudal ruling system that had harmed the western people for a long time, and at the same time maintain the peaceful and stable development situation of the southwestern autonomous region, the People's Army of the Autonomous Government responded to the requirements of the times and the needs of the people, launched the second relatively large-scale military action since its founding, and smoothly completed the entire process from military mobilization to completion of combat tasks.
The People's Army marched into Yunnan, Guizhou and Hunan, the People's Army through continuous and effective armed struggle, heavily struck the feudal forces and warlord groups, achieved one after another rich victory, and rescued the rich Sichuan and the long-time battle-scarred Shaanxi.
In addition, the pseudo-central government decided to participate in World War I. China joined the Allied Powers led by England and France, formally declaring war on Germany-led Axis powers, and the United States soon joined the war as well. In the face of an unjust war where imperialist powers were vying for interests, our autonomous region consistently adhered to the policy of "not actively participating, not encouraging flattery", maintaining the principle of equality and mutual benefit in dealings with both warring parties.
But Britain arbitrarily used force to block our equal and mutually beneficial economic exchange channels with the allied countries. As a result, the international trade objects of my autonomous region have been greatly reduced overnight. In response to this situation, the autonomous regional government promptly adjusted its primary work focus to "maintaining relatively fast economic development and striving for continued increase in production and income" and took some targeted measures in a timely manner, effectively controlling the slowdown in foreign trade income of secondary processing enterprises.
Through coordination and negotiation, the trade channels between the autonomous region and the contracting countries have been further opened. The autonomous region has newly incorporated several provinces, which has invisibly expanded the domestic market space, and the two have merged to effectively guarantee the sustained and healthy development of the economy. Of course, the processing and manufacturing capabilities of various enterprises in the autonomous region, such as private, cooperative, and state-owned enterprises, are constantly improving, and their ability to provide materials to the contracting countries is continuously strengthening. The total volume of economic trade has stopped its downward trend, gradually recovering to normal foreign trade export levels, and showing a certain rebound trend.
Secondly, unswervingly develop various industries within the autonomous region and vigorously promote the effective improvement of the industrial level in the autonomous region.
The outbreak of World War I, the imperialist powers had no time to look eastward, which gave China a rare opportunity for development. Under the leadership of the Revival Party, the people of the entire region firmly established and improved their industrial system while making great efforts to promote independent innovation in industrial products, effective adjustment of production management, and significant progress in machinery manufacturing, mineral smelting, automobile manufacturing, energy chemical industry, large-scale shipbuilding, agricultural medicine, military industry and other fields. Electric power communication, aviation research, applied scientific research, higher education and other areas also took solid and important steps forward.
The third is to accelerate economic and social development, with a focus on comprehensive improvement of people's livelihoods in social construction.
China, as an ancient country with a 5,000-year-old civilization of the Xia people, has a long cultural history and a prosperous past. However, over the past century, the corruption and incompetence of the former Qing government led to the fragmentation of the Chinese territory and the loss of national sovereignty. The fundamental purpose of the People's Revival Party revolution is to liberate the people's productive forces from the oppression of imperialism and feudalism, as well as from the constraints of backward production, so that the people's economy can develop rapidly and effectively along a fast track, thereby improving the material living standards of the people and maximizing their cultural living standards.
The backward current situation cannot but awaken us, the major capitalist powers of the world are busy fighting each other, giving us a rare opportunity for development. During this period, if we do not build up basic modernized industry, modernized agriculture, modernized transportation and even more modernized defense forces, we will not be able to shake off the hat of backwardness and poverty, forever sinking into the nickname "Sick Man of East Asia" that has been given to China. The mission of our Revival Party to revive China cannot be achieved.
For this, the autonomous region carried out effective land system reforms within the new four provinces, conducted extensive and in-depth democratic reform movements, vigorously promoted new era new fashions, and prepared to implement a powerful people-benefiting and country-benefiting basic education system. It gradually restored local social production order, allowing wandering and homeless people to return home step by step, returning to happy lives.
In the vast rural areas, step by step, the production responsibility system to households, mutual assistance and cooperation systems, zero agricultural tax knowledge propaganda, government unconditional assistance to agricultural development system mobilization activities propaganda, the broad masses of peasants gradually restored agricultural production, production enthusiasm has been greatly improved, with higher hopes for the new government and new life, also having aspirations for creating a better family future.
The happiness of the vast rural people is the standard for determining whether the autonomous region is harmonious or not. The improvement of the income and living standards of the vast peasants is the standard for evaluating the work ability and achievements of the autonomous regional government. At present, our government's work has achieved quite good results.
In areas where preliminary construction and reform have been completed, we have not relaxed our pace of development.
In various parts of Guangxi, we have focused on developing industrial economic chains with state-owned enterprises and factories as the backbone, driving downstream companies to continuously increase revenue while also accelerating the improvement of production technology, management systems, and corporate awareness. We will continue to improve the market economy order, ensuring that industrial development and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive. Increasing people's income and cultural quality are two major priorities for people's livelihood construction, with improving medical security and education being key aspects.
Looking at the whole autonomous region, the main body of society is still the vast agricultural population. Raising people's income mainly means raising the income of agriculture and secondary and tertiary industries; improving people's cultural quality, the main body of work is still the vast peasants.
In the field of education, the autonomous region government has made preparations to expand the implementation of compulsory education for all citizens and will continue to carry out propaganda activities to promote the importance of cultural education, increase publicity and mobilization efforts, open literacy classes and night schools among workers, peasants and soldiers, expand technical education and basic education enrollment, and maximize guarantees for equal access to education.
In the western region with vast territory and many ethnic groups, promoting new civilization and democratic ideas, better marriage concepts, better public moralities, and better social customs will be effectively promoted. The brutal feudal family rules, backward ideas of male chauvinism, and other outdated thoughts will be abandoned, bringing civilized winds and healthy winds to the mountains and fields.
Given the current low level of medical care, the autonomous region's ability to provide universal medical insurance will continue to be strengthened in the future. The level of medical assistance for major diseases will continue to improve, and the problem of caring for vulnerable groups will also be gradually solved. The pilot construction of basic old-age insurance system will continue to be improved, actively exploring the establishment of southwest people's old-age insurance system, striving to establish a perfect urban and rural residents' minimum living guarantee system, various insurance systems as soon as possible, promoting social undertakings' long-term progress and development.
Third, unswervingly develop the autonomous region's education undertaking and strive to build a socialist country under the rule of law in the autonomous region.
After the universal compulsory education is implemented in the autonomous region, the focus of educational development in the autonomous region will shift to the development of higher education. It will greatly improve the current poor situation of secondary education mainly based on technical subjects, and strive to build up cultural and educational institutions as soon as possible, and complete all stages of cultural and educational undertakings in our district as soon as possible.
Higher education will continue to expand steadily, striving to complete the construction of 10 higher education institutions by 1925, including five key industrial or engineering universities, two key comprehensive universities, two key research universities, and one key normal university. More scientific laboratories will be built, with a wider scope of coverage.
The rule of law in the autonomous region is being built smoothly, and more and more people are choosing to defend their legitimate rights with the law as a weapon. However, there are still many people who use backward and ignorant methods to achieve their goals and resolve disputes. For a long time, the construction of the legal system in the autonomous region needs to be continuously strengthened. Moreover, the autonomous region is a big family composed of many ethnic groups, and it takes time and effort for the concept of rule of law to take root among the people. The government's laws and regulations also need to be constantly improved, and the road to building a rule of law society in the autonomous region is long and arduous.
In short, the achievements of the past year have not come easily. The immortal achievements are the result of the unity and hard work of all ethnic groups in the autonomous region, who are not afraid of hardships and difficulties. Of course, there are still many problems that need to be summarized and reflected upon.
