The issue of building the Chinese Communist Party after the 18th Congress and implications for Vietnam

Through continuous efforts over the years, the issue of strengthening the "Four Consciousnesses" and "Four Confidences" throughout the Party has had a clear change, creating a positive wave to protect the core role of General Secretary Xi Jinping and persistently protect the authority and centralized leadership of the Party Central Committee.

Second, on building ideology and working style within the party. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has attached great importance to strengthening the training and study of Marxist theory and the spirit of Xi Jinping's important speeches in order to improve the political ideology and theoretical level of party members and cadres. The Politburo of the Communist Party of China decided that the entire party from top to bottom should thoroughly implement practical activities to educate the masses with the theme of "practicality, integrity and serving the people". In particular, thoroughly implement the Eight Regulations on reforming working style, conduct investigations and strictly handle the "four working styles" to strengthen close relations with the masses. The 3rd Plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has raised the issue of eliminating formalism and bureaucracy to the same level as strengthening political construction, identifying the elimination of the "four working styles" as a top and long-term task. All party members, especially high-ranking cadres, must strengthen their training in party spirit, which is a fundamental requirement. Continuously improving political awareness, political capacity, assuming political responsibilities, strictly abiding by discipline, forever maintaining the political identity of a party member, promoting values such as loyalty, honesty, uprightness, fairness, true receptivity, purity and integrity [89]. In addition, the continuous implementation of educational topics "Three strictnesses, three practices", "Two studies, one action" and especially the educational topic "Not forgetting the original aspiration, remembering the mission" throughout the party has encouraged a large number of cadres and party members of the Communist Party of China to increase their awareness, persevere in political ideals, and better grasp the mass viewpoint of Marxism. Assessing the aspect of building the ideology and political theory of the Communist Party of China, Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn (in the US) said that the Communist Party of China always

attach importance to political theory, in which the values of the Communist Party of China members are expressed. These are not just empty words, but are actually expressed through slogans that attract and appeal to people and have practical value as a guideline for action [251].

Third, on discipline building. In recent years, in order to achieve the goal of building and perfecting the legal system within the Party with a stricter, more feasible and more scientific framework and efficiency in Party management, the Communist Party of China has also paid more attention to the issue of monitoring the implementation of regulations, building and perfecting the mechanism for normalizing the inspection of the implementation of regulations within the Party, persistently maintaining the strictness of the regime, and Party members who are leaders must set an example and play a leading role.

Strictly abiding by political discipline and principles is the important content and guarantee for strengthening comprehensive strict Party governance. Since the 18th National Congress, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has been trying to strengthen discipline education, making the majority of Party members fully aware that political discipline is the most fundamental and important discipline of the Party, abiding by the Party's political discipline is the basis for abiding by all Party disciplines, and understanding the Party's legal regulations on political discipline and principles. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has required the entire Party, especially high-ranking cadres, to seriously take the lead and set an example, always tighten political discipline, form principles, and break previous implicit rules. The Communist Party of China has resolutely investigated and dealt with those who seriously violated the Party's discipline and political principles, had ambitions of political expansion, and had dark plots such as Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Guo Boxiong, Xu Caihou, Sun Zhengcai, and Ling Jihua, eliminated interest groups formed between political corruption and economic corruption, and eliminated huge potential political risks. The issue of political discipline violations is considered the focus of inspection and supervision. Party organizations at all levels have had to focus on strengthening the management and supervision of daily implementation of political discipline, strengthen strict constraints on Party members and cadres, and seriously report typical cases.

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Violating political discipline to deter party members and cadres from being afraid, knowing the red lines and bottom lines, and promptly correcting themselves.

Fourth, regarding party organization building . Faced with new requirements from the practice of deepening reform and national development, the Communist Party of China has identified cadre organization work as one of the key tasks in the field of party building. Since the 18th Congress, the Communist Party of China has focused on key issues of cadre organization building to improve the quality of cadres, build cadres with political will, and solid expertise and professionalism; improve the capacity to advise on organizational work, have a sense of responsibility, have the ability to lead, direct, and organize the implementation of assigned political tasks, etc. The Communist Party of China has revised the "Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Cadres", issued the "Regulations on the Promotion and Use of Party and Government Leading Cadres", "Opinions on the Prevention of "Selection of Sick Cadres" (with Problems)" and "Regulations Related to the Promotion and Demotion of Cadres", etc., and gradually perfected the system for the selection and appointment of leading cadres in the new era. In addition, the Communist Party of China determined to persistently promote the important role of the "key minority" (key leading cadres) as a pioneer and role model, so that the entire Party and the entire people can continue to promote the cause of development. Xi Jinping also put forward the criteria for good cadres in the National Organization Work Conference, which are: "firm in ideals, serving the people, diligent and practical, daring to take responsibility, clean and honest" , which has become the basic principle in selecting and appointing cadres in the new era, and is of great significance in building a team of high-quality cadres.

In addition, the Communist Party of China has determined that the construction of a service model in the Party Central Committee is fundamental, through expanding and strengthening the service function of the Party Central Committee, implementing model transformation, and enhancing the role and capacity of the Party Central Committee. As the organization closest to the masses, in addition to its function as the core of political leadership at the grassroots level and conducting internal party building activities, the Party Central Committee also has the task of taking care of the material and spiritual life and satisfying the increasingly high needs of the people. Only then can the Party Central Committee become a "solid fortress" for development.

promote the effectiveness of the Party's leadership, have the influence to guide the people to thoroughly grasp the Party's guidelines and policies, and carry out the Party's tasks and goals. In addition to cultivating the Party members' ideology of serving the masses, the Party organizations have paid attention to cultivating the capacity and courage to serve the masses of the Party organizations and all Party members. Therefore, the issue of serving the masses of Party members and cadres in general has also made certain progress, gradually promoting the fighting strength of the Party organizations and the leading role of Party members.

Fifth, on preventing and combating corruption and purifying the Party. During this period, the CPC has made efforts to build and improve the Party inspection and supervision mechanism . Deepening the reform of the national supervision system, establishing the National Commission for Discipline Inspection, merging the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection with this agency, and expanding the pilot work nationwide are important strategies proposed at the 19th National Congress of the CPC. Up to now, the Commissions for Discipline Inspection and Supervision at all levels in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have been established, with the Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision concurrently as the Chairman of the Commission. In terms of quantity, it can be said that China has many anti-corruption mechanisms, from the central to local levels. The Party has the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the government also has an anti-corruption system, and the military, the National People's Congress, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference all have anti-corruption organizations. In localities, the Supervisory Committees have also been established at the three levels of province, city, and county, and their terms of office have been changed with the local National People's Congress [243]. The current four-level supervision system has also demonstrated that China's supervision system is comprehensive.

Under Xi Jinping's leadership, with the determination to strengthen supervision and constraints on the exercise of power, and to confine power in an institutional cage, a mechanism has been formed to ensure that "no corruption is desired, no daring corruption is desired, and no corruption is possible." China has stepped up its unprecedented anti-corruption campaign of " fighting tigers, slaying flies, and hunting foxes" across the country. It can be said that there are no forbidden zones, it is comprehensive, uncompromising, unwavering, and determined to eradicate corruption. Disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies from the central to local levels have been steadfast in their work of implementing, supervising, inspecting, and

questioning, combining internal and external supervision. In 2019, the work of rectifying the style and fighting corruption of the Communist Party of China was reflected in 5 prominent trends. These are: the number of corrupt officials who proactively confessed their crimes increased rapidly; stepping up the investigation and handling of cases of protection for gangsters and officials in the financial and banking sectors; continuing to rectify the "four styles", strictly handling violations of formalism and bureaucracy; expanding the scope of arresting a series of suspects who fled abroad to bring them to justice.

4.1.2 Limitations

Since the 18th Congress, in addition to the achievements, the Communist Party of China has also recognized many issues and current limitations in Party building work, specifically as follows:

First , in terms of political building, some party organizations and party members still take politics lightly, their political awareness and stance are not firm, their political capacity is poor, their political behavior is not standard, and they are seriously deviating from the direction of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Some party members and cadres not only do not actively support the party's guidelines, principles, policies, and important decisions of the organization, but also speak ill of and distort them, negatively affecting the image of the Communist Party of China. Some party members and cadres even do not believe in Marxism but in superstition. It is difficult to make a part of these party members and cadres change, to make them have a firm belief in their ideals and be truly loyal to the party. In implementing the guidelines and policies, some localities say one thing and do another. In general, many problems arise in terms of ideology, style, organization, etc., mainly due to a number of party members and cadres being weak in ideology, political theory, and not taking discipline and political principles seriously. Raising awareness of the issue of building political culture in the party for cadres and party members is currently of primary importance. However, in terms of awareness, there are phenomena such as: Some party members and cadres still do not have a clear awareness of the content and importance of this issue; some people think that political culture in the party is a mechanical connection of ideological culture, political culture, organizational culture and anti-corruption culture; some

Party members have not yet determined specific goals to promote political and cultural building within the party, do not know where to start and how to promote it, or some people think that strengthening political and cultural building within the party is a soft indicator and is not placed in an important position [240].

Second, there are still many shortcomings in ideological and working style building. The ideological awareness of the issue of persevering in ideal beliefs, persevering in Marxism and the mass viewpoint of many cadres and party members today is still weak. The building of working style has not yet demonstrated the characteristics of the party as ruling for the people and power is entrusted by the people. In many localities in China, there are phenomena of being far from the masses, especially the bottom class in society, and the negative influences of bureaucracy, formalism, luxury, waste, and negative perceptions of the people still exist, the activities of educating the masses in practice are only formal, dogmatic and marketized, etc. [108]. Some cadres and party members not only increasingly distance themselves from and separate themselves from the masses, but also have many bad habits that affect the image of the Party in the eyes of the masses. The work of managing, educating and training party members in some places has not received regular attention, self-criticism and criticism work is still weak, the issue of eliminating the "4 styles" has not yet formed the self-awareness of "not daring " and "not wanting" in some party members, etc. [76, p.65].

Third, the issue of anti-corruption still faces many difficulties. Although Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign is very popular, it also contains many risks and disadvantages for the Chinese Communist Party. It could be a coup against Xi by the fearful tigers, or the loss of morale among the flies and the Party's ranks from low to high. They will stop supporting and not only greatly affect work efficiency, but also lead to internal disunity when they are constantly being followed by the Inspection Commission. In reality, efforts including strict discipline and reducing the privileges of officials have been met with resistance in many different forms, such as: officials doing nothing or working half-heartedly, being lazy in management, pretending to be sick and skipping work. Local officials or small officials directly harm and harass the people, causing the people to

Dissatisfied people have passive and lazy behavior leading to ineffective work because they see the loss of privileges they previously enjoyed, etc. [62]. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out : "The masses hate corruption the most, corruption is the biggest threat our party is facing " [178, p.65] showing that the Communist Party of China still realizes that, at present, there is still room for corruption to arise, the situation of fighting corruption is still fierce and complicated, it is necessary to resolutely prevent the formation of interest groups, investigate and strictly handle acts of bribery, embezzlement, and corruption alongside the masses.

In addition, specific measures to implement binding and monitoring the operation of power are not many and are still very limited. The power of the Party and the political system in which the Party is the core leader still do not have any mechanism to "bind" or limit effectively, which will lead to the work of preventing corruption and cleaning up the Party in the short term not being as effective as expected. Some studies also believe that the establishment of the National Inspection Commission is just another sign for the Central Commission for Inspection and Discipline Inspection, merging the Party and the Government to expand power.

[213] And the fact that since the 18th Congress, Xi Jinping has dealt with more than 1.5 million party members and cadres is a move that many observers believe is an opportunity for Xi Jinping to purge his opponents [262].

Fourth, regarding organizational building, even Xi Jinping has pointed out that there are party organizations that lack responsibility in implementing the Party's management of the Party, that are not sincere and loyal to the Party, that have a very vague concept of the Party organization, that the organization is weak, and that discipline is lax. Some localities have not checked records for a long time, and when they are checked, a series of problems are discovered; there are party members who publicly show support for the Party's policies but in fact still violate them; in some areas, the CPC's personnel organization work still has the phenomenon of appointing relatives and confidants, and even appointing them for the sake of interests and taking advantage of forming cliques; there are local Party organizations that are almost paralyzed. If these problems are not resolved well, serious problems will arise in party building work [169, p.224]. Furthermore, the problem of building a service model in the TCCSĐ still has many difficulties. The Communist Party of China has identified

The Party has decided to build a service model party according to Marxism, but some Party organizations work rigidly, not suitable for the new situation, work efficiency is not high, some places still consider cadres as parents of the people, take advantage of power to impose on the people, are used to making excuses, do not respect and guarantee the people's rights, etc. The main reason is that the awareness of "serving" scientifically in the issue of building a service model Party organization is still low, the capacity of the Party organization to serve the masses is still weak, the issue of pluralism of interests of the masses also has a complicated impact on the construction of a service model Party organization, the mechanism for evaluating the implementation of the service model in the Party organization is still not perfect, etc.

Fifth, in terms of building discipline and perfecting the legal system within the party. Although the Communist Party of China has tried to promote the improvement of the legal system within the party to weave a more dense and tight institutional cage, ensuring the implementation of party management, it has not yet been able to adapt to the needs and development of the Communist Party of China today. In terms of the promulgation process, order, practicality and systematicity of regulations and rules, there are still many loopholes, some regulations overlap each other, and sometimes even contradict each other. There are quite a few regulations on party building, but their implementation is not synchronous, unified, and of poor quality. At the central level, the legal system within the party is relatively complete, and the quality of implementation is quite good, but in departments and localities, there are still problems of stereotypes, mechanicalness, or incomplete implementation, etc. [147, p.46]. Therefore, it is necessary to orient the problem, solve any problem, find the key point to persistently solve it, institutionalize and concretize regulations, constantly innovate and perfect the law in the party. A notable point is that the 3rd Central Conference of the 19th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China approved the amendment of Clause 3, Article 79 of the Constitution, removing the provision that the President and Vice President cannot hold office for more than 2 consecutive terms. This amendment, since its proposal, has not only sparked much controversy on Chinese social networks, but the international media has also paid great attention to this issue. This constitutional amendment is believed to help consolidate Mr. Tap's position as the most powerful leader ever. Many state agencies and some

The issue of building the Chinese Communist Party after the 18th Congress and implications for Vietnam - 18

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