TNAG-1311-FCO40-1673-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1984 — Page 44

SWB

FE/7817/BII/3

5 Dec 84

area by engaging in forestry, animal husbandry and production in a big way. It is especially necessary to promote the processing industry for farm and sideline products well. It is also necessary to develop transport. . .

Zhang Tingfa on New Concepts in Building Air Force Leading Groups

'People's Daily' 29 Nov 84

Text of report by Wang Lisheng (3769 4539 3932) and Zheng Yan (6774 3601):

On 28th November, Zhang Tingfa, member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee and First Secretary of the CCP Committee of the air force, stressed in a report to the third plenary session of the sixth CCP Committee of the air force that in strengthening the building of the leadership groups and the third echelon, it is essential to further eliminate "Leftist" influences and old concepts, destroy old conventions and establish a new concept of employing people.

First, it is necessary to establish a new concept of political criteria for employing people. Comrade Deng Xiaoping's exposition, "what is the political criterion for employing people? The main one is to make positive contributions toward creating happiness for the people, developing the productive forces and promoting the socialist cause", represents a new political criterion for employing people based on the new concept that the four modernisations drive is the highest form of politics; it is a total negation of the past practice of using "taking class struggle as the key link" and "giving prominence to politics" to judge the political performance of the cadres. Political per- formance is not an empty thing. We must not indulge in empty politics in viewing and employing cadres, or separate political performance from work achievements; the two must be viewed together. People who work effectively are talented and should be employed in important posts. We must not regard those people who "do as they are told" and "submit" as "virtuous" and "outstanding cadres"; we have to look at their work effectiveness. By doing so we can stimulate the cadres to work hard, advance and do their work in a creative way.

Second, we must establish a new concept of merits and demerits. In the past, if a cadre did not make major mistakes and no major problems occurred in the unit assigned to his charge, he was held to be successful in work and could even be promoted in proper order. We should have a new concept of merits and demerits in the new period. As far as leading cadres are concerned, if they have no merits then they have demerits and if they have not achieved outstanding success in work then they are in dereliction of duty, Sticking to old ways, being content with the status quo, excessive steadiness, lack of drive and mediocrity in work are faults and mean that a person is incompetent: such a person cannot be allowed to go on in this fashion.

This year, with the approval of the Central Military Commission, we have downgraded or relieved of their duties four army and divisional cadres and a number of regimental cadres. This action shook people and transformed the old concept of "no demerits mean that one has merits" in the minds of certain cadres into the new concept of "no merits mean that one has demerits". They felt that, like the "iron ricebowl", the "iron armchair" in which one could sit steadily if one made no major mistakes was not to be relied on; they developed a feeling of "crisis" and strengthened consciousness for getting their brains to work on reforms, forging ahead and creating new things.

Third, it is necessary to establish the concept of discovering talent in the course of practice and testing cadres among the masses. In the past some units relied on files and old impressions to differentiate the cadres, without paying attention to the cadres' current performance; they found out about the cadres by asking a few leaders, without paying attention to what the masses had to say. As a result one-sidedness in examining and promoting cadres was almost inevitable. In examining and promoting cadres in the future, it is necessary to uphold the viewpoint of putting practice first and the method of following the mass line, so as to make accurate and good cadre selection.