Chapter IV Casting the City by Civilization and Winning the Title of “The National Civilized City”

（Translator：Chen Xin,  Proofreader: Xu Yingrui）

The level of civilization is a comprehensive embodiment of social progress and wealth creation. Because Qinhuangdao has been firmly implementing the strategy of “casting the city by civilization” in recent years, it was awarded the laurel of the “National Civilized City” in 2017. Its urban environmental quality and the mental outlook of its dwellers become completely new, so the common aspiration and strength of the people are being well rallied, and the gold content of the overall well-off goal is being continuously enhanced. As a vibrant and happy city, Qinhuangdao has become a home for people to live in peace and contentment，and a sense of belonging, happiness and pride arise spontaneously in people’s heart.

Studying and Implementing the Spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China 

After the closing of the 19th National Congress of the CPC, the municipal Party committee and the municipal government of Qinhuangdao took the learning and publicizing of the convention’s spirit as a primary political task, and made greatest efforts to study, publicize, and implement its spirit, quickly setting off an upsurge of studying in the whole city.

The Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee held 5 meetings to study and deploy the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC in our city. By the end of December 2017, party organizations at all levels in the city organized a total of 12 thousand sessions in various forms. Moreover, the functions of propaganda groups of the Party Committees on the two levels of municipality and counties, the leading cadres at all levels of the city, and the grass-roots propaganda groups are brought into full play, and as such the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC is promoted to enter villages, offices, campuses, communities, military camp, internet as well as enterprises. By the end of December 2017, the municipal leaders delivered 130 sessions in a gathered way or for the grass-root units. The leading group members above the township section-level in the whole city preached over 7060 times in total. Propaganda materials for the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC, totaling more than 30 thousand copies in 5 types, was successfully sent to thousands of households by various kinds of propaganda volunteers, and was especially received by Party members. A series of activities, such as “Contest of Answering Questions amidst All City Dwellers,” “Grass-roots Propaganda Contest,” “Competition of Hand-writing the Reports for the 19th National Congress of the CPC and the Original Text of the New Party Constitution,” and “Audio and Video Display of Reading the Reports for the 19th National Congress of the CPC and the Original Text of the New Party Constitution,” were launched, enabling the learning of the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to become a compulsory course and a conscious action for every grass-roots Party branch and all Party members. 

Winning the Title of “The National Civilized City”

With unswerving will to speed up its own rise against all difficulties or risks, Qinhuangdao considered making itself a national civilized city as a driving and symbolic event. In accordance with the requirements of “one person responsible for one area, one day to fulfill one task, one principle pressed on to the finish without letup, and one unity pervading all things,” all the members of the whole territory spared no efforts to do creative work, and successfully won the laurel of “the national civilized city,” standing in the forefront of the national urban development. There are a five-tier grid management system and a road-heads responsibility system established in Qinhuangdao. City leaders already inspected 193 times on foot and solved more than 2200 problems. Double Violation” rectification was promoted in depth. By the end of 2017, 26223 cases of “double violation,” covering 10 million 817 thousand square meters, were dealt with, due to which, the public trust of the Party committee and the government was reinforced, and the city image and social equity were fortified, winning wide praises from the general public.

In addition, Shen Rubo and other models were selected and set up in order to put emphasis on the motif that “I am the city-constructor.” More than 170 thousand volunteers in 50 million person-time carried out such voluntary activities as “All Dwellers Wash City,” “Cigarette Butts’ Revolution,” Cleaning Beaches, Baths Patrol, Co-management of Traffic, thus enabling “service” and “civilization” to become the core competitiveness and the most beautiful scenery of the city. 

Qinhuangdao will turn the new height of the civilized city into a new starting point in the future, consolidate and enhance the achievements in the construction of the civilized city, and build up an urban civilization of higher level.

Public Cultural Services

Qinhuangdao is a cultural city with the charm of an ancient capital and the flavor of a modern city. Qinhuangdao being a city belonging to the first batch of “national demonstration zone on public cultural service system” (the sole city chosen from Hebei Province), its cultural undertakings and cultural industries are developing rapidly. In 2017, the Municipal Museum began to be constructed, the City Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition and Promotion Center was opened to the public, and the Promotion Base for National Languages and Characters was settled down in Shanhai Pass. Cultural activities of “spring, summer, autumn and winter” are rich and colorful. “Reading Treasure-box” and “Beach Book-bar” enriches Qinhuangdao’s scholarly culture; Changli Shadow Play “Three Attacks of Village of the Zhu Family” participates in Excellent Exhibitions and Performances organized by the Ministry of Culture, and Funing Music of Percussion and Wind Instruments participates in exchanges and performances among Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The traditional cultural heritages, such as seal cutting, opera, poetry, have become popularized, and our city has become the only city in Hebei province that was awarded “A City of Chinese Poetry,” another “cultural card” thus being added to our city. By feat of the second Hebei tourism conference, a large number of cultural industry projects, such as Fishing Island, Sino-Russian Cultural Industrial Park, are vigorously supported, and Banchangyu Valley, Laojun Ding, Changli Grapes Gully, Yiguan Ancient Castle, and Small Town of the Heavenly Maids have become desirable places for people to enjoy leisure and entertain themselves, topping 4 billion 360 million RMB for cultural industry, ranking second in speed increasing in Hebei. 

Build a Famous Sports City

（Translator：Ji Yapin,  Proofreader: Xu Yingrui）

Qinhuangdao is the only prefecture-level city which has co-hosted the Olympic Games and the Asian Games, and it has rich sports resources and strong sports atmosphere. Colorful domestic and international large-scale events such as World Women’s Boxing Championships, International Marathon, the National Chess Youth Championships, World Chinese 8-ball Masters have been held in this city. Some brand competitions like Beidaihe International Roller Skating Festival, World Hiking Conference and Beidaihe triathlon are well-known at home and abroad. A large number of popular sports brands with strong regional cultural characteristics like Dragon Boat Race, Bicycle Race and Roller Skating Competitions make the vitality of the city visible and show the glamour of this famous sports city.

Targeted Poverty Elimination

In recent years, poverty alleviation through development has been carried out as the primary livelihood project in Qinhuangdao, with Qinglong Manchu Autonomous County as its main battlefield and “making priority poverty reduction in the first year, lifting people out of poverty in the second year, and consolidating the achievements and making further progress in the third year” as its target. The whole city concentrates on it with all the efforts. Village task force is made full play to carry out the targeted poverty alleviation of “Hundreds of Enterprises to Help Hundreds of Villages”. In recent two years, more than 600 poverty elimination projects have been carried out, as a result,  62,515 people have been lifted out of poverty and the comprehensive poverty headcount ratio in Qinglong Manchu Autonomous County has dropped to 1.13%, reaching the exit standard of poor county. The next focus of Qinhuangdao will be keeping the poverty alleviation efforts unchanged, deepening the implementation of established poverty alleviation measures, industries and projects and establishing stable and long-term mechanism for poverty elimination and preventing return to poverty. Targeted poverty relief efforts should be focused on specific poor people, bottom guarantee policy should be implemented, equal priority should be given to poverty alleviation, intelligence development and aspiration cultivation, and the special governance of corruption and work style in the field of poverty alleviation should be deepened in order to improve the rural environment, promote the increase of farmers’ income and win the battle of poverty elimination.

Improving the Well-beings of the People’s Livelihood

The municipal party committee and municipal government always uphold the people-centered development thoughts and work hard to improve the well-beings of the people’s livelihood, which results in the gradual improvement of people’s life. In 2017, people’s livelihood expenditure accounts for 85.6% of the general public budget expenditure, and per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents is up to  32,795 and 12,563 RMB respectively, with an average increase of 8.1%. The quality of public service has a continuous improvement and a large number of problems relating to the vital interests of the masses have been solved: construction enterprises have been motivated to repair urban roads of more than 100,000 square meters, 24,000 road lamps have been newly installed, 215 old communities and 216 back street alleyways have been transformed and promoted and 18,533 houses in shanty towns have been transformed. 58,900 new jobs have been created and the registered unemployment rate has been kept at 2.88%. 69 urban intersections have been transformed so that the road network capacity has an overall improvement of 33.5% and the goal of building the safest, the most unobstructed, the most orderly and civilized city traffic environment of Hebei Province has been realized. The environmental features of 7 counties and areas, 23 towns and 394 villages have fundamental changes, market-oriented operation mechanism of rural garbage management has been established in 2041 villages, 202 provincial key villages have been built to construct beautiful countryside, resulting in the significant improvement in rural production and living environment.

The Comprehensive and Strict Governance of the Party

The municipal Party committee and the municipal government run the party’s construction throughout the whole process of Qinhuangdao’s development and firmly set up “Four Consciousnesses” and “Two Responsibilities” with a top-down leading. The most sparkling city spirit card has been made by carrying out activities of “Following Shen Rubo, Doing Good for the People” and building “Qinhuangdao Vanguard Avenue of Party Members” . We adhere to the standard of good cadres, select cadres by their performance and for work, implement work log system deeply and use the log results to promote and demote cadres. We establish and improve the long-term mechanism to promote the implementation of the work, improve the systems such as “Five Dos, Four Start’s and Four More’s”, “Two Types and Two Ways”, “Four-in-one” joint supervision system, thus creating a good atmosphere for real work. We uphold the distinct orientation of all the work of the party should go to the party branches and strengthen the construction of grass-roots party organizations in an all-round way. We thoroughly carry out the special rectification of “4 Undesirable Work Styles” and work style discipline. In 2017, Municipal Discipline Inspection and Supervision Organs established 1493 cases/times, punished 1324 persons, and the work of building good conduct and political integrity and fighting corruption takes the lead in Hebei Province.