Safety is served as the People’s Aspiration and the Foundation of Development.

Twenty years ago, in 2004, under the initiative of Comrade Xi Jinping, who has then the Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial Party Committee made a major strategic decision to build “Safe Zhejiang” and promote social harmony and stability.

Over the past twenty years, Lishui City has thoroughly implemented Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, closely focusing on the overall goal of “five enhancements” and the specific targets of “six assurances” for the construction of Safe Zhejiang by the Provincial Party Committee. With the dedication to being the vanguard in the new era, the city has spared no effort in carrying out various tasks to prevent risks, ensure safety, maintain stability, and promote development.

Lishui city successfully clinched the title of “Nineteen Consecutive Championships” in the construction of safety, ranking first in the province four times and entering the top three five times. The city was the first to win the “Two-Star Safe Gold Tripod” and has successively been awarded the titles of “National Model City for Comprehensive Governance” and “Demonstration City for Safe China Construction”… The entire city has taken concrete actions, leading to the continuous improvement of the satisfaction rates of the people’s sense of security and the construction of the rule of law in Lishui, the sustained decrease in various types of cases, and the lowest homicide rate in the province, all striving to transition from “safety” to “long-term peace” in Lishui.

Carrying out the blueprint to the end, building a comprehensive “Great Peace” pattern

Safety is the primary need of the people after addressing their basic living needs, making it an extremely important aspect of livelihoods and the most fundamental development environment.

In 2004, Lishui City actively implemented the requirements set by the Provincial Party Committee, holding the Eleventh Plenary Session and issuing the “Decision of the CPC Lishui Municipal Committee on Building ‘Safe Lishui’ to Promote Social Harmony and Stability”, systematically deploying the construction of Safe Lishui.

Over the following 20 years, the whole city has steadily advanced the practice and exploration of building Safe Lishui with solid and steady steps, high requirements, and high standards.

In 2005, Lishui city comprehensively launched the “Three Thousand Safe Demonstration Projects”, creating a favorable situation of “accumulating small safety for great safety”.

In 2006, Lishui city gradually introduced various forms of safe creation activities covering all fields, promoting the full coverage, continuity, and participation of all staff in safe construction.

In 2014, Lishui city promoted the normalization of safe construction with the formulation of plans every three years and annual plans, and incorporated contents related to ecological economic escort and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the masses into the “Eight Major Projects” of safe construction, continuously expanding the connotation and extension of Safe Lishui.

In 2018, Lishui city established the “Action Outline for Safe Construction 2025” with a focus on the long term, making “grasping safety is grasping development, grasping livelihoods” a true ideological consensus and conscious action of the entire city.

In 2021, Lishui city constructed a systematic “monitoring, warning, disposal, and feedback” risk closed-loop control mechanism for ensuring great safety, has achieved the simultaneous emphasis on development and security, prosperity and security for the people.

Sticking to the Blueprint to the End, over the past 20 years, Lishui City has deeply implemented the concept of “Great Safety”, vigorously constructing a “Great Safety” pattern. With a solid strategic determination, a comprehensive institutional system, and rooted responsibilities to the people, it has continuously promoted the extension of “Safe Lishui” to broader areas, wider scopes, and more levels.

With numerous points, long lines, and extensive coverage, how can the governance challenges commonly encountered in safe construction work be resolved? To address this, Lishui City pioneered the “Safety Report” management method in the province, transforming multiple reports into a unified one, changing a single report into a comprehensive one, and altering quarterly reports into monthly ones, ensuring that one report reveals all aspects objectively and truthfully reflects the dynamic completion of major safety indicators.

Social security, safety in production, and environmental protection, as presented in the “Safety Checkup” report, are the main indicators that the masses care about, highlight problems, and best reflect the regional safety conditions.

Nowadays, based on the “Safety Report”, Lishui City has established supporting systems such as the “Three Lists” of responsibilities, problems, and accountability, as well as systems for on-site inspections, listed supervision, and notification interviews. Leveraging digital reform, it has achieved daily monitoring and visualization of key safety indicators. Through the daily safety index and “five-color” map, it has further improved risk analysis, prediction, and warning capabilities, truly lifting “Great Safety” with “small reports”.

Over the past 20 years, Lishui City has persisted in integrating safe construction into the coordinated advancement of the “Five-Sphere Integrated Plan”, strictly implementing the closed-loop risk control mechanism, continuously improving long-term mechanisms for serving the people and mechanisms for responding to people’s concerns, carrying out activities such as “mobile services into rural areas” and “a myriad of practical matters benefiting people’s livelihoods”, and coordinating the vigorous development of social undertakings such as housing, employment, education, medical care, and social security. It has achieved zero occurrence of major malignant cases and serious mass incidents for consecutive years, maintained the top position in the province for 20 years in terms of the ecological environment index, and ranked at the forefront of the province for 15 years and 7 years in terms of the satisfaction rate of people’s sense of security and the social satisfaction rate of the rule of law construction, respectively.

Integrated coordination for long-term promotion, fully accumulating the momentum of safety

The construction of public safety concerns the healthy development of the economy and society, and the well-being and happiness of the people, representing the fundamental interests of the vast majority of the people.

Over the past 20 years, Lishui City has insisted on coordinating development and safety, fully accumulating the momentum of safety, taking special governance as the traction, focusing on source governance, and fundamental systematic governance, promoting continuous improvement in social security, stable and far-reaching development of safety production, and a strong enhancement in the intrinsic safety level in various fields.

“Be careful! These are all telecommunications frauds, don’t place orders or transfer money to those ‘safe accounts’!” Recently, police officers from the Huzhen Police Station of Jinyun County Public Security Bureau conducted anti-fraud propaganda in local enterprises, further helping business owners and employees enhance their awareness of prevention.

Over the years, Lishui has firmly woven a dense safety prevention and control nets. Through coordinated efforts in implementing special operations such as “Money Tide” and “Cloud Sword”, Lishui city has vigorously cracked down on various illegal activities including vice, robbery, fraud, food and drug safety violations, illegal fundraising, and telecommunications fraud. Consequently, a series of major cases have been successfully solved, including the first national case of illegal operation of nitrous oxide and the first case of virtual invoicing in “online freight transportation”.

Meanwhile, relying on the construction of the “Public Security Brain” and implementing the “135 rapid response mechanism”, Lishui city has fully constructed a three-dimensional and intelligent social security prevention and control system.

In 2023, the number of public security incidents and criminal cases decreased by 60% and 50%, respectively, compared to 20 years ago. Homicides decreased from 51 cases to 5 cases, a reduction of over 90%, and the number of unsolved homicides has remained at zero for 12 consecutive years.

“Whether practitioners are licensed to work?” “Are there any combustibles at the job site that have not been cleared?” “Is there a guardian and is it equipped with fire-fighting facilities and equipment?” In recent years, comprehensive inspections and rectifications of hidden safety hazards in key areas have become routine in Lishui city.

High-level safety is the guarantee of high-quality development.

Lishui City has continuously fortified its safety production measures, creating a safe and stable social environment for Lishui to achieve leapfrog high-quality development. It took the lead in issuing normative documents related to safety production in the province, focusing on constructing long-term mechanisms for safety production. It regularly carries out special safety rectification campaigns in industries such as manufacturing and trade, hazardous chemicals and flammable and explosive materials, and key areas to further strengthen grassroots safety production infrastructure. It adheres to the enterprise’s “intelligent transformation and digitalization” to effectively enhance the intrinsic safety level.

Over the years, Lishui city has completed the rectification of 137 major hazards listed for supervision by the province and the city. Since 2016, the number of fatalities in various production safety accidents has continued to decline, providing strong safety guarantees for the city's high-quality development.

“I really don't know what would have happened if you guys hadn't informed me of the transfer in advance.” On April 4th, after learning about the landslide behind his house, 71-year-old villager Yang Guangqing from Jiajiao Village, Nanku Village, Dongdu Town, Jinyun County, expressed his gratitude to the village cadres.

Located in the mountainous area of southwest Zhejiang, Lishui accounts for one-sixth of the province’s geographical area, with 98.06% of the city’s area classified as a geological disaster-prone area.

In response, Lishui City, with a sense of responsibility for “constant worry”, vigorously promotes the standardization construction of typical demonstration towns for disaster prevention and reduction, achieving comprehensive coverage of emergency rescue teams in 173 townships (streets). It regularly carries out special campaigns to address key and difficult areas such as gas, fire safety, and traffic, aiming to control major risks, reduce significant risks, and decrease the overall risk. Leveraging digital reform scenarios, it implements multi-cross management of the “people, vehicles, and roads” three elements in rural road safety, concentrating efforts to identify, solve, and address issues, continually strengthening the grassroots barriers for public safety.

Iterating and upgrading new models to forge the “Lishui Model” of city-level social governance

City-level social governance is closely linked to economic and social development on one end and the happiness index of the people on the other.

Over the past 20 years, Lishui city has persisted in developing and advancing the “Fengqiao Experience” in the new era, striving to enhance the effectiveness of governance. Through iterative upgrading of the governance system, key breakthroughs in key areas, and continuous consolidation of the foundation of self-governance, efforts have been made to build a city-level social governance model of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing in Lishui.

“I am really thankful for the help of the township government and the Council of Governors, and the grudge between our two families for so many years has finally been settled.” Not long ago, after a three-year-long neighborhood dispute in Yaxi Town, Liandu District was completely resolved, one of the parties, a villager from Jinzhu Village, expressed relief.

According to statistics, over the past two years, more than 600 conflicts and disputes have been effectively resolved at the government level in Yaxi Town. “If there is any issue, just go to the coordination committee” and “It’s better to go to the coordination committee than to go to court” have become the consensus of more and more local residents.

In 2020, Lishui City was designated by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission as one of the first batch of pilot cities for the modernization of city-level social governance nationwide. In advancing the pilot work of modernizing city-level social governance across the country, Lishui has continuously played a leading role in social governance and pioneered the establishment of a “mega-mediation” work system in which people’s mediation, administrative mediation, judicial mediation, and arbitration mediation are interconnected and coordinated. This system allows ordinary people to “solve problems locally without taking detours, reducing lawsuits, and preserving relationships”.

“I am old and don’t know how to use a smartphone. It’s inconvenient for me to go to the town, but I didn’t expect to receive door-to-door service at home today. It’s really great!” Recently, elderly resident Zhou Dongying from Huangtuyang Village, Baishanzu Town, Qingyuan County, successfully applied for elderly care qualification certification with the help of resident cadres.

Lishui city focuses on the leadership of Party building in grid-based smart governance, solidifies the smallest governance unit, vigorously implements the “Solidarity of the Party and the People, Grid Community Engagement” activity, and transforms the organizational advantages, resource advantages, and talent advantages of Party organizations into the effectiveness of grassroots governance. It innovatively carries out the “Heart-to-Heart Connection” warm door-knocking action, with over 1.026 million households visited and 7,317 conflicts and disputes resolved.

At the same time, Lishui city insists on making the masses the protagonists of grassroots governance, actively conducts actions to cultivate safety volunteers and community prevention and control teams, establishes various volunteer teams, with 3,261 teams formed and 728,000 registered volunteers. It has created safety volunteer service brands such as “Safe miss Li”“Xiaohe Volunteer Police”, and “Qingtian Overseas Assistance”, and formed a batch of typical grassroots governance models with Lishui characteristics, such as the “Seasonal Residence Model” in Qingtian, “Sunshine Voting” in Liandu, “Triple Governance” in Longquan, “Ten-in-One” in Qingyuan, “Old Li Helping Team” in Yunhe, “Harmony-Talking Team” in Jinyun, “Village Civil Affairs” in Suichang, “Community Sentiment Map” in Songyang, and “External Grid” in Jingning.

Recently, Suichang County Procuratorate, in conjunction with more than 10 departments, launched the “Guarding the Future, Protecting the Growth” joint campus legal education campaign, providing students with legal education focusing on different aspects, ensuring that no student misses out on legal education.

Minors are the rising sun and the future of the country. Lishui city focuses on the “Guarding the Future” special action, promoting the establishment of a comprehensive social linkage system for “preventing crimes before they happen, cracking down on crimes when they occur, and managing crimes afterwards” among minors. This fundamentally curbs the trend of juvenile delinquency and strives to create a better environment for the growth of young people.

At the end of last year, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission issued a document, and Lishui city was awarded the title of “Qualified City for Pilot Modernization of City-level Social Governance” nationwide, adding another “national-level” honor to the construction of “Safe Lishui”.

After 20 years of unremitting perseverance, Lishui city has become a city of happiness where people live and work in peace and contentment, social stability and order, and has continued to build a large pattern of peace building and sharing.

Mission ablaze, original intent unwavering. On the new journey, Lishui city will anchor its goal of “establishing a model zone for a safe Zhejiang and building the safest city in the country” firmly, with unwavering determination, higher political consciousness, deeper empathy for the people, and stronger sense of responsibility. We will construct a safer Lishui with broader domains, more sophisticated systems, more visible outcomes, and greater satisfaction among the people.