Chinese leaders must comprehensively plan for the big picture while keeping proper balance of all important parts, and all of this is predicated by having a correct understanding of China's situation. They must sometimes focus on the forest and sometimes on the trees. Figuratively speaking, they must play the piano with all ten fingers.
--Interview given by Xi Jinping to a Russian TV station in Sochi, Russia, February 7, 2014
Playing the Piano with All Ten Fingers
--Comprehensive planning and working to keep all parts moving in unison
"Playing the piano with all ten fingers" means that to play a melody well on the piano, all ten fingers must work in unison. It implies that all aspects of the situation must be considered when you set out to do something, and work on each aspect must have a central focus so that the big picture is considered, while key points are emphasized as well. Xi Jinping quoted this common phrase to show that governing a country requires comprehensive planning and maintaining an overall balance of all parts.
"Comprehensive planning" means planning with an eye on the big picture that uses systematic thinking, making advance preparations for planned development, and coordinating all involved interests. The hope is that this will reduce conflicts and problems to the greatest extent and facilitate healthy project development. China has long employed such methods of planning. For example, Draft History of Qing: Annals of Emperor Muzong I states, "Zeng Guofan was ordered to comprehensively plan all military affairs north of the river." China is a large country with a lot of problems to deal with, and comprehensive planning is a fundamental method for following the Scientific Outlook on Development. Now, for example, China must comprehensively plan for the development of cities and the countryside, an assortment of different regions, the economy and society, and man and nature. This requires comprehensively fine-tuning the relationships between domestic development and opening up, central and regional authorities, personal and collective interests, local and overall interests, and current and long-term interests.
Since the adoption of reform and opening up policy, China has undergone more than three decades of rapid development and formed its own set of methods for handling problems. On the whole, it has tackled "impossible task" after "impossible task" while continually improving its comprehensive planning and coordination. Some people believe that comprehensive planning in China is a remnant of the era of the planned economy, and that it should have been ushered off the stage of history long ago because it cannot adapt to the development needs of the current era of the market economy. This is clearly an extreme conclusion that fails to distinguish between the concepts of comprehensive planning and ordinary planning. Comprehensive planning requires overall coordination to ensure healthy, sustainable development. It is a dynamic process that is adjusted as the situation changes. Ordinary planning is a static process inclined toward stability that to a certain extent prevents change. It requires following the rules of the overall plan from the start and rigidly adhering to it without adding needed flexibility. It lacks a coping mechanism for new problems, which results in negative consequences.
China is a large country with a huge population and there are great differences from place to place, so one method of governing cannot be rigidly adhered to, nor can everyone move along at the same pace. This demands that leaders clearly recognize which problems -- and aspects of a given problem -- are primary and which are secondary, and then comprehensively plan and coordinate their work. Mao Zedong frequently referred to "nine fingers and one finger," in which the "nine fingers" are the main achievements that we should focus on and "one finger" refers to problems that we cannot allow to distract us. Therefore, we must be good at finding the main aspects of the main problems. Since the nature of things is determined by the main aspects of the dominant problems, when observing and handling issues the main problems and lesser problems must be distinguished.
China has all sorts of complex problems, large and small. Having observed this, a foreign leader once joked that China's leaders are not in charge of just one country, but rather a "United Nations." With such a large area and enormous population, China's regional economies are very unbalanced in their development. The challenges and problems China's leaders face are immediately apparent, and this requires "playing the piano with all ten fingers," not "mashing all the keys with all ten fingers." If one location has an issue that affects everyone, the central authorities have to give it their full attention. Some problems are entirely regional in nature, and the local authorities can be left to handle these themselves. Playing a beautiful melody requires subtle variations -- sometimes you play a little faster and sometimes a little slower, sometimes a little louder and sometimes a little quieter. Comprehensive planning and coordinating development are key measures to resolving these complex problems, and this is the key meaning of "playing the piano with all ten fingers."
(An excerpt from XI JINPING: WIT AND VISION -- SELECTED QUOTATIONS AND COMMENTARY, published by FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS in 2015)
