Present, future results both key

In the late 1990s, the Wanshou­yan Hills site in Sanming, Fujian province, was at the center of a dispute over quarrying and heritage protection.

At the time, Sanming Steel Group, the predecessor of Fujian Sangang Group Co, had been quarrying limestone at Wanshouyan for years. To the company, it was a source of limestone for steelmaking, but to the villagers, the site and its caves were part of their heritage, and cultural relics workers had found signs of an even older past.

Following the discovery of mammal fossils and calls from villagers for protection, the city government of Sanming organized a monthlong rescue excavation by a joint archaeological team to determine whether the site should be preserved.

The decisive discovery came in Chuanfan Cave, one of the caves at Wanshouyan. Archaeologists uncovered a stone-paved floor around 1.7 meters below the surface, along with a drainage channel, stone tools and mammal fossils. Further studies showed that findings at Wanshouyan pushed the known history of human activity in Fujian back to about 185,000 years ago.

In late December 1999, Fujian's provincial cultural authorities submitted an urgent report to the provincial government on the protection of the Wanshouyan Paleolithic cave site. On Jan 1, 2000, Xi Jinping, then acting governor of Fujian, issued an important instruction on the report, saying that the site was the province's first major prehistoric archaeological discovery and a rare and important prehistoric site in China and that it must be carefully and properly protected.

Xi also emphasized that the Wanshouyan Paleolithic cave site is a nonrenewable and precious resource that belongs not only to the present generation, but also to future generations, and that no individual or organization should harm the interests of society and future generations for immediate or partial interests.

Following the instruction, the company halted quarrying at Wanshouyan and, with coordination and support from local authorities, selected a new mining site elsewhere. The Paleolithic cave site was preserved.

Experts said the Wanshouyan case demonstrates that heritage protection is not only a cultural issue, but also a test of governance performance. Although protecting cultural relics may not yield visible results quickly, it preserves public value that benefits the people over the long run.

The question has gained renewed relevance this year, as the Communist Party of China has launched a Party-wide educational campaign on upholding and acting on the correct view of performance.

In March 2018, when joining a panel discussion with deputies from Shandong province at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, Xi, who is Chinese president and general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized the need for officials to achieve both visible accomplishments and underlying progress.

He said the notion of not claiming credit for one's own success does not mean passivity or inaction. Rather, he said, it requires officials to firmly establish a correct view of governance performance, carry out practical work that delivers visible and tangible benefits to the people, and lay foundations and create conditions that will also benefit future generations.

At the 2025 Central Economic Work Conference, which was held on Dec 10 and 11, Xi further elaborated on governance performance, saying that it is reflected not only in promoting development, but also in improving people's livelihoods and maintaining stability; not only in visible achievements that produce immediate results, but also in underlying contributions that lay foundations, build momentum and serve long-term interests; and not only in solving current problems, but also in addressing issues left over from the past.

For Nur Rachmat Yuliantoro, a professor of international relations at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, that distinction between short-term outcomes and long-term value is closely tied to how development has been understood over time.

"Development is essentially about building a more prosperous future," he said. "In this context, integrating short-term development outcomes with long-term goals is both natural and necessary."

Preserving cultural heritage is one example of such long-term thinking, he said, as it helps maintain historical memory, identity and cultural awareness, while also fostering social cohesion, developing tourism and facilitating the transfer of values and knowledge between generations.

"Good governance is measured not only by the benefits provided today but also by whether its policies will make people more prosperous in the years to come," he added.

Leszek Slazyk, founder and editor-in-chief of Poland's chiny24 website, said that the balance between visible achievements and underlying contributions is "not a trade-off between 'doing things people can see' and 'doing things people cannot see'".

"It is a question of time horizon and public value," he said.

Visible results matter because people judge governance by concrete improvements in jobs, schools, healthcare, housing, safety, public services and local environments, Slazyk said. But a fixation on quick and measurable results can carry risks, including wasteful projects, debt burdens, ecological damage and policy discontinuity, he said.

Long-term groundwork, by contrast, tests whether governance can "respect objective laws, maintain policy consistency, and leave assets rather than liabilities to the future", he added.

Slazyk said China's effort to promote a correct view of governance performance can help guide what officials value and pursue, while countering short-termism and distorted incentives.

Deng Yang, a lecturer at the Central School of the Communist Youth League of China, said that underlying contributions are not achievements without results, but work whose value is less visible in the short term while playing a foundational role in long-term development.

In practice, Deng said, the tendency to value visible achievements over underlying contributions can arise because some officials are more likely to focus on projects that are easier to display, quicker to complete and simpler to quantify, while giving insufficient attention to foundational work that determines long-term development.

Basic research is one example, Deng said. It may take more than a decade for an original theory to lead to a technological breakthrough and eventually be transformed into real productive forces, but such work is essential to a country's long-term innovation capacity.

Environmental governance follows a similar logic, he said. The effects of afforestation, watershed management and ecological restoration may not be immediately visible, but missing the right window for action can greatly increase future costs.

For underlying contributions to receive due weight, performance evaluation should include process-based indicators rather than focusing only on immediate output, Deng said.