28 Years at Grassroots: Party Building Drives Rural Common Prosperity

Summary

Zhong Baijun, Party secretary and village committee director of Xijidang Village in Jiangsu province, has spent 28 years working at the grassroots since returning to his hometown in 1998. A delegate to the 19th and 20th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, Zhong has led village officials in developing a nylon pellet processing industry using waste fishing nets. The village has invested 120 million yuan to build a circular economy industrial park, and in 2025 its total industrial output reached 2.5 billion yuan, with collective operating income of nearly 15 million yuan and employment for more than 1,600 people.

Xijidang has adopted a model combining the Party branch, industrial chain and leading enterprises, and has set up a '1+4' Party building joint mechanism with four surrounding villages, shifting from one village's prosperity to regional common prosperity. In 2026, the village Party committee was named a National Advanced Grassroots Party Organisation. 'We must put the people's affairs first; that is the driving force for our work and entrepreneurship,' Zhong said.

Commentary

China's recycling of waste fishing nets into nylon pellets is a fast-growing segment of the recycled plastics industry. Xijidang Village, with annual output of 2.5 billion yuan, uses the '1+4' joint development model to integrate surrounding villages and form a standardised circular economy industrial park. As one of the world's largest recyclers of waste plastics, China's policy support for such parks could increase domestic supply of recycled nylon, reduce reliance on imported recycled materials, and in turn affect nylon chip prices in the Asia-Pacific region.

For New Zealand small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), sourcing recycled nylon from China for fishing gear, ropes or auto parts could improve supply stability, but they need to assess the cost of aligning China's traceability standards for recycled materials with local environmental certifications. Meanwhile, New Zealand's fishing industry generates a large volume of waste fishing nets each year, and China's mature recycling and processing system offers opportunities for technology cooperation or equipment imports, rather than just raw material procurement. Expanding domestic capacity for recycled pellets could lower material prices, benefiting downstream manufacturers, but would intensify competitive pressure on exporters of recycled materials from other regions.

Keywords: Zhong Baijun, Xijidang Village, Party building leadership, rural revitalisation, common prosperity, nylon pellet processing, circular economy industrial park, grassroots governance, National Advanced Grassroots Party Organisation, village collective income

Source: Xinhuanet