——Speech at the 17th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 12th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering

■Interpretation

More than 100 years ago, the poet Gong Zizhen felt the weakness and decay of the Qing court, and the country's internal and external troubles, and issued a call of "I advise the heavenly prince to be vigorous and reduce talents without sticking to one pattern", which is admirable. Comrade Xi Jinping quoted this poem to raise the question of how to select talents. "After the political line is decided, the cadres are the decisive factor." How can we create a good situation in which vitality bursts forth and people make the best use of their talents? Comrade Xi Jinping emphasized, "To select good cadres, we need a scientific and effective mechanism for selecting and employing people. The key to this is to "reduce talents without sticking to one pattern" and prevent thousands of horses from falling together. In many localities or units, it is better to speak well than to do a good job, to do a good job is not as good as to sing a good job, and to do a good job is not as good as to seek people, and as a result, the phenomenon of "reverse elimination" of talented people has emerged, which has hindered outstanding cadres from coming to the fore. Only by breaking down the institutional barriers to the flow of talents, and breaking the ranking of people based on votes and seniority, can we truly cherish and care for talents, fully trust talents and let go of talents; Firmly establish the concept that human resources are the first resource, and establish an open and flexible talent flow mechanism, so that talents can stand out and be reused, and establish the correct orientation of "using a sage to achieve the best of the best".

■Original text

Kyushu is angry and thunderous,

It's sad to hear from all the horses.

I advise the Lord of Heaven to shake up,

Eclectic talent reduction.

——(Qing) Gong Zizhen "Jihai Miscellaneous Poems"

■Definition

"Jihai Miscellaneous Poems" is a group of poems written by Gong Zizhen, a famous thinker and poet in the middle and late Qing Dynasty. In the nineteenth year of Daoguang (1839), the 48-year-old poet resigned and returned to the south because of his disgust with the official career, and then went north to meet his family, and wrote a total of 315 poems of "Jihai Miscellaneous Poems" on the way back and forth between the north and south, and this poem is the 220th.

The first two lines of the poem use metaphors to express the poet's frustration about the current situation. "Ten Thousand Horses Together" is a metaphor for the sad reality that under the decadent and cruel feudal rule, people's minds are imprisoned, their talents are stifled, and the government and the opposition are silent. The author uses "wind and thunder" as a metaphor for emerging social forces, and points out that only drastic social changes can arouse the vitality of the Chinese land. The last two sentences "I advise the heavenly prince to be vigorous and reduce talents without sticking to one pattern" are the most popular and are famous sentences. At that time, on the eve of the Opium War, in the face of the crisis, the poet advocated the implementation of reform at home and the defense against aggression abroad, and in view of the suppressed situation of talents, he issued a cry of "reducing talents without sticking to one pattern", expressing his deep concern for the future of the country and the nation and his strong desire to change society.