Seven steps toward the Chinese dream

4. Work style reform

Di Zhenguo, a farmer in his late 70s in Longju, deep in the mountains of Hebei province, had long planned to get each of his children issued with their own hukuo, meaning that the households of each of his offspring would be independently registered.

But his plans were thwarted by his poor health, the distance he would have to travel, and the complicated and lengthy bureaucractic procedures that would be required when he got there.

That was the case until November, when Hebei province made sweeping reforms to its administrative approval processes.

The elderly farmer, who had previously feared that he would die before completing his plan, handed all the documents to officials who came to his home, and he received official approval for his plans on the very next day.

This is just one of a series of measures introduced in Hebei province since the Communist Party of China Central Committee launched the "Mass Line" campaign in April, which calls for an improvement in relations between the Party and the people.

President Xi Jinping said on June 18 that formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, which are known as the "four undesirable work styles" will undermine Party-people relations.

The top priority of the yearlong "Mass Line" campaign is to establish a new working style and undertake a "thorough cleanup" among officials at or above county level.

To further strengthen the rules and make the campaign more effective, the CPC Central Committee also launched a series of strict rules to prevent the abuse of public funds and regulate government management and officials' behavior.

The rules state that all the levels of government organs are prohibited from building new buildings within the next five years, while also curbing extravagance and the use of public money to satisfy personal interests.