Translated by Claude, edited by Sinocism.com
Source issue page (table of contents): https://www.qstheory.cn/20260815/f8cf5edf124a440784d4de6a5d308628/c.html
Publication: Qiushi (求是), 2026 Issue 16 | Date: August 16, 2026
This issue leads with Xi Jinping's April 28 Politburo study-session speech on disaster prevention, and pairs it with a five-article cluster on disaster governance — an unusually heavy thematic package that reads as a response to a bad flood-and-typhoon season and to the framing of "climate security" as a modernization-era security proposition. The rest of the issue runs to type for a mid-year number: a Jiang Zemin centenary piece that mostly uses the late leader to reinforce the "Two Establishments," a diplomacy essay canonizing the "Four Global Initiatives" off the new Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Diplomacy, an economics bloc built around the July 30 Politburo meeting's "strong supply, weak demand" diagnosis (a commentator piece, a services-consumption interview, and a steel-industry field study), plus set-pieces on AI "tokens," the Chinese national community, traditional statecraft, and a notably candid outside-in look at Germany's malaise.
Eleven articles have been translated in full and added to the Translations database as separate pages; each is linked below its summary. The first item, This Issue's Guide, is given as a full translation in place of a summary.
Original: 本期导读 | Author: Qiushi (editorial front-matter)
URL: https://www.qstheory.cn/20260815/4c47dd65dcc5420ba1bbbe30f821cf2b/c.html
Full translation (bilingual): This Issue's Guide
This issue publishes General Secretary Xi Jinping's important article "Raising the Capacity for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Relief." This is a speech Xi Jinping delivered on April 28, 2026 at the 25th collective study session of the 20th Central Politburo. The article systematically sums up the achievements of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief work in the new era and the valuable experience of the "Seven Adherences," scientifically analyzes the situation and problems currently faced, expounds the extreme importance of doing this work well, and gives priority arrangements to five areas of work tasks. Through in-depth study, we must deepen our understanding of the regular patterns embodied in the "Seven Adherences," comprehensively implement all arrangements for this work, raise the capacity to guard against all kinds of natural disasters, and safeguard the people's lives and property and social stability.
Centered on studying this article, the issue carries an accompanying article by the journal's editorial department on building a solid barrier for disaster governance; an article by the CPC Committee of the Ministry of Emergency Management on implementing key disaster-prevention tasks; Chen Zhenlin on accelerating the capacity to respond to climate change and extreme weather; and Ma Baocheng on valuing and strengthening prevention and preparedness. Fu Xiaoqiang's article, drawing on Volumes One and Two of the Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Diplomacy, expounds the Four Global Initiatives. On the 100th anniversary of Jiang Zemin's birth, an article by the Institute of Party History and Literature commemorates him. A commentator article, studying the July 30 Politburo meeting, addresses expanding domestic demand through high-quality supply under "strong supply, weak demand" conditions. The "In-Depth Research" column carries a joint research group's study of how the steel industry, a traditional industry, should transform and upgrade. The "Cultural China" column carries Zhong Zhe on the governance thought of "the people as the foundation of the state" and "governing with virtue" — the final installment in the series on the ten important elements of fine traditional Chinese culture.
Original: 提高防灾减灾救灾能力 | Author: Xi Jinping (习近平)
URL: https://www.qstheory.cn/20260815/2927c3292ea046d89efd4b51ee110b1f/c.html
Full translation (bilingual): Raising the Capacity for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Relief
The issue's lead text is Xi's April 28 speech to the Politburo's 25th collective study session, and it is the doctrinal anchor for the whole disaster cluster. Xi codifies a "Seven Adherences" formula (Party leadership; people and life first; respect for natural laws; prevention first; reform and innovation; a systems approach; social co-governance) and warns, in unusually concrete terms, that warming has made rainstorms, floods, typhoons and drought more frequent and destructive, that the threat of major earthquakes is rising, and that new hazards — glacial-lake outburst floods, seawater intrusion — and "coupled" cascading disasters are appearing. The operative instruction is a shift "toward advance prevention": run resilience requirements through territorial planning, raise fortification standards for key infrastructure, build dual-use "peacetime-and-emergency" facilities, and make up northern flood-drainage shortfalls. Xi also wants better big-disaster response under the "big safety, big emergency" command framework, faster warnings, more S&T (AI, remote sensing, drones), and a stronger legal base. The politically notable passages are the demand for a "correct view of performance" that corrects "valuing development over safety and relief over prevention," and the framing of disaster response as a demonstration of "the superiority of the socialist system" — a reminder that competent disaster management is treated as a regime-legitimacy metric, not merely an administrative task.