In December 2020, when the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee convened its annual meeting of criticism and self-criticism, a report was placed on the desks of senior Party leaders for review.

The report focused on work to continuously fight pointless formalities and ease burdens on grassroots officials and organizations.

Over the past year, a series of measures were put in place to tackle the problem of "formalities for formalities' sake" and help ease burdens at local levels.

The efforts were led by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core.

Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has repeatedly warned against bureaucratism and the practice of formalities for formalities' sake.

In February 2020, when China was locked in a fierce battle with COVID-19, Xi criticized pointless formalities in epidemic response found at some local places, such as various departments asking community workers to fill same kind of forms repeatedly.

Efforts must be made to ensure grassroots officials are able to focus their energies on frontline epidemic prevention and control, Xi said.

Enabling officials to do real work rather than going through trivial motions had become a theme at various levels of the Party and government over the past year.

By November 2020, the number of documents issued by the CPC Central Committee or the General Office of the CPC Central Committee had dropped by 33.7 percent year on year.

Over the same period of time, the number of documents from central or state-level organs had decreased by 14.3 percent, and the number of their meetings down by 59.7 percent.

Over 85 percent of officials polled in a survey last year said the burdens brought about by formalities for formalities' sake had been eased.

In 2020, the Party's disciplinary watchdog dealt with over 580 cases involving the imposition of heavy burdens on grassroots employees through excessive meetings, inspections and appraisals.

Over the past year, more video and telephone meetings have replaced on-site meetings. The changes, partly due to epidemic control requirements, helped grassroots officials save time by reducing their numbers of meetings.

The work to ease unnecessary burdens on grassroots officials will continue in 2021 with mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress and expose violation cases.

For the years ahead, a development blueprint drawn by Party leadership for the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) and through the year 2035 has underscored the need to continue correcting the practices of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism.

Such efforts are expected to encourage officials to work in a more practical manner and create a more favorable environment for their work, ensuring a good start for fully building a modern socialist country.