Properly Handling the Relationship Between Top-level Design and "Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones"

The relationship between top-level design and "crossing the river by feeling for the stones" (feeling the way proceeding by careful and limited experimentation – "feeling the way" so to speak) is one of the major relationships that must be handled well in the course of comprehensively expanding the in-depth reform that Xi Jinping has called for. 

"Feeling the way" is a method of reform which is appropriate to China's conditions and which is characteristically Chinese, because there are no precedents for China's reform and no readymade experiences to draw upon. It is therefore necessary to go step by step, feeling the way a little at a time. 

However, the further that reform and opening up proceed advance, the more they will encounter difficult problems there will be to tackle, so even as we continue to feel our way, there must also be good top-level design. The latter focuses on strategic issues and the big picture; it emphasizes the need to be systematic, and its work is centered on institutional development. 

There is a dialectical unity between top-level design and feeling the way. It will be hard for reform to continue if it is fragmented, while without feeling the way during reform, top-level design cannot be firmly grounded or amended.

處理好頂層設計和摸著石頭過河的關系

頂層設計和摸著石頭過河的關系，是習近平提出的全面深化改革需要把握的重大關系之一。摸著石頭過河，是符合中國國情、富有中國特色的改革方法，因為中國的改革開放沒有先例，沒有現成經驗可以借鑒，需要走一步看一步，一點一點摸索。然而，改革開放愈向前推進，需要攻克的難題就愈多，需要在繼續堅持摸著石頭過河的同時搞好頂層設計。頂層設計關注的是全局性、戰略性的事項，強調的是系統性，著力點在制度建設。頂層設計和摸著石頭過河是辯證統一的。不告別碎片化的改革，改革難以為繼；沒有在改革征程中的摸著石頭過河，頂層設計也無法落地或得到修正。