Zhang well understands the pain and hardship of the general public due to his many years of working in grassroots organizations, and he has a profound affection for the general public. When he served as vice minister of civil affairs, he often went to different areas in the country to oversee disaster relief and poverty alleviation work and do good deeds for the public. He has said civil affairs work is an important component of the social management system and doing a good job in this regard can help create a stable and unified social environment for reform and opening up.

When he worked at the State Council, he actively pushed for building a new-type rural pension system and a pension system for urban residents. As of now, the systems cover almost all parts of China.

While working in Guangdong, he once said that projects should be blocked if project managers failed to get required permits for land appropriation, or failed to make compensation agreements with farmers who would lose the land, or failed to put the compensation payments in the hands of the farmers. Zhang's order won wide praise among the public. Media reports said behind Zhang's tough instruction was the idea of governing for the people, the awareness of administration based on law and on an open and transparent administrative style.

Zhang also worked as chairman of the Standing Committee of the Jilin Provincial People's Congress, the local legislative body, and has always attached great importance to legislative work. He once said, "The socialist economy is an economy under the rule of law. Likewise, the socialist harmonious society must be a society under the rule of law."

When he served as Party secretary of Guangdong, Zhang said that Guangdong, as the pioneer of reform and opening up, must take the national lead not only in economic development but also in pushing for the building of a law-based province and a civilized, law-based social environment.

Zhang is married to Xin Shusen, a senior economist and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. They have a daughter.

(Xinhua News Agency December 24, 2012)