To Persist in and Develop the Basic Requirement of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

It was proposed at the 18th CPC National Congress in November, 2012. The main content can be summarized as “eight musts”, that is, we must adhere to the position of the people as the masters of their own destiny, liberating and developing the productive forces, promoting Reform and Opening-up, maintaining social fairness and justice, the road of common prosperity, promoting social harmony, peaceful development, and the leadership of the Party.

The specific requirements are as follows. We should mobilize and organize, as widely as possible, the people to manage state affairs and economic and cultural undertakings according to law, and to actively participate in socialist modernization, better protect people’s rights and interests, and better ensure that people are the masters of the country. We should take economic construction as the center and scientific development as the theme, comprehensively promote economic, political, cultural and ecological civilization construction, and realize people-oriented, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable scientific development. We should always implement the spirit of reform and innovation in all aspects of country governance, adhere to the reform direction of the socialist market economy and the basic national policy of opening to the outside world, constantly promote theoretical, institutional, scientific and technological, and cultural innovation and other aspects, and facilitate the self-improvement and development of China’s socialist system. In a common effort of all the people and on the basis of the economic and social development, we should step up the construction of a system that plays an important role in safeguarding social fairness and justice, gradually establish a social fairness guarantee system with fair rights, opportunities and rules as the main contents, strive to create a fair social environment, and ensure the people’s equal participation and development rights. We should adhere to the socialist basic economic system and distribution system, adjust the national income distribution pattern, increase the intensity of redistribution and adjustment, and give top priority to the solution of large income distribution gap, so that the development results will benefit all the people to a larger extent and in a more fair way, and our society can move steadily toward common prosperity. We must put safeguarding and improving people’s livelihood in a more prominent position, strengthen and innovate social management, correctly handle the relationship between reform, development and stability, unite all forces that can be united, maximize harmony factors, enhance the vitality of social creation, and ensure that people live and work in peace and contentment, the society is stable and orderly, and the country enjoys enduring peace and stability. We must, on the one hand, develop ourselves in an open, cooperative and win-win way by striving for a peaceful international environment, and on the other hand, maintain and promote world peace, expand the convergence of interests with all parties, and promote the building of a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity through our own development. We must adhere to the Party’s commitment to serving the public good and exercising power in the interests of the people, strengthen and improve the Party’s leadership, adhere to the core of the Party in taking the overall situation and coordinating all parties, maintain the Party’s advanced nature and purity, enhance the Party’s creativity, cohesion and combat effectiveness, and improve the Party’s scientific, democratic and legal governance.