The Basic Policy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era

The 19th CPC National Congress made a major political judgment that socialism with Chinese characteristics had entered a new era. With regards to the what socialism with Chinese characteristics we should uphold and develop and how we do it in the new era, the 19th CPC National Congress proposed the corresponding basic strategy. The connotation of the basic strategy of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era includes the following 14 aspects.

(1) We should uphold the Party’s leadership over all work. The Party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country. We must strengthen our consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment. We must work harder to uphold the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and closely follow the Central Committee in terms of our thinking, political orientation, and actions, so that the Party always takes the overall situation and coordinates all parties.

(2) We should be committed to a people-centered approach. We must ensure the principal status of the people, and adhere to the Party’s commitment to serving the public good and exercising power in the interests of the people. We must observe the Party’s fundamental purpose of wholeheartedly serving the people.

(3) We should continue to comprehensively deepen reform. We must uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, continue to modernize China’s system and capacity for governance, and do full justice to the strengths of China’s socialist system.

(4) We should adopt a new vision for development. We must pursue with firmness of purpose the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, and open development that is for everyone. We must uphold and improve China’s basic socialist economic system and socialist distribution system. There must be no irresolution about working to consolidate and develop the public sector and make state-owned enterprises stronger, bigger and better; and there must be no irresolution about working to encourage, support, and guide the development of the non-public sector. We must see that the market plays the decisive role in resource allocation and that the government plays its role better, and continue to increase China’s economic power and composite strength.

(5) We should see that the people run the country. We must keep to the path of socialist political advancement with Chinese characteristics; uphold and improve the system of people’s congresses, the system of CPC-led multiParty cooperation and political consultation, the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of community-level self-governance; and consolidate and develop the broadest possible patriotic united front. We should develop socialist consultative democracy.

(6) We should ensure every dimension of governance is law-based. We must exercise Party leadership at every point in the process and over every dimension of law-based governance, and be fully committed to promoting socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. We must improve the Chinese socialist system of laws, establish a Chinese system of socialist rule of law, build a socialist country based on the rule of law, and develop Chinese socialist rule of law theory.

(7) We should uphold socialist core values. We must uphold Marxism, firm up and further build the ideal of Communism and a shared ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and nurture and practice socialist core values, while making continued and greater efforts to maintain the initiative and ensure we have our say in the realm of ideology.

(8) We should ensure and improve living standards through development. We must do more to improve the lives and address the concerns of the people, and use development to strengthen areas of weakness and promote social fairness and justice. We should continue to promote well-rounded human development and common prosperity for everyone.

(9) We should ensure harmony between human and nature. We should implement our fundamental national policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment, pursue a model of civilized development featuring increased production, higher living standards, and healthy ecosystems, and build a beautiful China.

(10) We should pursue a holistic approach to national security. We must put national interests first, improve our systems and institutions and enhance capacity-building for national security, and resolutely safeguard China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.

(11) We should uphold absolute Party leadership over the people’s armed forces. We must fully implement the fundamental principles and systems of Party leadership over the military, and see that Party strategy on strengthening military capabilities for the new era guides work to build national defense and the armed forces. We must continue to enhance the political loyalty of the armed forces, strengthen them through reform and technology, and run them in accordance with law.

(12) We should uphold the principle of “one country, two systems” and promote national reunification. We must uphold the one-China principle and ensure that the principle of “one country, two systems” remains unchanged, is unwaveringly upheld, and in practice is not bent or distorted.

(13) We should promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. We should stay on the path of peaceful development, and continue to pursue a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. China will continue its efforts to safeguard world peace, contribute to global development, and uphold international order.

(14) We should exercise full and rigorous governance over the Party. We must uphold the Party Constitution as our fundamental rules, give top priority to the political work of the Party, combine efforts on ideological work and institution building, and strengthen Party competence in all respects. We will continue to strengthen the Party’s ability to purify, improve, and reform itself.

The above 14 points form the basic policy that underpins our endeavors to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. It is a significant part of the thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. It includes the basic content of the Party’s basic program, experience and requirements proposed before the 19th CPC National Congress. After that, the Party’s “five basics” (basic theory, line, program, experience and requirements) were simplified into “three basics” (basic theory, line and strategy). The report of the 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that “the comrades of the whole Party must fully implement the Party’s basic theory, line and strategy, and better lead the development of the Party’s and the people’s cause”.