Build a Moderately Prospeous Society in All Respects

The components of the four-pronged comprehensive strategy. The report of the 18th CPC National Congress proposed for the first time to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. “A well-off society (Moderately Prosperous Society) ” is a strategic concept put forward by Deng Xiaoping when he was planning the blueprint for China's economic and social development at the initial stage of Reform and Opening-up. It is a stage of social development in which the social productive forces continue to develop, the per capita GNP and people's living standards continue to improve, and the country's comprehensive national strength, especially its economic strength, is significantly enhanced. The word “well-off” (Xiaokang) comes from the Book of Rites, an ancient Chinese classic. It is a social ideal described by ancient thinkers, and it also shows the pursuit of an ideal life of affluence and abundance by ordinary people.

During a meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi on December 6, 1979, Deng Xiaoping proposed that China's modernization should achieve a well-off state. When Deng Xiaoping met with Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro on March 25, 1984, he said: “Quadrupling the per capita GNP to US $800 will mean building a well-off society in China by the end of this century.”

This well-off society is called Chinese-style modernization. Quadrupling, a well-off society and Chinese-style modernization are all our new concepts. Deng Xiaoping not only described the development blueprint but also conceived a cross-century development strategy for building a well-off society, that is, the “three-step” development strategy. Entering a well-off society is a process of development in different fields and regions and in chronological order. When we enter the 21st century, we have just stepped into the early stage of a well-off society, which is featured with a low-level, incomplete and unbalanced development. In 1997, the report of the 15th CPC National Congress put forward the new historical task of “building a well-off society”. In 2002, the 16th CPC National Congress put forward the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way in 2020: in the first 20 years of this century, we should concentrate our efforts on building a higher-level well-off society that benefits more than a billion people in an all-round way, so that the economy will be more developed, democracy will be more sound, science and education will be more advanced, culture will be more prosperous, society will be more harmonious, and people's lives will be more affluent.

Building a well-off society in an all-round way is a necessary development stage for our country to realize the third-step strategic goal of modernization, and also a key stage for perfecting the socialist market economic system and opening wider to the outside world. Based on the reality of China's economic and social development, the new stage characteristics, and the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way established by the 16th and 17th CPC National Congress, the report of the 18th CPC National Congress put forward new requirements with a clearer policy guidance that are more aimed at development problems, in order to ensure that the building of a well-off society in an all-round way will be finished by 2020.

This is a well-off society in which the development and reform achievements really benefit more than one billion people and the economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization develop in an all-round way. It has laid a solid foundation for realizing the grand goal of socialist modernization and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The 5th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee examined and approved “Proposals of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development”, emphasizing that the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan period is the decisive stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is necessary to adhere to the strategy of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, comprehensively deepening reforms, comprehensively advancing law-based governance, and exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party, adhere to development as the top priority, and focus on improving the development quality and efficiency. We will speed up the formation of a system, mechanism and mode of development that will lead the new normal of economic development, maintain strategic concentration, persist in seeking progress in the midst of stability, and make overall efforts to promote economic, political, cultural, social, ecological civilization, and Party building, ensure that a moderately prosperous society will be built in all respects as scheduled, and lay a more solid foundation for Chinese Dream, who has achieved the goal of the second century goal and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects plays an overall role in the “four-pronged comprehensive”. Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is our strategic goal, and comprehensively deepening reform, comprehensively law-based governance and exercising full and rigorous governance over the Party are the three major strategic measures.