Zheng Gongcheng: Ensuring the Achievements of Reform and Development Benefit All People More Extensively and Fairly
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The fundamental purpose of our Party in promoting the comprehensive deepening of reform is to promote social fairness and justice and to let the fruits of reform and development benefit all people more extensively and fairly." Enhancing the well-being of the people, promoting the well-rounded development of the individual, and advancing steadily toward common prosperity are the starting point and the ultimate goal of economic development. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee [1] will focus on researching issues related to further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese-path modernization. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on April 30 pointed out that continuing to push reform forward "is an inevitable requirement for adhering to the people-centered approach and letting the fruits of modernization benefit all people more extensively and fairly." In the New Era, comprehensively deepening reform has continuously improved the living standards of the masses, while their sense of gain, happiness, and security [2] has been continuously strengthened. This fully proves that only by continuing to push reform forward can the people-centered approach be reflected in every link of economic and social development, allowing the fruits of modernization to benefit all people more extensively and fairly.
Comprehensively Deepening Reform Always Adheres to a People-Centered Approach
As socialism with Chinese characteristics entered the New Era, the people’s aspiration for a better life became stronger. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core emphasizes that the people's aspiration for a better life is our goal, enhancing people's well-being is the essential requirement of our commitment to serving the public and governing for the people, and letting the common people lead a good life is the starting point and ultimate goal of all our work. This clarifies that comprehensively deepening reform must adhere to a people-centered value orientation. The great practice since the New Era also fully demonstrates that only by comprehensively deepening reform can we better adhere to the people-centered approach.
Adherence to a people-centered value orientation is necessary because reform and opening up is the cause of hundreds of millions of people. On the one hand, reform only has meaning if it is for the people. This is the logical starting point and the teleological value of comprehensively deepening reform. Our focus on grasping reform and promoting development is, in the final analysis, to let the people lead better lives and receive more tangible benefits. As the people's demands for democracy, the rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment grow daily, we must persist in reforming for the people. By focusing on and advancing what the people care about and expect, we can ensure they truly feel the profound changes brought by reform and development, allowing these fruits to benefit all people more extensively and fairly. On the other hand, reform only has momentum if it relies on the people. Practice has proven that only by relying on the people for reform and being adept at refining policies and proposals based on the people's practical creations and developmental requirements will the masses sincerely support and actively participate in reform, thereby continuously consolidating the mass base of reform.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has focused on solving the most immediate and practical interest issues of the masses. A series of major measures have been launched in areas such as income distribution, employment, education, social security, medical and health care, and housing security, effectively implementing the people-centered development philosophy through comprehensively deepening reform. For example, in the field of employment, efforts have centered on promoting high-quality full employment by continuously improving employment promotion mechanisms and support systems for key groups. In education, the construction of a high-quality education system has been accelerated by coordinating the integrated reform and development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas within counties, enhancing the adaptability of vocational and technical education, and improving the quality of higher education. In social security, the construction of the social security system has entered the "fast lane" [3], basically completing a functional social security system with social insurance as the mainstay, including social assistance, social welfare, and social preferential treatment. In the health sector, protecting people's health has been placed in a strategic position for prioritized development, with continuous improvements to health promotion policies and the comprehensive advancement of the Healthy China initiative. These reform measures are all responses to the people’s expectations for better education, more stable jobs, more satisfactory incomes, more reliable social security, higher-quality medical services, more comfortable living conditions, a more beautiful environment, and a richer spiritual and cultural life. They are a vivid manifestation of adhering to the people-centered approach.
Comprehensively Deepening Reform Allows Modernization Fruits to Benefit All People More Extensively and Fairly
Since the New Era, driven by comprehensively deepening reform, we have achieved everything from the historic resolution of absolute poverty—creating a miracle in the history of human poverty reduction—to the establishment of the world's largest systems for education, social security, and medical health. We have also built the world's largest networks of high-speed railways, expressways, postal delivery, and 5G, benefiting hundreds of millions. The fruits of modernization are now benefiting all people more extensively and fairly.
Specifically, more than 11 million new urban jobs are created annually nationwide, and the employment situation for people in difficulty has significantly improved. We have built the world's largest higher education system, which has entered the stage of universalization; the "demographic dividend" is rapidly transforming into a "talent dividend." By the end of 2023, the number of people participating in basic endowment insurance [4] reached 1.066 billion, and the participation rate for basic medical insurance remained stable at over 95%. In 2022, the fund payment ratios for hospitalization expenses within the policy scope of basic medical insurance for employees and urban/rural residents reached over 80% and approximately 70% respectively, further expanding the scope of social security. Investment in subsidized housing has increased, and housing conditions for urban and rural residents have significantly improved. Average life expectancy has increased to 78.2 years. The consumption structure of residents has undergone profound changes; consumption of automobiles, information, tourism, and culture has become increasingly mainstream. In 2023, per capita service consumption expenditure rose to 45.2% of total per capita consumption expenditure. Furthermore, the spiritual and cultural lives of the masses have become more colorful, digital reading has become a new fashion, and the public cultural facility network covers both urban and rural areas. The gap between urban and rural spiritual and cultural lives has significantly narrowed, and the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security is more substantial, better guaranteed, and more sustainable. Anchored in the people’s aspiration for a better life, Chinese-path modernization strives to respond to the various demands and multi-level needs of the people through comprehensively deepening reform—aiming for material wealth, clean politics, spiritual richness, social stability, and an agreeable ecosystem—thereby highlighting the people-oriented nature of the direction of modernization.
At the same time, letting the fruits of modernization benefit all people more extensively and fairly provides sufficient momentum for advancing Chinese-path modernization through high-quality development. On the one hand, as the economic system undergoes profound transformation, the social structure changes deeply, the pattern of interests is adjusted, and ideological concepts shift, taking the promotion of social fairness, justice, and the enhancement of people's well-being as the starting point and goal of reform helps strengthen social stability and creates a favorable environment for high-quality development. On the other hand, continuously enhancing people's well-being, promoting well-rounded individual development, and advancing steadily toward common prosperity helps increase the income of urban and rural residents and elevate human capital, which in turn promotes total factor productivity and solidifies the dynamic foundation for high-quality development.
Pushing Reform Forward from the Perspective of the People's Collective, Fundamental, and Long-term Interests
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Chinese-path modernization is the common cause of all people; it is also a grand undertaking full of risks and challenges that requires arduous efforts. We must persist in the participation, construction, and enjoyment of all people, relying closely on the whole people to work together with one heart and shoulder the great task." As Chinese-path modernization continues to advance and expand, the people’s aspiration for a better life will become even stronger. Only by pushing reform forward from the perspective of the people's collective, fundamental, and long-term interests—continuously optimizing institutional arrangements in the process of further comprehensively deepening reform, and integrating the concerns of the common people such as employment, education, medical care, elderly care, childcare, housing, and the environment into the top-level design of national development—can the fruits of modernization benefit everyone more extensively and fairly and be transformed into the people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security.
We must adhere to the combination of goal-orientation and problem-orientation. The ultimate goal of modernization is to achieve the free and well-rounded development of the individual. We must persist in goal-orientation and the people-centered development philosophy, following the people’s expectations for a high quality of life. We must promote new progress in ensuring that young children are nurtured, students are taught, workers are rewarded, the sick are treated, the elderly are cared for, residents have housing, and the weak are supported [5], effectively promoting more obvious substantive progress in the well-rounded development of the individual and common prosperity for all. At the same time, we must recognize that the masses still face many puzzles in employment, education, medical care, childcare, elderly care, and housing. Compared to the people's needs for a better life and the requirements of Chinese-path modernization, the quality of our social welfare system still needs further improvement. We must adhere to problem-orientation, focusing closely on the most immediate and practical interest issues. We should take more measures that benefit and warm the hearts of the people, striving to solve their urgent, difficult, and anxious problems [6]. Simultaneously, we must optimize social security institutional arrangements, improve the basic public service system, and increase the level, balance, and accessibility of public services to improve people's lives in an all-round way.
Several important principles must be grasped. First, adhere to guaranteeing and improving people's livelihoods during the process of development. Advancing Chinese-path modernization cannot deviate from the fundamental purpose of enhancing well-being, nor can it pursue livelihood improvements in isolation from economic development. Instead, we must promote new achievements in livelihood improvement under the condition of continuously improving development quality, achieving a virtuous cycle between economic growth and social welfare. Second, do our best while acting within our means. Following the line of thought of "holding the bottom line, highlighting key areas, perfecting systems, and guiding expectations," we must lose no time in optimizing and improving various livelihood protection systems to provide clear and stable development expectations for the masses. Third, promote joint construction and shared benefits, and advocate for arduous struggle. Only by ensuring everyone participates and takes responsibility can we create more material and spiritual wealth for the continuous improvement of livelihoods. Fourth, ensure overall planning and coordinated advancement. All various systems should be placed within the broader social welfare system, considering their functional positioning to ensure effective synergy and maximize the comprehensive effects of livelihood development. Fifth, narrow gaps and promote fairness. Focus on continuously narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas and between regions to promote social fairness and justice.
Efforts should focus on improving systems and mechanisms. We must improve the income distribution system. Adhere to the principle of "to each according to their work" as the mainstay with multiple distribution modes coexisting; increase the proportion of labor remuneration in the primary distribution; and improve the policy system for distribution based on factors of production. We must give full play to the regulatory role of redistribution, increasing the intensity and precision of taxes, social security, and transfer payments. Give play to the "third distribution" [7] by guiding and supporting willing and capable enterprises and social groups to participate in public welfare and charity, while avoiding "forced donations" based on moral kidnapping. Accelerate the optimization of the social security system. Improve the national unified planning for basic endowment insurance and consolidate the provincial-level unified planning for unemployment and work-related injury insurance. Improve the basic elderly care service system, the child welfare system, and the layered and categorized social assistance system. Improve the multi-level social security system to "catch, accurately target, and hold firm" the bottom line of people's livelihoods. Improve the employment system. Strengthen the "employment-first" policy, break down institutional and policy barriers hindering the flow of labor and talent, promote fair employment, eliminate employment discrimination, and improve the protection system for workers' rights and interests. Improve the education system. Accelerate the equalization of national basic public services, build a high-quality and balanced basic public education service system, and promote education fairness. Improve the medical and health system. Deepen the reform of the medicine and healthcare system, promoting the coordinated development and governance of medical insurance, medical services, and pharmaceuticals.