VIII. Accelerating Social Development with the Focus on Improving People's Livelihood

Social development is closely related to the people's well-being. More importance must therefore be attached to social development on the basis of economic growth to ensure and improve people's livelihood, carry out social restructuring, expand public services, improve social management and promote social equity and justice. We must do our best to ensure that all our people enjoy their rights to education, employment, medical and old-age care, and housing, so as to build a harmonious society.

1. Give priority to education and turn China into a country rich in human resources. Education is the cornerstone of national rejuvenation, and equal access to education provides an important underpinning for social equity. We must implement the Party's educational policy to the letter, focus on educating students with top priority given to cultivating their moral integrity, improve their overall quality, modernize the educational system, and train socialist builders and successors who have all-round attainments in moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic education. All this is designed to run education to the satisfaction of the people. We will optimize the educational structure, promote balanced development of compulsory education, move faster toward universal access to senior secondary education, vigorously develop vocational education, and improve the quality of higher education. We will also attach importance to pre-school education and care about special education. We will update our views on education and deepen reform in curricula, modes of instruction, the systems of examination and enrollment, and the system for evaluating educational quality. We will ease the study load of primary and secondary school students and improve their overall quality. We will continue to run education on a nonprofit basis, increase government spending on education, regulate the collection of education-related fees, support the development of education in poverty-stricken and ethnic autonomous areas, improve the system of financial aid to students, and ensure that children from poor families and of rural migrant workers in cities enjoy equal access to compulsory education as other children. We will build up the ranks of teachers, with the emphasis on improving the quality of teachers in rural areas. We will encourage and regulate educational programs run by nongovernmental sectors. Distance learning and continuing education will be promoted to make ours a society in which every citizen is committed to learning and pursues lifelong learning.

2. Implement a development strategy that promotes job creation and encourage entrepreneurship to create more employment opportunities. Employment is vital to people's livelihood. We will continue to follow a proactive employment policy, strengthen government guidance, improve the market mechanism for employment, create more jobs and improve the employment structure. We will improve policies to encourage people to start businesses or find jobs on their own and promote a healthy attitude toward employment so that more people in the labor force will launch their own businesses. We will improve vocational education and training for the labor force and intensify pre-employment training for surplus labor transferred from rural areas. We will establish a unified, standardized labor market and a mechanism that ensures equal employment opportunities for both urban and rural residents. We will improve employment assistance to the needy and make it a priority to help zero-employment families to have job opportunities. We will do our best to help college graduates find jobs. We will regulate and coordinate labor relations, improve and implement government policies concerning rural migrant workers in cities, and protect the rights and interests of every worker in accordance with the law.

3. Deepen reform of the income distribution system and increase the income of urban and rural residents. Equitable income distribution is an important indication of social equity. We will adhere to and improve the system whereby distribution according to work remains the predominant mode and coexists with various other modes. We will improve the distribution system to allow factors of production such as labor, capital, technology and managerial expertise to have a rightful share according to their respective contribution. A proper balance will be struck between efficiency and equity in both primary distribution and redistribution, with particular emphasis on equity in redistribution. We will gradually increase the share of personal income in the distribution of national income, and raise that of work remuneration in primary distribution. Vigorous efforts will be made to raise the income of low-income groups, gradually increase poverty-alleviation aid and the minimum wage, and set up a mechanism of regular pay increases for enterprise employees and a mechanism for guaranteeing payment of their salaries. Conditions will be created to enable more citizens to have property income. We will protect lawful incomes, regulate excessively high incomes and ban illegal gains. We will increase transfer payments, intensify the regulation of incomes through taxation, break business monopolies, create equal opportunities, and overhaul income distribution practices with a view to gradually reversing the growing income disparity.

4. Accelerate the establishment of a social security system covering both urban and rural residents and guarantee their basic living conditions. Social security is an important guarantee of social stability. We will step up the building of a sound social security system that is based on social insurance, assistance and welfare, with basic old-age pension, basic medical care and subsistence allowances as its backbone, and supplemented by charity and commercial insurance. We will promote reform of basic old-age insurance systems in enterprises, Party and government organs and public institutions and explore ways to set up an old-age insurance system in rural areas. We will promote the development of basic medical insurance systems for urban workers and residents and a new type of cooperative medical care system in rural areas. We will improve the system of subsistence allowances for both urban and rural residents and gradually increase such allowances. We will improve the systems of unemployment, workers' compensation and maternity insurances. We will upgrade management of social security funds to higher-level authorities and work out unified methods for transferring social security accounts nationwide. We will provide more social security funds through various means and strengthen their oversight and management to maintain and increase their value. We will improve social assistance. We will do a good job providing special assistance to families of martyrs and servicemen and helping demobilized military personnel return to civilian life. We will promote programs for the disabled in a humanitarian spirit. We will develop more programs for the elderly. We will intensify our efforts in disaster prevention and reduction. We will improve the low-rent housing system and speed up resolution of the housing difficulties of low-income families in urban areas.

5. Establish a basic medical and health care system and improve the health of the whole nation. Health provides the foundation for people's all-round development and has a direct bearing on the happiness of each family. We must maintain the public welfare nature of public medical and health care services, always put disease prevention first, center on rural areas and attach equal importance to traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. We will separate government administration from medical institutions, management from operation, medical care from pharmaceuticals, and for-profit from nonprofit operations. We will increase government responsibilities and spending, improve the national health policy, and encourage greater participation of nongovernmental sectors so as to develop systems of public health services, medical services, medical security and medicine supply to provide both urban and rural residents with safe, effective, convenient and affordable medical and health services. We will improve the system to prevent and control the outbreak of major diseases and enhance our capacity to respond to public health emergencies. We will improve the three-tier rural health care network spanning the county, township and village and the urban community-based health care system, and deepen reform of public hospitals. We will set up a national system for basic pharmaceuticals to ensure their supply. We will support the development of traditional Chinese medicine and the folk medicines of ethnic minorities. We will work harder to improve the professional ethics and style of work of health workers and the quality of medical services. We must ensure food and drug safety. We will adhere to the basic state policy of family planning, keep the birthrate low and make the newborns healthier. We will launch patriotic sanitation campaigns and develop health care programs for women and children.

6. Improve social management and safeguard social stability and unity. Social stability is the common aspiration of the people and an important prerequisite for reform and development. We need to improve the structure of social management comprising Party committee leadership, government responsibility, nongovernmental support and public participation, and improve the system of social management at the primary level. We will stimulate the creativity of society to the greatest extent, maximize factors conducive to harmony and minimize those detrimental to it. We will properly handle contradictions among the people, improve the system for handling complaints in the form of letters and visits from the public, and strengthen the mechanism for safeguarding the rights and interests of the people in which the Party and the government play the leading role. We will attach importance to the development and management of social organizations. We will improve services for and management of the floating population. We must ensure safe development by strengthening management and oversight of work safety and taking effective measures to prevent serious or exceptionally serious accidents. We will improve the mechanism of emergency management. We will improve the crime prevention and control system, maintain law and order through comprehensive measures, launch intensive campaigns to ensure public security, reform and step up community policing in both urban and rural areas, and prevent and crack down on crime in accordance with the law to protect people's lives and property. We will improve the strategy and mechanism for national security, and keep high vigilance against and resolutely forestall separatist, infiltrative and subversive activities in various forms to safeguard national security.

It requires joint efforts of the whole society to build a harmonious society. We must therefore rely firmly on the people and mobilize all positive factors to create a lively situation in which everyone is duty-bound to work for and benefits from social harmony.