Section 3: Adhere to comprehensive openness

2. the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform

Since the reform and opening up, the Communist Party of China has governed the country from a new perspective, attached great importance to system building, and emphasized that institutional issues are more fundamental, overall, stable and long-term. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, with great political courage and wisdom, put forward the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform with the overall goal of improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. This general goal responds to the objective requirements put forward by the forward expansion of the reform process, embodies the deepening and systematization of the party’s understanding of reform, and is a major breakthrough in the party’s theoretical innovation process.

A deep understanding and accurate grasp of the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform is the key to implementing various reform measures. In response to some people who only talk about the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, while ignoring “improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics”, Comrade Xi Jinping stressed that the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform is a whole composed of two sentences. The latter sentence stipulates a clear orientation for improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics under the guidance of the fundamental direction. Speaking both sentences is complete. To speak only the second sentence and not the first is incomplete and incomplete.“1

Improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics has laid down the fundamental direction for comprehensively deepening reform. Promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is an inevitable requirement for improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and it is also the proper meaning of adhering to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and building a modern and powerful socialist country.

The national governance system and governance capacity are the concentrated embodiment of a country’s system and system implementation ability. The national governance system is the institutional system for managing the country under the leadership of the party, and the national governance capacity is the ability to use the national system to manage all aspects of social affairs. The national governance system and governance capacity are an organic whole and complement each other, and only with a good national governance system can we improve governance capacity, and only by improving national governance capacity can we give full play to the effectiveness of the national governance system. Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out: “We have talked about many modernizations, including agricultural modernization, industrial modernization, scientific and technological modernization, national defense modernization, etc., and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is the first time.”1 The modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is the result of the Party’s continuous deepening of understanding of the laws governing the country in the practice of leading reform and opening up, and marks a major innovation and development of the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

From the perspective of historical development, how to govern a brand-new society such as a socialist society has not been well solved in the past practice of world socialism. In the process of leading China’s revolution and construction, the Communist Party of China has constantly considered and explored what kind of national governance system to establish in the future and achieved important results. Since the reform and opening up, more attention has been paid to institutional construction, a complete set of national governance systems has been basically formed, and governance capabilities have been continuously improved. On the whole, China’s national governance system and governance capacity have unique advantages and are adapted to national conditions and development requirements. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has coordinated the reform of systems and mechanisms in various fields such as economy, politics, culture, society, and ecological civilization, involving an unprecedented scope, introducing many plans, touching on the depth of interests, and promoting unprecedented intensity, improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and significantly improving the modernization level of the national governance system and governance capacity.

At the same time, we must also realize that compared with China’s economic and social development and the requirements of the people, compared with the increasingly fierce international competition in today’s world, and compared with the realization of long-term peace and stability of the country, we still have many areas for urgent improvement in the national governance system and governance capacity, and the system has not yet reached the requirements of full maturity and stereotype, and some aspects have even become an important factor restricting development and stability. Therefore, we must continuously improve the national governance system and improve the ability to use the system to effectively govern the country through comprehensive deepening reform. In February 2014, in a speech at the seminar for major leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels to study and implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee and comprehensively deepen reform, Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out: “Today, a major historical task before us is to promote the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to be more mature and more formalized, and to provide a complete set of more complete, stable and effective institutional systems for the development of the cause of the party and the country, for the happiness and well- being of the people, for social harmony and stability, and for the long-term peace and stability of the country.“1 From the point of view of becoming a more mature and stereotyped system, the main historical task of socialism in our country in the past was to establish a basic socialist system and carry out reform on this basis. The main historical task in the future is to improve and develop the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee held in October 2019 focused on the theme of “adhering to and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity”, starting from the strategic goals and major tasks established by the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, focusing on adhering to and consolidating the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, ensuring the long-term rule of the Party and the long-term peace and stability of the country, and focusing on improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. Comprehensively building a modern socialist country, focusing on giving full play to the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, comprehensively sums up the achievements, accumulated experience and principles formed by the party and the people in the construction of China’s national system and national governance, focuses on adhering to and improving the fundamental, basic and important systems that support the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and deploys major institutional reforms that need to be deepened and key tasks that need to be promoted. The plenary session not only pointed out the great significance and overall requirements for adhering to and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, but also summarized the significant advantages of China’s state system and national governance system from 13 aspects

It also made arrangements on how to uphold and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity from 13 aspects, including adhering to and improving the party’s leadership system. On the basis of the “two-step” strategic arrangement made by the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee further clarified that the adherence to and improvement of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, The overall goal of promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is to achieve obvious results in making all aspects of the system more mature and more stereotyped by the 100th anniversary of the founding of our party; by 2035, the system in all aspects will be more perfect, and the national governance system and governance capacity will be basically modernized; by the 100th anniversary of the founding of New China, the national governance system and governance capacity will be fully modernized, so that the socialist system with Chinese characteristics will be more consolidated and its superiority fully displayed. This further clarifies the internal logic of the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform and the ideas for future development.

To promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity in the new era, it is necessary to adapt to the changes of the times, constantly reform the systems and mechanisms that do not meet the requirements of practical development, and make the various systems and mechanisms more scientific and perfect in the process of innovation; it is necessary to continuously improve the party’s level of scientific governance, democratic governance, and ruling according to law, improve the ability of state institutions to perform their duties, and enhance the ability of the people to manage state affairs, economic, social, and cultural affairs, and their own affairs according to law; and it is necessary to improve the ideological and political, scientific, and cultural quality of cadres at all levels and managers in all fields as soon as possible. It is necessary to enhance the work ability of party and state organs, enterprises and institutions, people’s organizations, social organizations, and so on as soon as possible; proceed from the actual conditions of our country and creatively study and draw on all the excellent achievements of human civilization. 3. important arrangements for comprehensively deepening reform Comprehensively deepening reform is a major strategic deployment related to the overall development of the cause of the party and the country, not a reform in a certain field or aspect, but needs to be promoted in an overall manner, strengthening top-level design and overall planning. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has scientifically formulated a blueprint for reform, carefully drawn up a road map for reform, firmly grasped the key point of economic system reform, and promoted the comprehensive deepening of reform to continue to develop in depth. The road map for comprehensively deepening reform is to achieve the “six tight surrounds” clearly put forward by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China under the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform.

The first is to deepen the reform of the economic system around making the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources, adhere to and improve the basic economic system, accelerate the improvement of the modern market system, macro-control system and open economic system, accelerate the transformation of economic development mode, accelerate the construction of an innovative country, and promote more efficient, fairer and more sustainable economic development. The second is to deepen the reform of the political system closely centering on adhering to the party’s leadership, the people being masters of the country, and the organic unity of governing the country according to law, accelerate the institutionalization, standardization and procedure of socialist democratic politics, build a socialist country under the rule of law, and develop a broader, fuller and more sound people’s democracy. The third is to deepen the reform of the cultural system closely centering on the construction of the socialist core value system and the socialist cultural power, accelerate the improvement of the cultural management system and cultural production and operation mechanism, establish and improve the modern public cultural service system and modern cultural market system, and promote the great development and prosperity of socialist culture. The fourth is to deepen the reform of the social system around better protection and improvement of people’s livelihood, promote social fairness and justice, reform the income distribution system, promote common prosperity, promote institutional innovation in the social field, promote the equalization of basic public services, accelerate the formation of a scientific and effective social governance system, and ensure that the society is both vibrant and harmonious and orderly. The fifth is to deepen the reform of the ecological civilization system closely around the construction of a beautiful China, accelerate the establishment of the ecological civilization system, improve the institutional mechanisms for land space development, resource conservation and utilization, and ecological environmental protection, and promote the formation of a new pattern of harmonious development and modernization of man and nature. Sixth, closely centering on improving the level of scientific governance, democratic governance, and ruling according to law, deepen the reform of the party building system, strengthen the construction of democratic centralism, improve the party’s leadership system and ruling methods, maintain the party’s advanced nature and purity, and provide a strong political guarantee for reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. On the one hand, this reform roadmap clarifies the main contents of comprehensively deepening reform and highlights the comprehensiveness of reform; on the other hand, it clarifies the key points of reform in the economic, political, cultural, social, ecological and party building fields, so that the top-level design, priority order, key areas and key links of comprehensively deepening reform are clear at a glance, which is conducive to the combination and promotion of overall promotion and key breakthroughs. To comprehensively deepen reform, we must persistently focus on economic structural reform. China’s basic national conditions are still in the primary stage of socialism and will remain for a long time, which determines that economic construction is the party’s long-term central task. We must unswervingly persist in taking economic construction as the central task, and we must unswervingly adhere to the focus on economic structural reform. To promote the reform of the economic system, we must adhere to the direction of socialist market economic reform, and in particular, we must properly handle the core issue of the relationship between the government and the market.

In 1992, the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward that the goal of economic structural reform is to establish a socialist market economic system, and proposed that the market should play a basic role in the allocation of resources under the state’s macro-control. This major theoretical breakthrough has played an extremely important role in China’s reform, opening up, and economic and social development. Since the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party has continuously deepened its understanding of the relationship between the government and the market. The 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed “making the market play a basic role in the allocation of resources under the state’s macro- control”, the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed “giving greater play to the basic role of the market in the allocation of resources”, the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed “giving better play to the basic role of the market in the allocation of resources from the perspective of system”, and the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed “giving greater play to the basic role of the market in resource allocation to a greater extent and on a wider scale.” The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed to “make the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources and better play the role of the government.” This is another major breakthrough in theory and practice by the party, which is conducive to establishing a correct concept of the relationship between the government and the market in the whole party and society, to changing the mode of economic development, to changing government functions, and to curbing negative and corrupt phenomena. The market plays a decisive role in the allocation of resources, not the whole role. To develop the socialist market economy, it is necessary to give play to both the role of the market and the role of the government, but the functions of the role of the market and the role of the government are different. The Party Central Committee put forward clear requirements for better playing the role of the government, emphasizing that “the duties and roles of the government are mainly to maintain macroeconomic stability, strengthen and optimize public services, ensure fair competition, strengthen market supervision, maintain market order, promote sustainable development, promote prosperity, and make up for market failures.“1 Persist in taking economic structural reform as the traction to drive reform in other fields. The economic base determines the superstructure. Economic structural reform has an important influence and transmission effect on reform in other fields, and the progress of major economic structural reform determines the progress of structural reform in other fields, and has the effect of affecting the whole body. Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out: “In comprehensively deepening reform, we must adhere to the reform of the economic system as the main axis, strive to make new breakthroughs in the reform of important areas and key links, so as to drive and drive reform in other fields, so that all aspects of reform can be promoted in a coordinated manner and form a joint force, rather than separate and scattered efforts.” 2 Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

With the reform of the economic system as the traction, we have led to the reform of the political, cultural, social and ecological civilization system, the reform of the party and state institutions, the reform of the administrative management system, the reform of the system of governing the country according to law, the reform of the judicial system, the reform of the foreign affairs system, the reform of the social governance system, the reform of the ecological environment supervision system, the reform of the national security system, the reform of the national defense and the army, the reform of the party leadership and party building system, the reform of the discipline inspection and supervision system, and a series of major reforms have been solidly advanced. A good situation for in-depth advancement.