Strive to make life better for the people

With the rapid development of our economy and society, the people look forward to a better life, and hope that the society will be full of vitality and remain stable and orderly. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has adhered to the people-centered development thinking, conformed to the people’s expectations for a better life, adhered to the focus on ensuring the improvement of people’s livelihood and strengthening social governance, vigorously promoted the theoretical innovation, practical innovation and institutional innovation of social construction, formed a series of new concepts, new ideas and new strategies, and provided scientific guidance and basic compliance for better promoting social construction in the new era.

Section 1: The situation and requirements for promoting social construction in the new era

Promoting social construction, continuously improving the well-being of the people, and building a stable and orderly social environment are the proper meanings of adhering to and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, unremitting efforts to ensure and improve people’s livelihood and strengthen and innovate social governance are important contents of promoting the development of the cause of the Party and the country, and are of great significance to realizing the “two centenary goals” and realizing the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

1. The Communist Party of China has made historic and major achievements in promoting social construction

It is the unshirkable responsibility of the Communist Party of China to attach importance to social construction, continuously improve the material and cultural living standards of the masses, and promote all-round human development.

As early as the period of the Central Soviet Region, Comrade Mao Zedong clearly pointed out: “All the actual problems of the masses’ lives are problems that we should pay attention to.” If we pay attention to these problems, solve them, and meet the needs of the masses, we will truly become the organizers of the masses’ lives, and the masses will really surround us and enthusiastically support us. 1 In the practice of partial ruling in the revolutionary base areas, carrying out land reform, showing concern for the well-being of the masses, vigorously promoting education, attaching importance to medical and public health, and properly handling all kinds of social relations can be said to be the party’s initial attempt to carry out social construction.

The founding of New China, especially the establishment of the basic socialist system, laid the basic political prerequisite and institutional foundation for the party’s comprehensive development of social undertakings and the improvement of people’s livelihood. The party put forward the need to mobilize all positive factors to serve the building of socialism, put forward the idea of correctly handling contradictions of two different natures, implemented the work policy of taking into account the overall situation and making appropriate arrangements, made unremitting explorations in improving people’s livelihood and social undertakings, and adopted a series of practical and effective measures. During this stage, although affected by the “Cultural Revolution” and lagging economic development, the solution of people’s livelihood problems was seriously restricted, and the development of social undertakings faced many problems, China’s social undertakings still made great achievements, basic education continued to develop, medical and health care was continuously strengthened, people’s living standards were continuously improved, and the social security system was gradually established, which played an important role in ensuring social stability and national security.

Since the reform and opening up, with the rapid development of China’s economy, the pace of social construction has begun to accelerate. Beginning with the approval of the Sixth Five-Year Plan by the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People’s Congress in 1982, the previous reference to the “Five-Year Plan for National Economic Development” was changed to “The Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development”, the status and role of social construction in the cause of the party and the state have become increasingly prominent. In the course of continuously deepening reform, opening up, and modernization, the party has paid more and more attention to gradually improving the people’s living standards on the basis of developing productive forces, clearly put forward the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society, and made solemn promises to the people to live a prosperous and solid ideal life. With the deepening of understanding and practice, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee put forward the concept and requirements of social construction for the first time, and the 17th CPC National Congress planned social construction alongside economic, political and cultural construction as an important part of the overall layout of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and social construction was comprehensively valued and strengthened.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has conformed to the development and changes of the main contradictions in our society, taken the people’s yearning for a better life as the goal, deeply implemented the people-centered development thinking, implemented a large number of measures to benefit the people, made unprecedented achievements in the development of people’s livelihood, and significantly enhanced the people’s sense of gain. By the end of 2019, in the field of education, China’s education popularization has exceeded the average level of middle- and high-income countries; In the area of employment, relatively full employment has been achieved; In the field of social security, the world’s largest social security system, including old-age, medical care, subsistence allowance and housing, has been built, ending the history of thousands of years of farmers without social security; in the field of anti-poverty, the number of poor people has been reduced from 98.99 million at the end of 2012 to 5.51 million at the end of 2019, and the incidence of poverty has been reduced from 10.2% to 0.6% , composing a glorious chapter in the history of human anti-poverty.

Since the founding of New China, the lives of Chinese people have made a historic leap from poverty to food and clothing to overall moderate prosperity, and are moving towards a better life. The most important thing is that the overall social situation of our country has maintained long-term stability, which is in sharp contrast to the turmoil in many countries and regions in the world, and has become one of the most secure countries in the world.

The historic achievements made by the Communist Party of China in promoting social construction fully reflect the superiority of socialism with Chinese characteristics, fully demonstrate the people- centered governing philosophy, and fully reflect the historical responsibility of major parties. The Party has always placed the interests of the people in the supreme position, never forgot its original intention and kept its mission in mind, so that the results of reform and development will benefit all the people more and more equitably, laying a solid foundation for continuing to promote the all- round development of various undertakings at a new historical starting point and leading the people to create a better and happier life.

2. new problems facing social construction in the new era

Social construction is always on the way, only when it is carried out and not completed. In the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the main contradiction in our society has been transformed into a contradiction between the people’s growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development, which has put forward new and higher requirements for social construction. Efforts must be made to solve the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development and improve the quality and efficiency of development

Better meet the growing needs of the people in economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization, better improve people’s livelihood and well-being at a higher level, and continuously promote all-round human development and common prosperity for all people. With the historical transformation of the main contradictions in society, the macro environment and internal conditions facing people’s livelihood work in the new era are changing. With the rapid economic and social development, the people are no longer satisfied with the basic needs of having food, school, and housing, but look forward to better education, more stable jobs, more satisfactory income, more reliable social security, higher levels of medical and health services, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment. In the face of people’s new demand for a better life, there are still many shortcomings in the field of people’s livelihood. For example, in terms of education, there are still problems such as the “difficulty of entering kindergartens” in preschool education, the “school choice fever” of compulsory education, the lagging development of rural education, and the difficulty of enrolling the children of migrant workers in urban areas. In terms of employment, there are still problems such as high employment pressure for college graduates, high labor intensity of employees, poor working conditions, and difficulty in protecting labor rights and interests. In terms of income distribution, there are still problems such as the large income gap between urban and rural areas and regions, and the small size of the middle-income group. In terms of social security, there are still problems such as the lack of full coverage of some social insurance, the low level of some social assistance and the rapid growth of social welfare demand. In terms of medical and health care, there are still problems such as expensive medical treatment and incomplete alleviation, and there are obvious shortcomings in the institutional mechanism for major epidemic prevention and control, and the public health emergency management system. In terms of the supply of people’s livelihood services, there are still problems such as the coexistence of insufficient government responsibility and excessive responsibility, low trust in the public service supply capacity of social organizations, and insufficient play of market mechanisms and the role of social capital. Solving these problems puts forward new and higher requirements for doing a good job in China’s people’s livelihood work in the new era.

With the development of the times and practice, China’s social governance is also facing many new situations and problems. Reform is in a period of tackling tough problems and deep waters, social stability has entered a period of risk, profound changes in the economic structure, profound adjustments in the pattern of interests, profound changes in ideology and concepts, and profound changes in the social structure, and the rapid changes in the situation and environment, the heavy tasks, and the number of contradictions and risks facing social governance are unprecedented. For example, mass incidents involving the interests of the masses, such as enterprise restructuring and restructuring, changes in labor relations, financing and loan disputes, production safety accidents, and poor environmental protection, are still frequent and high; the emergence of a large number of floating populations has made the foreign population in some economically developed areas exceed or even several times the local household registration population, which puts forward higher requirements and severe challenges for grassroots social governance and public services;

In some places and fields, there is still a lack of fair, scientific and effective rights protection mechanisms, and it is difficult for the masses to realize their rights normally, resulting in negative social emotions and threatening social harmony and stability; the process of rule of law construction is relatively lagging behind, the social atmosphere of respecting the law, learning and abiding by the law has not yet formed, and the due role of the rule of law in modern social governance has not been fully played; the rapid development of the Internet has brought convenience to people, but also brought severe challenges to social governance. Some illegal and criminal activities have infiltrated the Internet, fragmented, pan-entertainment, and massive information that is difficult to distinguish between true and false has spawned new social problems, online mass incidents are increasing, online ideological struggles are becoming increasingly fierce, and Internet governance pressures and challenges are becoming increasingly prominent, and so on. All this fully shows that the task of strengthening and innovating social governance is very arduous and heavy. Whether it is the new situation facing the construction of people’s livelihood or the new situation encountered by social governance, it is the characteristics and changes of economic and social development in stages, indicating that China’s social construction has gone through the survival stage of “from scratch” and ushered in the quality stage of “from there to good.” The issue of people’s livelihood and social governance at this stage is no longer simply worrying about food and clothing, but conforming to people’s needs for a better life and moving towards a higher level and higher stage. This is an objective requirement for the development and change of the new situation and tasks, and is also an inevitable requirement for realizing the party’s historical mission.