variety of modes of distribution coexist. We should give priority to efficiency with due consideration to fairness, earnestly implementing the distribution policy while advocating the spirit of devotion and guarding against an excessive disparity in income while opposing equalitarianism. In primary distribution, we should pay more attention to efficiency, bringing the market forces into play and encouraging part of the people to become rich first through honest labor and lawful operations. In redistribution, we should pay more attention to fairness and strengthen the function of the government in regulating income distribution to narrow the gap if it is too wide. We should standardize the order of income distribution, properly regulate the excessively high income of some monopoly industries and outlaw illegal gains. Bearing in mind the objective of common prosperity, we should try to raise the proportion of the middle-income group and increase the income of the low-income group.

Establishing and improving a social security system compatible with the level of economic development constitutes an important guarantee for social stability and long-term peace and order in the country. We should stick to and improve the basic old-age pension and medical insurance systems for urban workers, combining socially pooled funds with personal contributions. We should improve the systems of unemployment insurance and subsistence allowances for urban residents. We should try various channels to raise and accumulate social security funds. Reasonable standards for social security benefits should be set in light of local conditions. We should develop social relief and welfare programs in urban and rural areas. Wherever conditions permit, we should try to establish systems of old-age pensions, medical insurance and subsistence allowances in rural areas.

7. Do a better job in opening up by "bringing in" and "going out". In response to the new situation of economic globalization and China's entry into the WTO, we should take part in international economic and technological cooperation and competition on a broader scale, in more spheres and on a higher level, make the best use of both international and domestic markets, optimize the allocation of resources, expand the space for development and accelerate reform and development by opening up.

We should expand trade in goods and services. We should implement the strategy of market diversification, bring into play our comparative advantages, consolidate our existing markets and open new ones in an effort to increase exports. We should sharpen the competitive edge of our goods and services for export by ensuring good quality. We should optimize our import mix and focus on bringing in advanced technology and key equipment. We should deepen the reform of the system of trade and economic relations with other countries, encouraging more enterprises to engage in foreign trade and improving relevant taxation systems and the trade financing mechanism.

We should attract more foreign direct investment and use it more effectively. We will open the service sector to the outside world step by step. We will utilize medium- and long-term foreign investment in many ways, combining it with the domestic economic restructuring and the reorganization and transformation of state-owned enterprises and encouraging multinational corporations to invest in agriculture and manufacturing and high and new technology industries. We should try to bring in from overseas large numbers of professionals and other intellectual resources in various areas. We should improve the environment for investment, grant national treatment to foreign investors and make relevant policies and regulations more transparent. Implementation of the strategy of "going out" is an important measure taken in the new stage of opening up. We should encourage and help relatively competitive enterprises with various forms of ownership to invest abroad in order to increase export of goods and labor services and bring about a number of strong multinational enterprises and brand names. We should take an active part in regional economic exchanges and cooperation. In opening wider to the outside world, we must pay great attention to safeguarding our national economic security.

8. Do everything possible to create more jobs and improve the people's lives. Employment has a vital bearing on the people's livelihood. The task of increasing employment is arduous now and will remain so for a long time to come. It is a long-term strategy and policy of the state to expand employment. Party committees and governments at all levels must take it as their major obligation to improve the business environment and create more jobs. We should open up more avenues for employment and develop labor-intensive industries. We should give policy support to enterprises that increase jobs or reemploy laid-off workers. We should help the general public to change their mentality about employment, introduce flexible and diverse forms of employment and encourage people to find jobs on their own or become self-employed. We should improve the system of pre-job training and employment services and raise workers' skills for new jobs. We should strengthen employment management in accordance with law, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of workers, pay great attention to safety at work and protect the safety of state property and people's life.

The fundamental goal of economic development is to uplift the living standards and quality of life of the people. As the economy develops, we should increase the income of urban and rural residents, expand the scope of their consumption and optimize the consumption structure so as to meet the people's multifarious material and cultural needs. Further efforts should be made to develop public service facilities, better people's living environment and expand community services in order to make life easier for the people. We should establish a medical service and health care system that meets the requirements of the new situation. We should improve medical and health conditions in rural areas and the medical and health care for urban and rural residents. We should build up various programs to help the handicapped. We should intensify our efforts to fight poverty through development, build on the achievements we have scored in this regard, strive to accomplish the task of providing adequate food and clothing f or the impoverished rural population and gradually enable them to lead a well-off life.

Accomplishing the tasks set for economic development and restructuring is of decisive significance to accelerating our socialist modernization. So long as the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups work hard with one heart and one mind, we will definitely establish a mature socialist market economy and maintain a sustained, rapid and sound development of the national economy at the new stage in the new century.

V. Political Development and Restructuring

Developing socialist democracy and establishing a socialist political civilization are an important goal for building a well-off society in an all-round way. Adhering to the Four Cardinal Principles, we must go on steadily and surely with political restructuring, extend socialist democracy and improve the socialist legal system in order to build a socialist country under the rule of law and consolidate and develop the political situation characterized by democracy, solidarity, liveliness, stability and harmony.

Our Party has always deemed it its duty to realize and develop people's democracy. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, we have pressed on with political restructuring and improved socialist democracy. The key to developing socialist democracy is to combine the need to uphold the Party's leadership and to ensure that the people are the masters of the country with the need to rule the country by law. Leadership by the Party is the fundamental guarantee that the people are the masters of the country and that the country is ruled by law. The people being the masters of the country constitutes the essential requirement of socialist democracy. Ruling the country by law is the basic principle the Party pursues while it leads the people in running the country. The CPC is the core of leadership for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Governance by the Communist Party means that it leads and supports the people in acting as the masters of the country and mobilizes and organizes them on a most extensive scale to manage state and social affairs and economic and cultural undertakings according to law, safeguarding and realizing their fundamental interests. The Constitution and other laws embody the unity of the Party's views and the people's will. All organizations and individuals must act in strict accordance with the law, and none of them are allowed to have the privilege to overstep the Constitution and other laws.

Political restructuring is the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system. It must help enhance the vitality of the Party and state, demonstrate the features and advantages of the socialist system, give full scope to the initiative and creativity of the people, safeguard national unity, ethnic solidarity and social stability and promote economic development and social progress. We must always proceed from our national conditions, review our experience gained in practice and at the same time learn from the achievements of political civilization of mankind. We should never copy any models of the political system of the West. We must concentrate on institutional improvement and ensure that socialist democracy is institutionalized and standardized and has its procedures.

1. Uphold and improve the systems of socialist democracy. It is essential to improve the systems of democracy, develop diverse forms of democracy, expand citizens' participation in political affairs in an orderly way, and ensure that the people go in for democratic elections and decision-making, exercise democratic management and supervision according to law and enjoy extensive rights and freedoms, and that human rights are respected and guaranteed. We should uphold and improve the system of people's congresses and ensure that the congresses and their standing committees exercise their functions according to law and that their legislation and policy decisions better embody the people's will. We should optimize the composition of the standing committees. We should uphold and improve the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party. We should uphold the principle of "long-term coexistence, mutual supervision, treating each other with all sincerity and sharing weal and woe", step up our cooperation with the democratic parties and better display the features and advantages of the Chinese socialist system of political parties. We will ensure that the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) plays its role in political consultation, democratic supervision and participation in and deliberation of state affairs. We will consolidate and develop the broadest possible patriotic united front. We will fully implement the Party's policy toward ethnic minorities, uphold and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy, consolidate and enhance socialist ethnic relations of equality, solidarity and mutual assistance and promote common prosperity and progress for all our ethnic groups. We will implement the Party's policy toward the freedom of religious belief, handle religious affairs according to law, encourage the adaptability of religions to the socialist society and uphold the principle of self-administration and running religious affairs independently. We will conscientiously carry out the Party's policy toward overseas Chinese affairs.

Extending democracy at the grassroots level is the groundwork for developing socialist democracy. We will improve grassroots self-governing organizations, their democratic management system and the system of keeping the public informed of matters being handled, and ensure that the people directly exercise their democratic rights according to law, manage grassroots public affairs and programs for public good and exercise democratic supervision over the cadres. We will improve self-governance among villagers and foster a mechanism of their self-governance full of vitality under the leadership of village Party organizations. We will improve self-governance among urban residents and build new-type and well-managed communities featuring civility and harmony. We will uphold and improve the system of workers' conferences and other democratic management systems in enterprises and institutions and protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers.

2. Improve the socialist legal system. We must see to it that there are laws to go by, the laws are observed and strictly enforced, and law-breakers are prosecuted. To adapt to the new situation characterized by the development of a socialist market economy, all-round social progress and China's accession to the WTO, we will strengthen legislation and improve its quality and will have formulated a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics by the year 2010. We must see to it that all people are equal before the law. We should tighten supervision over law enforcement, promote the exercise of administrative functions according to law, safeguard judicial justice and raise the level of law enforcement so that laws are strictly implemented. We must safeguard the uniformity and sanctity of the legal system and prevent or overcome local and departmental protectionism. We will extend and standardize legal services and provide effective legal aid. We should give more publicity to the legal system so that the people are better educated in law. In particular, we will enhance the public servants' awareness of law and their ability to perform their official duties according to law. Party members and cadres, especially leading cadres, should play an exemplary role in abiding by the Constitution and other laws.

3. Reform and improve the Party's style of leadership and governance. This is a matter of overall significance to improving socialist democracy. Leadership by the Party mainly refers to its political, ideological and organizational leadership. The Party exercises leadership over the state and society by formulating major principles and policies, making suggestions on legislation, recommending cadres for important positions, conducting ideological publicity, giving play to the role of Party organizations and members and persisting in exercising state power according to law. Party committees, playing the role as the core of leadership among all other organizations at corresponding levels, should concentrate on handling important matters and support those organizations in assuming their responsibilities independently and making concerted efforts in their work. We will further reform and improve the Party's working organs and mechanisms. Acting on the principle that the Party commands the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters, we will standardize relations between Party committees on the one hand and people's congresses, governments, CPPCC committees and mass organizations on the other. We will support people's congresses in performing their functions as organs of state power according to law, in ensuring that the Party's views become the will of the state and that candidates recommended by Party organizations become leading cadres of the organs of state power through legal procedures, and in exercising supervision over them. We will support the government in fulfilling its legal functions and performing its official duties according to law. We will support CPPCC committees in performing their functions by centering on the two major subjects of unity and democracy. We will strengthen the Party's leadership over trade unions, the Communist Youth League organizations, women's federations and other mass organizations and support them in working according to law and their own constitutions and acting as a bridge between the Party and the people.

4. Reform and improve the decision-making mechanism. Correct decision-making is an important prerequisite for success in all work. We will improve the decision-making mechanism by which decision-makers will go deep among the people and get to know how they are faring, reflect their will, pool their wisdom and value their resources, putting decision-making on a more scientific and democratic basis. Decision-making organs at all levels should improve the rules and procedures for taking major policy decisions, establish a system of reporting social conditions and public opinion, a system of keeping the public informed and a system of public hearings on major issues closely related to the interests of the people, perfect the expert consulting system and implement a verification system and a responsibility system in making policy decisions with a view to preventing arbitrary decision-making.

5. Deepen administrative restructuring. We should further change the functions of the government, improve the methods of management, introduce e-government, uplift administrative efficiency and reduce costs so as to form an administrative system featuring standardized behaviors, coordinated operation, fairness and transparency, honesty and high efficiency. We should standardize the functions and powers of the Central Government and local authorities according to law and properly handle relations between the departments directly under the Central Government and the local governments. Following the principle of simplification, uniformity and efficiency and meeting the requirements of coordination in decision-making, execution and supervision, we will continue to promote the restructuring of government departments, standardize their functions in a scientific manner, rationalize their set-ups, and optimize their composition in order to delimit the structures and sizes statutorily and solve the problems of too many levels, overlapping functions, overstaffing, divorce between powers and responsibilities and duplicate law enforcement. We will reform the management system of institutions in accordance with the principle of separating the functions of government from those of institutions.

6. Promote the reform of the judicial system. A socialist judicial system must guarantee fairness and justice in the whole society. In accordance with the requirements of judicial justice and strict law enforcement, we should improve the setups of judicial organs, the delimitation of their functions and powers and their management systems so as to form a sound judicial system featuring clearly specified powers and responsibilities, mutual coordination and restraint and highly efficient operation. We should institutionally ensure that the judicial and procuratorial organs are in a position to exercise adjudicative and procuratorial powers independently and impartially according to law. We should improve judicial proceedings and protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens and legal persons. We should solve the problem of difficult enforcement of judgments. We should reform the working mechanisms of judicial organs and the management system of their human, financial and material resources and gradually separate their judicial adjudication and procuratorial work from their administrative affairs. We will tighten supervision over the judicial work and punish corruption in this field. We will build up a contingent of judicial personnel who are politically steadfast and professionally competent, have a fine style of work and enforce laws impartially.

7. Deepen the reform of the cadre and personnel system. Efforts should be made to form a vigorous personnel mechanism under which we can gather large numbers of talented people, put them to the best use and get them prepared for both promotion and demotion, calling them to the service of the Party and state. In reforming and perfecting the cadre and personnel system and improving the system of public servants, we should focus on establishing a sound mechanism of selection, appointment, management and supervision, with a view to making it scientific, democratic and institutionalized. In the matter of cadre selection and appointment, Party members and ordinary people should have more right to know, to participate, to choose and to supervise. With regard to leading cadres of the Party and government, it is necessary to implement the system of fixed tenures, the system of resignation and the system of accountability for neglect of supervisory duty or the use of the wrong person. It is necessary to improve the system of giving cadres both positions and ranks and establish an incentive and guarantee mechanism for them. We should explore and improve the system of classified management of cadres and personnel in Party and government organs, institutions and enterprises. We should reform and improve the system of dual control over cadres. We should break with the notions and practices of overstressing seniority in the matter of selection and appointment, encourage the rational flow of trained people and create a sound environment which makes it possible for outstanding people to come to the fore in all fields.

8. Tighten the restraint on and supervision over the use of power. We should establish a mechanism for the exercise of power featuring reasonable structure, scientific distribution, rigorous procedures and effective restraint so as to tighten supervision over power in terms of decision-making, execution and other links and ensure that the power entrusted to us by the people is truly exercised for their benefits. We should focus on tightening supervision over leading cadres and especially principal ones, stepping up supervision over the management and use of human, financial and material resources. We should tighten internal supervision of leading groups and improve the procedures for deciding on important matters and the appointment or dismissal of cadres in important positions. We should reform and improve the system of Party discipline inspection and introduce and improve the system of inspection tours. We should give play to the role of judicial, administrative supervision and auditing organs and other functional departments. We should implement the system under which leading cadres report in various ways on their work and their efforts to perform their duties honestly, and improve the systems of reporting on important matters, of making inquiries and of democratic appraisal. We should conscientiously implement the system of making government affairs known to the public. We should tighten organizational and democratic supervision and give play to the supervisory function of the media.

9. Maintain social stability. To accomplish the heavy tasks of reform and development, we must have a harmonious and stable social climate for a long time to come. Party committees and governments at all levels should enthusiastically help the people solve practical problems they may confront in their work and life. They must carry out in-depth investigations and study, strengthen ideological and political work in light of different cases, and employ economic, administrative and legal means to handle the contradictions among the people properly, those involving their immediate interests in particular, so as to maintain stability and unity. It is essential to improve procuratorial, judicial and public security work, cracking down on criminal activities according to law, guarding against and punishing crimes committed by evil cult gangs and eliminating social evils so as to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the people. We must combine punishment and prevention, with emphasis on the latter, take comprehensive measures to maintain law and order and improve social management so as to keep public order. We must strengthen state security, keeping vigilance against infiltrative, subversive and separatist activities by hostile forces at home and abroad.

Socialist democracy enjoys strong vitality and superiority. The CPC and the Chinese people have full confidence in the road to political development they have chosen and will press ahead with political development under socialism with Chinese characteristics.

VI. Cultural Development and Restructuring

To build a well-off society in an all-round way calls for major efforts to develop socialist culture and spiritual civilization. In the present-day world, culture is interactive with economic and political activities, and its status and functions are becoming more and more outstanding in the competition in overall national strength. The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality, creativity and cohesion of a nation. All Party members must fully understand the strategic significance of cultural development and make socialist culture develop and flourish.