Key Expressions 

Common prosperity

Common prosperity refers to the prosperity of all people, not the prosperity of a few. China has completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. On this basis, we must continue to make the pie bigger and divide it well, promote high-quality development, generally improve the income level of urban and rural residents, gradually narrow the gap in distribution and resolutely prevent polarization.

The fundamental way to achieve common prosperity is hard work. China should encourage people who work hard, operate legally, and have the courage to start their own businesses to become rich. We should allow some people to get rich first, who then inspire and help others to become rich. Achieving common prosperity does not mean "robbing the rich to help the poor." China will ensure its people's wellbeing over the course of development, improve their educational attainment, and create fair conditions and more opportunities for more people to get rich. China must make solid progress in ensuring equal access to basic public services, do our best and do what we can, and avoid falling into the trap of welfarism. We cannot afford to wait for what we need or feed the lazy.

We need to develop basic institutional arrangements for coordinating primary distribution, redistribution, and third distribution. We need to increase efforts to adjust taxation, social security, and transfer payments, expand the size of middle-income groups, and form an olive-shaped distribution structure, which is larger in the middle and smaller on both ends.

China should fully realize the long-term, arduous and complex goal of achieving common prosperity. It is a dynamic process that cannot be achieved overnight or simultaneously. We should tackle one thing after another, year after year, and make substantive progress in promoting all-round human development and bringing common prosperity to all of our people in the new era.

High-quality development

China must deliver high-quality development. At the 19th CPC National Congress held in October 2017, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, pointed out that China's economy was transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development. This conclusion was based on the change in the principal challenges facing Chinese society. At this stage, China needs to follow the new development philosophy.

A moderately prosperous society in all respects

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, China has achieved its first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The achieving of moderate prosperity, or xiaokang in Chinese, is measured taking into account multiple aspects such as the economy, democracy, science and education, culture, society and people's lives. The requirements included doubling the country's 2010 GDP and the per capita disposable income by 2020.

Principal contradiction facing Chinese society

As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the Chinese people are leading better lives, their demands becoming higher and their dissatisfactions increasing. This is because the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved. What we face today is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing need for a better life. China has seen the basic needs of over one billion met, basically making it possible for people to live decent lives, and has brought the building of a moderately prosperous society to a successful completion. The needs to be met for the people to live better lives are increasingly broad. Not only have their material and cultural requirements grown, their demands for democracy, rule of law, fairness and justice, security, and a better environment are increasing. At the same time, China’s overall productive forces have significantly improved and in many areas, our production capacity leads the world. The more prominent problem is that our development remains unbalanced and inadequate. This has become the most constraining factor in meeting the people's increasing needs for a better life.

China's basic socialist economic system

China will uphold and improve the basic socialist economic system of keeping public ownership as its mainstay and allowing for multiple forms of ownership to develop together, give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, let the government better play out its part, and promote the better integration of an efficient market and a capable government.

The pattern of income distribution

China vows to establish a scientific public policy system and a reasonable distribution system that benefits everyone. There is a focus on primary and inclusive projects that facilitate the people's well-being and guarantee their basic needs. Highlighting the importance of appropriately dealing with the relationship between efficiency and fairness, the country plans to make basic institutional arrangements on income distribution. It also plans to expand the size of middle-income groups, increase the income of low-income groups, make appropriate adjustments to high incomes, and confiscate illegal incomes, so as to form an olive-shaped distribution structure, which is larger in the middle and smaller on both ends.

Third distribution

Third distribution means creating opportunities for high-income groups and enterprises to repay society. At the 10th meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs of the Communist Party of China, held in mid-August, the goal of common prosperity was further stressed and third distribution was proposed as a key avenue in its realization.