Full text of Hu Jintao's report at 17th Party Congress

VII. Promoting Vigorous Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture

In the present era, culture has become a more and more important source of national cohesion and creativity and a factor of growing significance in the competition in overall national strength, and the Chinese people have an increasingly ardent desire for a richer cultural life. We must keep to the orientation of advanced socialist culture, bring about a new upsurge in socialist cultural development, stimulate the cultural creativity of the whole nation, and enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better guarantee the people's basic cultural rights and interests, enrich the cultural life in Chinese society and inspire the enthusiasm of the people for progress.

1. Build up the system of socialist core values and make socialist ideology more attractive and cohesive. The system of socialist core values represents the essence of socialist ideology. We must consolidate the guiding position of Marxism, persistently arm the whole Party with and educate the people in the latest achievements in adapting Marxism to Chinese conditions, rally the people with our common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics, inspire the people with patriotism-centered national spirit and with the spirit of the times centering on reform and innovation, guide social ethos with the socialist maxims of honor and disgrace, and solidify the common ideological basis of the joint endeavor of the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups. We will make every effort to carry out theoretical innovation and give Marxism of contemporary China distinct characters of practice, of the Chinese nation and of the times. We will publicize the theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and take Marxism of contemporary China to the general public. We will carry on the Project to Study and Develop Marxist Theory to provide in-depth answers to major theoretical and practical questions and to bring up a group of Marxist theoreticians, especially young and middle-aged ones. We will incorporate the socialist core values into all stages of national education and the entire process of cultural and ethical progress to make them the targets pursued by the people of their own accord. We will explore effective ways of letting the system of socialist core values guide trends of thought and take the initiative in ideological work, respecting divergence and allowing diversity while effectively resisting the influence of erroneous and decadent ideas. We will develop philosophy and social sciences, promoting innovation in academic disciplines, academic viewpoints and research methods. We encourage people working in these fields to serve as a think tank for the cause of the Party and the people, and we will introduce related outstanding achievements and distinguished scholars to the world arena.

2. Foster a culture of harmony and cultivate civilized practices. A culture of harmony provides important intellectual support for the unity and progress of all our people. We must step up the development of the press, publishing, radio, film, television, literature and art, give correct guidance to the public and foster healthy social trends. We must balance cultural development between urban and rural areas and among different regions, focusing on enriching the cultural life in rural and remote areas and of rural migrant workers in cities. We will strengthen efforts to develop and manage Internet culture and foster a good cyber environment. We will promote patriotism, collectivism and socialist ideology. With the emphasis on enhancing people's awareness of integrity, we will promote social ethics, professional codes of conduct, family virtues and individual morality, let paragons of virtue serve as role models for society, and guide people in conscientiously carrying out legal obligations and social and family responsibilities. We will strengthen and improve our ideological and political work, paying attention to compassionate care and psychological counseling and correctly handling interpersonal relations. We will mobilize all sectors of society in doing a good job of ideological and moral education among young people and create a favorable environment for their healthy development. We will carry out intensive activities to promote cultural and ethical progress among the public, improve the system of voluntary public services, and encourage practices such as upholding gender equality, respecting the elderly, caring for the young, showing concern for and helping each other and coming to the rescue of others even at risk to oneself. We will promote the scientific spirit and spread scientific knowledge. We will launch extensive public fitness programs and ensure the success of the 2008 Olympic Games and the Paralympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai.

3. Promote Chinese culture and build the common spiritual home for the Chinese nation. Chinese culture has been an unfailing driving force for the Chinese nation to keep its unity and make progress from generation to generation. We must have a comprehensive understanding of traditional Chinese culture, keep its essence and discard its dross to enable it to fit in with present-day society, stay in harmony with modern civilization, keep its national character and reflect changes of the times. We will further publicize the fine traditions of Chinese culture and use modern means of science and technology to exploit the rich resources of our national culture. We will explore and better protect the cultures of all ethnic groups, attach great importance to the protection of cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage and do a good job collating ancient books and records. We will also strengthen international cultural exchanges to draw on the fine achievements of foreign cultures and enhance the influence of Chinese culture worldwide.

4. Stimulate cultural innovation and enhance the vitality of cultural development. The only way to invigorate culture is to promote innovation in its content and form, its structure and mechanism, and its means of dissemination from the high starting point of our times and release and develop its productive forces. We must keep to the orientation of serving the people and socialism, uphold the principle of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend, and maintain close contact with reality, life and the public. We must always give top priority to social benefits and try to ensure both good economic returns and social benefits. We must create more excellent, popular works that reflect the people's principal position in the country and their real life. We must deepen cultural restructuring and improve the policies for supporting nonprofit cultural programs, developing the cultural industry and encouraging cultural innovation, so as to create favorable conditions for producing fine works, outstanding personnel and good results. We must continue to develop nonprofit cultural programs as the main approach to ensuring the basic cultural rights and interests of the people, increase spending on such programs, and build more cultural facilities in urban communities and rural areas. We must vigorously develop the cultural industry, launch major projects to lead the industry as a whole, speed up development of cultural industry bases and clusters of cultural industries with regional features, nurture key enterprises and strategic investors, create a thriving cultural market and enhance the industry's international competitiveness. We will use new and high technology to create new ways of producing cultural works, foster new forms of operation in the cultural industry and accelerate the establishment of a dissemination system featuring fast communication and wide coverage. We will establish a national system of honors for outstanding cultural workers.

The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be accompanied by the thriving of Chinese culture. We will give full scope to the principal position of the people in cultural development, arouse the enthusiasm of cultural workers, promote vigorous development and prosperity of culture more conscientiously and actively, and create cultural works in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, so that the people will share in the benefits of cultural development.

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.