Inclusive growth for harmony

President Hu Jintao's remarks on "inclusive growth" made at the recent Asia Pacific Ecnomic Cooperation ministerial meeting underscore how China will reorient its growth model to make economic benefits more widely shared. The remarks are all the more significant, coming as they did in the midst of government deliberations on the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), which sets the near-term course for development.

Rising income inequality has cast a long shadow over China's otherwise spectacular economic rise of the last 30 years. Even as per capita gross domestic product grew by about 9 percent a year during 1979-2008, lifting a large section of the population out of poverty, its income inequality has risen to among the highest in Asia.

The government has in recent years taken action to address this issue through such measures as infrastructure investment in the lagging western and interior provinces, policies to facilitate rural development and benefit the farmers and rural migrant workers, and more spending on basic education and healthcare to protect vulnerable groups. More recently, it unveiled its vision of a harmonious society.