New methods to improve governance

A main theme of the on-going Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee is: How to promote modern national governance. It was at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2013 that the Party put forward that "the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform is to improve and develop the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and modernize the country's governance system and governance capacity".

It was the first time the Party explicitly set "promoting modernization of the country's governance system and governance capacity" as the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform. Elevating governance to the level of national policy is an important theoretical innovation that will help improve China's governance practice.

To begin with, this marks a major change in the Party's governance philosophy, showing the Party now has a new understanding of the development laws of socialist society, because the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity is an inevitable requirement for China to improve and develop the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.