Advancing road to social harmony hinges on reform

Residents in the national capital of Beijing have a fairly objective sense of acknowledgment for a harmonious society with 70.2 percent of those surveyed indicating their full confidence in the accomplishment of such a society, according to a recent poll conducted by the Beijing Municipal Statistics Bureau.

This is the first opinion poll of its kind ever conducted in China. If the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, which closed last Wednesday, conveys the national will of building a harmonious society transmitted by the CPC, the "harmonious index" poll truly voices the expectations of general public for a harmonious society.

With the consensus and endorsement from top to bottom nationwide, realistic prospects for achieving a harmonious society is all the more important. In other words, what methods should people use to achieve the nine major tasks in building a harmonious society before 2020 as set forth by the Plenum in its resolution?

Apart from "a harmonious society built and share by the whole people," another theme set at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee is related to the "in-depth reform". It underlines that the settlement of any thorny issue and building of a harmonious society hinges on, in a final analysis, in-depth reform. So from a certain sense, the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central committee has not only mapped a "road map" for a harmonious society but also an "orientation map" for carrying out in-depth reform under new, historical circumstances.

The plenary session elevates a harmonious society to the height of the character of socialism with Chinese characteristics and takes "fairness and justice" as social pursuance and obligation of the government, and so the goal of the reform is more specific and clear-cut. Consequently, the livelihood of people has been prioritized on an unprecedented scale and a series of objectives have to be materialized in the next 14 years before 2020, such as rationalizing the relations of distribution, cracking and resolving thorny, unemployment problems, improving social security system, unblocking interest suing channels, resolving social contradictions and implementing anti-corruption regulations. To attain the goals of "sharing" by all, strenuous efforts will be made to avoid the separation of reform from development and deviation of reform from the wellbeing of people.

Social justice is the foundation stone of a harmonious society and, to give expression to social justice from facets of social practices, it is imperative to rely on system and regulations. The resolution adopted at the Plenary Session gives a particular emphasis to the major role of the system construction and innovation to the promotion of social harmony. This implies that the government should lose no time to advance the reform and innovation of the social setup or systems, and to alleviate social contradictions in providing essential supply networks and coordinating the relations of interests. Hence, the social fairness guarantee system and social security guarantee system with such main contents as fairness in rights and interests, fairness in opportunities, fairness in regulations and fairness in distribution will be established through the means of reform.

On the basis of the growing popular will, China has laid down a material basis to some extent for building a harmonious society. It has become a general and popular trend in the course of reform and construction to resolve the basic issue concerning the people's livelihood step by step, with hopes of "breaking ice" already evident for reforms in some spheres of the "deepwater zone". The crux of matter, nevertheless, is whether leading bodies and departments at various levels can be turned into commanding headquarters for constructing a harmonious society, and whether the reform of the political setup can imbue leading officials at various levels with greater enthusiasm to spur on to the development of social fairness system and actual performance.

From this sense, the judgment of the Six Plenary Session on the Party's crucial role is not only a political guarantee but a systematic guarantee for building a harmonious society. So from the height of the Party's self building as a ruling party, the political belief of running or joining the CPC to serve the interests of people and wielding power for the sake of people, will be turned into the actual pursuance of leading officials at all levels, so that the fairness and justice sought after by the Party Central Committee will come true and the Chinese people's aspiration of harmony for the entire nation will become a reality.

By People's Daily Online