Meeting People’s Aspirations to Live a Better Life with a Mature and Established System in China

ABSTRACT

As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved to take the form of a contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life. In order to meet this need through institutional construction, it is necessary (1) to promote high-quality development, building a modernized economy so as to meet the increased material and cultural needs of the people; (2) to achieve a sense of gain, happiness and security among the people through scientific institutional construction; (3) to satisfy people’s new needs for democracy, the rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and environmental protection through efficient institutional construction; (4) to establish and steadily improve a national system of basic public services to ensure universal access to childcare, education, employment, medical services, care of elderly people, housing, and social welfare assistance, and to continue to advance towards common prosperity for all of Chinese society; (5) to provide better education, more stable jobs, higher incomes, more reliable social security, more advanced heath care, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment, and to allow the younger generation to grow, work and live in better conditions through comprehensive, fully-fledged institutions and an enhanced governance system.

KEYWORDS:

• Socialism
• people
• better life
• institutional system
• modernization

Acknowledgements

This article was translated from Chinese by Zixu Liu at the Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See GMW.cn: https://m.gmw.cn/2019-08/01/content_33046802.htm.

2 See “Third Live Interview on Reading the ‘Report on the Work of the Supreme People’s Court.’” https://topics.gmw.cn/2021-03/09/content_34672113.htm.

3 See http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2019-05/09/content_5389983.htm.

4 See http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-02/23/content_5482402.htm.

5 See http://health.people.com.cn/n1/2016/1216/c408914-28955776-2.html.

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of the project “Research on the Historical Status of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (project number: 018MZD022).

Notes on contributors

Xiangyang Xin

Xiangyang Xin, PhD, is Vice President and Researcher of the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research focuses on sinicized Marxism. His main publications include On China’s Development (in Chinese; Shandong People’s Publishing House, 2006), A Study of the Basic Issues concerning the Scientific Outlook on Development (in Chinese; China Social Press, 2008), and The Review and Analysis of Western Democracy Theory of the Twentieth Century (in Chinese; Shandong People’s Publishing House, 2011). He is also the editor of A Study of the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (in Chinese; Hebei People’s Publishing House, 2011).