19th Party Congress and the New Era

In October 2017 the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. Its theme was: “Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.” The Congress made the major political judgment that socialism with Chinese characteristics had entered a new era, and noted that the principal contradiction in Chinese society had become the one between the people’s ever-growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. It established Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guiding ideology the Party must uphold over the long term and wrote it into the Party constitution. It set a strategy in two stages from 2020 to the middle of this century: first, from 2020 to 2035, on the basis of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, to strive another fifteen years to basically realize socialist modernization; second, from 2035 to the middle of the century, to strive another fifteen years to build China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful modern socialist country. In March 2018 the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress passed a constitutional amendment writing Xi Jinping Thought into the Constitution and establishing the National Supervisory Commission. The 19th Congress was a very important meeting held in the decisive stage of completing a moderately prosperous society, and it drew a grand blueprint for China’s development in the new era.