A New Era Calls for a More Balanced and More Adequate Development

By Professor Xin Ming, Party School of the CPCCC

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A New Era Calls for a More Balanced and More Adequate Development

By Professor Xin Ming, Party School of the CPCCC

"Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era", the Report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC makes this major new statement, having clarified the new historical position of China's development. The new era, accompanied by the transformation of major social contradictions, has raised higher demands for development of economy and society. From building a moderately prosperous society in all-respects to basically realizing socialist modernization and still to building a modern socialist country, what kind of new development do we need to win? How to look at the "imbalanced and inadequate" development? What should we do to achieve the high quality development? How to meet the growing needs of the people for a better life and constantly promote the overall human development? These above-mentioned issues are key to understanding of China's future development and the path of development. This interview is a part of efforts to invite relevant experts to give their understanding on the reform and development and cheer for the new historical march. --Wu Qiuyu

The Report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC points out that "Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era", and China’s major social contradiction has shifted to the one between the growing needs of the people for a better life and the imbalanced and inadequate development. So, how to understand the changes of the main contradiction in the current society? What are the connotations and concrete manifestations of the imbalanced and inadequate development? How to solve the main social contradiction and achieve a more balanced and more adequate development? With these questions we interviewed the Central Party School professor Xin Ming.

Marching into a new era

Why has the main social contradiction changed?

Wu Qiuyu: Why does the judgment of the main social contradiction change in the current historical period? What is the cause for transformation of the main social contradictions in the country?

Professor Xin Ming: The main social contradiction is the objective reflection of the development level of social productivity and social development stage, to identify the main social contradictions should pay attention to two points: One is the change of the main social contradiction is naturally a historical process, can not be chosen arbitrarily because of subjective likes or dislikes. Two is the judgment on the major social contradiction should be scientific, timely and rational, and can neither be advanced nor delayed. Inaccurate and unsuited understanding of the main social contradiction will greatly impede the development of social productivity and further damage the progress of social development. The previous judgment on the main social contradiction was based on the general backdrop of the backward social productive force then. This judgment of the main contradiction is scientific, accurate, and positive and results-oriented. Based on the corresponding stage of social development, this contradiction can be defined as the "pre-development" contradiction.

After more than 60-year development, especially since the recent 40-year reform and opening- up, the Chinese society has already bid farewell to poverty, crossed over the period of enough food and clothing, and is about to achieve a moderately prosperous society in all-respects. China’s level of social productivity has also undergone fundamental changes, and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics has gradually matured and taken shape. All of these striking changes have indicated that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and China’s major social contradiction will also certainly change accordingly. We can define the new main social contradiction as the "post-development contradiction".

Grasping the essence from the perspective of phenomena, economic and social development in the end depends on development of productivity, so that the most fundamental reason leading transformation of the main social contradiction in China is that its social productive force has achieved a phased leap-frog, and the level of productivity has made a qualitative breakthrough. The transformation of the social main contradiction is a systematic social event, and is the result of a joint impact by a synergy of economic and social development, among which the most direct reason is that economic and social development has made significant progress, and the Chinese society has “developed” .

Wu Qiuyu: In comparison with the "growing material and cultural needs", what are the additional connotations of the "ever-growing needs for a better life"?

Professor Xin Ming: The content of the "ever-growing needs for a better life" is broader, not only including the objective "hard demand" of the existing "ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people", and also including more subjective "soft demands" derived on this foundation, such as a sense of enjoyment, a sense of well-being and a sense of security and dignity, rights, and be master of the country, so on. The previous "hard demands" have not disappeared, showing a trend of upgration, people look forward to a better education, more stable jobs, more decent income, more reliable social security, higher levels of health care services, more comfortable living conditions and more beautiful environment, and more enriched spiritual and cultural life.

The new "soft needs" show diversified, multi-level and multi-faceted characteristics, having raised corresponding requirements from the advanced culture to political life, from the reality of social status to the psychological expectation, value identity, still to fairness and justice as well as to common prosperity, even to human all-round development and all-round social progress.

Wu Qiuyu: After transformation of the major social contradiction, people's needs for a better life are more colorful. Why should we still emphasize economic construction as the core and stick to the four cardinal principles and reform and opening-up?

Professor Xin Ming: Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, which does not mean that it has surpassed the primary stage of socialism. Regarding this point, we need to have enough strategic sober-mindedness and enough strategic resolve.

Do whatever is suited to the stage of development. Since the "basic conditions" and "overall reality" of Chinese society have not changed, since the stage of post-development is still in the primary stage of socialism, we must firmly stick to the party's basic line -- the life line of the Party and the State and the happiness line of the people. A developed China does not mean that it does not require development, but needs higher level, higher quality and higher efficiency development, and a more balanced and more adequate development.

Standing in the new era

How to look at the imbalanced and inadequate development?

Wu Qiuyu: In terms of the overall situation of economic and social development, what are the aspects and areas in which the imbalanced and inadequate development are fully reflected?

Professor Xin Ming: At present, the imbalance of China's development is mainly embodied in three major areas: the imbalance among different fields, the imbalance among different regions and the imbalance among different groups. The imbalanced fields refer to the leading development in the economic field with miracles frequently achieved, while development in the political and social fields is steadily promoted, but there is a certain gap compared with that in the economic field, as for the construction of ecological civilization the gap may be greater. Regional imbalance mainly refers to imbalance among the Eastern, Central and Western regions, imbalance between urban and rural areas, imbalance between developed regions and underdeveloped regions, and even imbalance inside urban areas and developed regions and even some villages in China. Imbalance among groups mainly refers to the gaps between different social groups in sharing development achievements, and a fair and rational distribution pattern of wealth based on the benign olive-type social structure needs to be established.

In addition, there are large imbalances in some specific areas. For example, in the economic field, there is imbalance between development of real economy and financial and real estate development, the imbalanced development between the low-end industrial sectors and the high-end industrial sectors, the imbalanced development between large enterprises and small and micro-enterprises, etc.

The inadequate development means that the total development of the whole society is not abundant, the degree of development is not high enough and the development posture momentum is still not cemented enough. This inadequate development is reflected in all aspects of development. The part at the low-end of the development certainly belongs to inadequate development, while the part of unbalanced development at the high-end also see inadequate development.

I have been to a fairly developed big city in China, but in about 1-hour driving out of the city, I feel like entering another world, seemingly come to a situation over 20 years ago or even earlier, so the imbalance between urban and rural development is still huge. And right in this city, during a rainy day, underground drainage facilities refuse to work properly, but look up to see modern skyscrapers while looking around to find line of cars out of the fire soaked in the rainy water, fully reflecting the unbalanced and inadequate development. Looking at the spiritual and cultural life of the city, though the city managers from awareness of funding have made great efforts to work for culture building, facing the cultural needs of millions of people, the basic cultural facilities still have a large gap, thus, the unbalanced and inadequate development should not be belittled.

To evaluate the development level and development situation of socialism with Chinese characteristics in a new era, we need to say two sentences: One is that the level of development is no longer low, and that there is considerable development accumulation. The other is development level is not very high, and the total amount of development is not absolutely abundant. The two sentences should go together at any time, we cannot afford to miss neither of them.

Wu Qiuyu: What are the reasons for us to still emphasize the problem of inadequate development? What are the specific manifestations of inadequate development?

Professor Xin Ming: We say that the level of productivity has been greatly raised, which is mainly the vertical comparison with ourselves. However, compared with other countries in the world, the productivity level of China is still below the average level, which determines that the inadequate development of China has neither fundamentally changed, nor completely disappeared. The current "inadequate" performance is multifaceted, but which, in essence, can be understood from these following aspects.

The development mode needs to be adequately changed. The supply-side structural reform has achieved tangible results. Our national economic growth is changing from the traditional reliance on competing land, resources and labor force to competing science and technology, quality and efficiency. But this change is still in the initial stage, the new energy in a short period is difficult to pillar up the economic development, the service industry accounting for "half of the national economy" needs to step toward high-end products, excessive consumption of resources and energy have not been fundamentally solved, which determines that our changing the development mode should experience a considerable long period of an inadequate development stage.

The rule of law needs to be adequately promoted. Rule by law is the last line of defense for social fairness and justice. Currently, great progress has been made in governing the country by law. The socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has been formulated, and the reform of the judicial system has been deepened. But we should recognize that to solve the problem of "no law to abide by", then, the problem of "bypassing law" is more prominent, in order to ensure the people feel fair and just in every legal case, the rule of law also needs to work harder.

The spiritual civilization needs to be adequately promoted. The rapid development of material civilization needs more rapid development of spiritual civilization complementary with the former, but it is undeniable that material civilization and spiritual civilization in many places find a fast and a slow development respectively and "one leg long while the other leg short", unable to meet the people's pursuit of higher spiritual world realm, the inadequate development of spiritual civilization, in turn, will seriously restrict the adequate development of material civilization.

Social undertakings need to be adequately developed. It is difficult to get enrolled into a school, difficult for a patient to see a doctor, and difficult to provide services for those seniors. These people-raised obvious problems have not yet been fundamentally solved. With the increasing demand for fairness and justice, how to make the cake bigger and divide it well is a severe test facing us in the new era.

The ecological environment needs to be adequately improved. In recent years, with the enhancement of environmental awareness and the adopted related measures, positive progress has been made in the construction of ecological civilization in China, but the overall level of construction is still lagging behind the economic and social development. The deterioration of the ecological environment has not yet been fundamentally reversed. "Be beautiful" has become an important compulsory index for our construction of a modernized country, reflects people's new expectation for a beautiful environment in the new era. We need to further accelerate the pace of building a beautiful China.

The institutional mechanisms need to be adequately reformed. In recent years, a comprehensive deepening reform has brought a sense of gain to the masses, but the reform still faces many arduous tasks, such as the socialist market economy system needs to be improved, the fiscal and taxation reform needs to be further promoted, and the financial institutions system needs to be improved. With the reform continuously advancing into the deepwater areas, to make new achievements through comprehensively deepening reform will only become more and more difficult, and more and more formidable, is not an easy job to achieve, but to make more strenuous efforts.

Wu Qiuyu: Can we equate the "imbalance and inadequacy" with "structural problems"? What is the relationship between the "imbalanced" development and "inadequate" development?

Professor Xin Ming: The "imbalanced" development and "inadequate" development are mainly manifested in structural problems. This structural imbalance is no longer the "buckets more than covers" under the background of absolute shortage, but the development deviation and development shortsightedness under the background of relative shortage. For example, on the one hand, there is a serious surplus of low-end capacity. On the other hand, the high-end supply is in shortage or even is in nonexistence. On the one hand, it is difficult to obtain employment, on the other hand, there is a skilled labor shortage. But it can not be completely attributed to structural problems, since the fundamental reason is that it is caused by low level of productivity, I am not saying that many city managers only care for "face-saving", because the development level of productive force can only allow them to do that, so in the end efforts should be made to upgrade the productivity level.

The "inadequacy" is the objective basis of the "imbalance". The objective reality of China is that the economy and society have already developing fast, but the development is inadequate. Driven by unscientific development concept and unreasonable systematic mechanisms, there will emerge imbalanced development and intensify development inadequacy. For example, the bi-element structure problem of urban and rural areas is based on the fact that the development of rural productivity level is inadequate. Under the institutional arrangement of the excessive social resources inclining to cities, the urban and rural development imbalance is triggered and enlarged.

The "imbalances" will in turn exacerbate "inadequacy". Because of the imbalanced development, the social subjects at the strong end of development will consume too much of the development resources, thus exacerbating the phenomenon that the social subjects are inadequate or even scarce at the weak end of the development. For example, the "botany enterprises" take up the scarce factors of production, and certainly other businesses are more likely to feel the difficult development environment. The educational and medical resources are tilting to the urban areas, and the weak rural areas will face more difficult situation.

Embracing the new era

How to get development more balanced and more adequate?

Wu Qiuyu: How to better carry out the ideas of the people- centered development and make the development in the new era more balanced and more adequate?

Professor Xin Ming: To solve the imbalanced development, the most direct approach is to establish a new concept of development from the overall height, give more emphasis on development thinking and development planning, pay more attention to the coordination between the urban and rural areas, the coordination between regions, the coordination between social groups and the coordination between the economy and other aspects of society.

To solve the problem of inadequate development, we must vigorously develop the social productive force, eliminate all obstacles that restrict the development of productive force, release all social vitality and creativity, and constantly improve the level of development, development capacity and development performance. Development is still the key to solve all the problems in China, and to solve the main contradiction in the current society, we must firmly grasp the "first priority" of development.

To achieve a more balanced and adequate development, the institutional guarantee is to deepen the reform comprehensively. The reasons behind the imbalance and inadequate phenomenon in development are the unsound and unscientific systematic mechanisms. Through the comprehensive deepening reform, take institutional innovation to correct development concept, and the institutional mechanisms to protect the rights of the subject development, to stimulate social vitality, and promote social creativity; and promote the development toward balance and achieve adequate development through creating a good institutional environment.

To achieve a more balanced and adequate development, the most direct approach is to transform the development mode, optimize the economic structure and transform growth momentum and build a modern economic system. Different stages of development should have corresponding economic systems, and different economic systems have great differences in promoting balanced development and promoting adequate development. Only by building a modern economic system can we have a solid foundation for the development balance and the development adequacy.

To achieve a more balanced and adequate development, the focus is on the supply-side structural reform. Take the supply-side structural reform as the main line to accelerate the construction of industrial system for coordinate development among the real economy, technological innovation, modern financing, human resource, etc. Efforts should be made to build an economic system that has effective market mechanism, microcosmic dynamic, appropriate macro regulation and control, continuously enhance the innovation capacity and competitiveness of China's economy.

Wu Qiuyu: Could you look forward to the level of our social productivity and people's life after the solution of the current major social contradiction?

Professor Xin Ming: I think, by the time to get the main social contradiction solved, the development level of social productivity in China will reach or even surpass the level of developed countries, the intelligent transformation of production tools, and big increase of labor productivity will lay a solid foundation for income growth and wealth increase of the people.

More importantly, with a comprehensive upgrade of China's material, political, spiritual, social and ecological civilization, the significance of social wealth will change fundamentally,which is no longer the criteria or no longer the main criteria for success, but has become “general public goods” to ensure the survival and development of life, and are not in shortage. People's yearning for a better life is no longer a need for survival, or even a need for general development. Instead, they begin to strive for the all-round human development and to require social progress in an all-round way. By that time, the major social contradiction may probably undergo significant transformation, which may be more complicated than the present one. However, human society is moving towards progress and better life in the historical process of constantly resolving old contradictions and constantly confronting new contradictions.

(Excerpts of the article in People's Daily, 30 October 2017, p.17)