Completing the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects

A moderately prosperous society is an ideal society that the Chinese nation has pursued since ancient times. The vision of such a society was raised by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the roadmap for China’s economic and social development was being crafted. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the whole nation, the goal of a markedly improved life for the people had become a basic reality by the end of the 20th century.

Taking this into consideration, in its report to the 16th National Congress in 2002 the CPC Central Committee called for a continued push to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the first 20 years of the 21st century. New and more ambitious elements were subsequently added to this expanded concept at the Party’s 17th National Congress in 2007. In its report to the 18th National Congress in 2012 the CPC Central Committee announced the goal of completing the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the year 2020.

While “a moderately prosperous society” sets the goal for a higher level of social-economic development, “in all respects” requires balanced, sustainable, and properly coordinated development. The toughest and heaviest task is to help rural areas – poor areas in particular – and the most essential and urgent task is to further unlock and develop the nation’s productive forces.

The 18th CPC Central Committee announced the goal of helping all rural residents living below the current poverty line eliminate poverty by 2020. The report to the 19th CPC National Congress described the period between now and 2020 as “decisive” in completing the process.

The goal is the shared aspiration of the more than 1.3 billion Chinese people. This is the first of the Two Centennial Goals, and will be a milestone in the journey toward national rejuvenation. 

全面建成小康社會

小康社會是中華民族自古以來追求的理想社會狀態。改革開放之初，鄧小平首先用“小康”來詮釋中國式現代化，明確提出到20世紀末“在中國建立一個小康社會”的奮斗目標。在全黨全國各族人民共同努力下，鄧小平提出的目標在20世紀末如期實現，人民生活總體上達到小康水平。在這個基礎上，中共十六大提出本世紀頭20年全面建設惠及十幾億人口的更高水平的小康社會的目標。中共十七大提出全面建設小康社會的新要求。中共十八大對全面建設小康社會目標進行了充實和完善，將“全面建設小康社會”調整為“全面建成小康社會”。全面建成小康社會，“小康”講的是發展水平，“全面”講的是發展的平衡性、協調性、可持續性。全面建成小康社會，最艱巨最繁重的任務在農村、特別是在貧困地區，最根本最緊迫的任務還是進一步解放和發展社會生產力。中共十八屆五中全會明確提出，確保到2020年中國現行標準下農村貧困人口全部脫貧。中共十九大報告指出，從現在到2020年，是全面建成小康社會決勝期。全面建成小康社會的奮斗目標，是中國共產黨向人民、向歷史作出的莊嚴承諾，是13億多中國人民的共同期盼。這個宏偉目標，是“兩個一百年”奮斗目標中的第一個，是中華民族偉大復興征程上的重要里程碑，是實現中華民族偉大復興的重要基礎、關鍵一步。今天為全面建成小康社會而奮斗，就是在為實現民族復興而奮斗。