V. Political Development and Restructuring 　　

　　Developing socialist democracy and establishing a socialist political civilization are an important goal for building a well-off society in an all-round way. Adhering to the Four Cardinal Principles, we must go on steadily and surely with political restructuring, extend socialist democracy and improve the socialist legal system in order to build a socialist country under the rule of law and consolidate and develop the political situation characterized by democracy, solidarity, liveliness, stability and harmony.

　　Our Party has always deemed it its duty to realize and develop people's democracy. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, we have pressed on with political restructuring and improved socialist democracy. The key to developing socialist democracy is to combine the need to uphold the Party's leadership and to ensure that the people are the masters of the country with the need to rule the country by law. Leadership by the Party is the fundamental guarantee that the people are the masters of the country and that the country is ruled by law. The people being the masters of the country constitutes the essential requirement of socialist democracy. Ruling the country by law is the basic principle the Party pursues while it leads the people in running the country. The CPC is the core of leadership for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Governance by the Communist Party means that it leads and supports the people in acting as the masters of the country and mobilizes and organizes them on a most extensive scale to manage state and social affairs and economic and cultural undertakings according to law, safeguarding and realizing their fundamental interests. The Constitution and other laws embody the unity of the Party's views and the people's will. All organizations and individuals must act in strict accordance with the law, and none of them are allowed to have the privilege to overstep the Constitution and other laws.

　　Political restructuring is the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system. It must help enhance the vitality of the Party and state, demonstrate the features and advantages of the socialist system, give full scope to the initiative and creativity of the people, safeguard national unity, ethnic solidarity and social stability and promote economic development and social progress. We must always proceed from our national conditions, review our experience gained in practice and at the same time learn from the achievements of political civilization of mankind. We should never copy any models of the political system of the West. We must concentrate on institutional improvement and ensure that socialist democracy is institutionalized and standardized and has its procedures.

　　1. Uphold and improve the systems of socialist democracy. It is essential to improve the systems of democracy, develop diverse forms of democracy, expand citizens' participation in political affairs in an orderly way, and ensure that the people go in for democratic elections and decision-making, exercise democratic management and supervision according to law and enjoy extensive rights and freedoms, and that human rights are respected and guaranteed. We should uphold and improve the system of people's congresses and ensure that the congresses and their standing committees exercise their functions according to law and that their legislation and policy decisions better embody the people's will. We should optimize the composition of the standing committees. We should uphold and improve the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party. We should uphold the principle of "long-term coexistence, mutual supervision, treating each other with all sincerity and sharing weal and woe", step up our cooperation with the democratic parties and better display the features and advantages of the Chinese socialist system of political parties. We will ensure that the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) plays its role in political consultation, democratic supervision and participation in and deliberation of state affairs. We will consolidate and develop the broadest possible patriotic united front. We will fully implement the Party's policy toward ethnic minorities, uphold and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy, consolidate and enhance socialist ethnic relations of equality, solidarity and mutual assistance and promote common prosperity and progress for all our ethnic groups. We will implement the Party's policy toward the freedom of religious belief, handle religious affairs according to law, encourage the adaptability of religions to the socialist society and uphold the principle of self-administration and running religious affairs independently. We will conscientiously carry out the Party's policy toward overseas Chinese affairs.

　　Extending democracy at the grassroots level is the groundwork for developing socialist democracy. We will improve grassroots self-governing organizations, their democratic management system and the system of keeping the public informed of matters being handled, and ensure that the people directly exercise their democratic rights according to law, manage grassroots public affairs and programs for public good and exercise democratic supervision over the cadres. We will improve self-governance among villagers and foster a mechanism of their self-governance full of vitality under the leadership of village Party organizations. We will improve self-governance among urban residents and build new-type and well-managed communities featuring civility and harmony. We will uphold and improve the system of workers' conferences and other democratic management systems in enterprises and institutions and protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers.

　　2. Improve the socialist legal system. We must see to it that there are laws to go by, the laws are observed and strictly enforced, and law-breakers are prosecuted. To adapt to the new situation characterized by the development of a socialist market economy, all-round social progress and China's accession to the WTO, we will strengthen legislation and improve its quality and will have formulated a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics by the year 2010. We must see to it that all people are equal before the law. We should tighten supervision over law enforcement, promote the exercise of administrative functions according to law, safeguard judicial justice and raise the level of law enforcement so that laws are strictly implemented. We must safeguard the uniformity and sanctity of the legal system and prevent or overcome local and departmental protectionism. We will extend and standardize legal services and provide effective legal aid. We should give more publicity to the legal system so that the people are better educated in law. In particular, we will enhance the public servants' awareness of law and their ability to perform their official duties according to law. Party members and cadres, especially leading cadres, should play an exemplary role in abiding by the Constitution and other laws.

　　3. Reform and improve the Party's style of leadership and governance. This is a matter of overall significance to improving socialist democracy. Leadership by the Party mainly refers to its political, ideological and organizational leadership. The Party exercises leadership over the state and society by formulating major principles and policies, making suggestions on legislation, recommending cadres for important positions, conducting ideological publicity, giving play to the role of Party organizations and members and persisting in exercising state power according to law. Party committees, playing the role as the core of leadership among all other organizations at corresponding levels, should concentrate on handling important matters and support those organizations in assuming their responsibilities independently and making concerted efforts in their work. We will further reform and improve the Party's working organs and mechanisms. Acting on the principle that the Party commands the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters, we will standardize relations between Party committees on the one hand and people's congresses, governments, CPPCC committees and mass organizations on the other. We will support people's congresses in performing their functions as organs of state power according to law, in ensuring that the Party's views become the will of the state and that candidates recommended by Party organizations become leading cadres of the organs of state power through legal procedures, and in exercising supervision over them. We will support the government in fulfilling its legal functions and performing its official duties according to law. We will support CPPCC committees in performing their functions by centering on the two major subjects of unity and democracy. We will strengthen the Party's leadership over trade unions, the Communist Youth League organizations, women's federations and other mass organizations and support them in working according to law and their own constitutions and acting as a bridge between the Party and the people.

　　4. Reform and improve the decision-making mechanism. Correct decision-making is an important prerequisite for success in all work. We will improve the decision-making mechanism by which decision-makers will go deep among the people and get to know how they are faring, reflect their will, pool their wisdom and value their resources, putting decision-making on a more scientific and democratic basis. Decision-making organs at all levels should improve the rules and procedures for taking major policy decisions, establish a system of reporting social conditions and public opinion, a system of keeping the public informed and a system of public hearings on major issues closely related to the interests of the people, perfect the expert consulting system and implement a verification system and a responsibility system in making policy decisions with a view to preventing arbitrary decision-making.

　　5. Deepen administrative restructuring. We should further change the functions of the government, improve the methods of management, introduce e-government, uplift administrative efficiency and reduce costs so as to form an administrative system featuring standardized behaviors, coordinated operation, fairness and transparency, honesty and high efficiency. We should standardize the functions and powers of the Central Government and local authorities according to law and properly handle relations between the departments directly under the Central Government and the local governments. Following the principle of simplification, uniformity and efficiency and meeting the requirements of coordination in decision-making, execution and supervision, we will continue to promote the restructuring of government departments, standardize their functions in a scientific manner, rationalize their set-ups, and optimize their composition in order to delimit the structures and sizes statutorily and solve the problems of too many levels, overlapping functions, overstaffing, divorce between powers and responsibilities and duplicate law enforcement. We will reform the management system of institutions in accordance with the principle of separating the functions of government from those of institutions.

　　6. Promote the reform of the judicial system. A socialist judicial system must guarantee fairness and justice in the whole society. In accordance with the requirements of judicial justice and strict law enforcement, we should improve the setups of judicial organs, the delimitation of their functions and powers and their management systems so as to form a sound judicial system featuring clearly specified powers and responsibilities, mutual coordination and restraint and highly efficient operation. We should institutionally ensure that the judicial and procuratorial organs are in a position to exercise adjudicative and procuratorial powers independently and impartially according to law. We should improve judicial proceedings and protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens and legal persons. We should solve the problem of difficult enforcement of judgments. We should reform the working mechanisms of judicial organs and the management system of their human, financial and material resources and gradually separate their judicial adjudication and procuratorial work from their administrative affairs. We will tighten supervision over the judicial work and punish corruption in this field. We will build up a contingent of judicial personnel who are politically steadfast and professionally competent, have a fine style of work and enforce laws impartially.

　　7. Deepen the reform of the cadre and personnel system. Efforts should be made to form a vigorous personnel mechanism under which we can gather large numbers of talented people, put them to the best use and get them prepared for both promotion and demotion, calling them to the service of the Party and state. In reforming and perfecting the cadre and personnel system and improving the system of public servants, we should focus on establishing a sound mechanism of selection, appointment, management and supervision, with a view to making it scientific, democratic and institutionalized. In the matter of cadre selection and appointment, Party members and ordinary people should have more right to know, to participate, to choose and to supervise. With regard to leading cadres of the Party and government, it is necessary to implement the system of fixed tenures, the system of resignation and the system of accountability for neglect of supervisory duty or the use of the wrong person. It is necessary to improve the system of giving cadres both positions and ranks and establish an incentive and guarantee mechanism for them. We should explore and improve the system of classified management of cadres and personnel in Party and government organs, institutions and enterprises. We should reform and improve the system of dual control over cadres. We should break with the notions and practices of overstressing seniority in the matter of selection and appointment, encourage the rational flow of trained people and create a sound environment which makes it possible for outstanding people to come to the fore in all fields.

　　8. Tighten the restraint on and supervision over the use of power. We should establish a mechanism for the exercise of power featuring reasonable structure, scientific distribution, rigorous procedures and effective restraint so as to tighten supervision over power in terms of decision-making, execution and other links and ensure that the power entrusted to us by the people is truly exercised for their benefits. We should focus on tightening supervision over leading cadres and especially principal ones, stepping up supervision over the management and use of human, financial and material resources. We should tighten internal supervision of leading groups and improve the procedures for deciding on important matters and the appointment or dismissal of cadres in important positions. We should reform and improve the system of Party discipline inspection and introduce and improve the system of inspection tours. We should give play to the role of judicial, administrative supervision and auditing organs and other functional departments. We should implement the system under which leading cadres report in various ways on their work and their efforts to perform their duties honestly, and improve the systems of reporting on important matters, of making inquiries and of democratic appraisal. We should conscientiously implement the system of making government affairs known to the public. We should tighten organizational and democratic supervision and give play to the supervisory function of the media.

　　9. Maintain social stability. To accomplish the heavy tasks of reform and development, we must have a harmonious and stable social climate for a long time to come. Party committees and governments at all levels should enthusiastically help the people solve practical problems they may confront in their work and life. They must carry out in-depth investigations and study, strengthen ideological and political work in light of different cases, and employ economic, administrative and legal means to handle the contradictions among the people properly, those involving their immediate interests in particular, so as to maintain stability and unity. It is essential to improve procuratorial, judicial and public security work, cracking down on criminal activities according to law, guarding against and punishing crimes committed by evil cult gangs and eliminating social evils so as to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the people. We must combine punishment and prevention, with emphasis on the latter, take comprehensive measures to maintain law and order and improve social management so as to keep public order. We must strengthen state security, keeping vigilance against infiltrative, subversive and separatist activities by hostile forces at home and abroad.

　　Socialist democracy enjoys strong vitality and superiority. The CPC and the Chinese people have full confidence in the road to political development they have chosen and will press ahead with political development under socialism with Chinese characteristics.

　　VI. Cultural Development and Restructuring 　　

　　To build a well-off society in an all-round way calls for major efforts to develop socialist culture and spiritual civilization. In the present-day world, culture is interactive with economic and political activities, and its status and functions are becoming more and more outstanding in the competition in overall national strength. The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality, creativity and cohesion of a nation. All Party members must fully understand the strategic significance of cultural development and make socialist culture develop and flourish.

　　1. Keep the orientation of advanced culture firmly in hand. In contemporary China, to develop advanced culture means to develop national, scientific and popular socialist culture geared to the needs of modernization, of the world and of the future so as to enrich people's mental world and reinforce their mental strength. We must uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as our guidelines in the realm of ideology and have the important thought of Three Represents in command of the development of socialist culture. We must keep to the orientation of serving the people and socialism and the principle of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend and highlight the themes of the times while encouraging diversity. We should continue to arm people with scientific theory, provide them with correct media guidance, imbue them with lofty ideals, and inspire them with excellent works of literature and art. We must exert ourselves to develop advanced culture and support healthy and useful culture, changing what is backward and resisting what is decadent. Literary and art workers should go deep among the masses and into the thick of life so as to contribute to the people more works worthy of the times. The press, publishing, radio, film and television must give correct guidance to the public, and Internet web sites should serve as important fronts for spreading advanced culture. Basing ourselves on the practice of reform, opening up and modernization and keeping abreast of the latest developments in world culture, we must carry forward the fine tradition of our national culture, draw on the strong points of other nations and make innovations in content and form so as to enhance the attraction and appeal of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.

　　2. Continue to carry forward and cultivate the national spirit. National spirit is the moral kingpin on which a nation relies for survival and development. Without an inspiring spirit and lofty character, it is impossible for a nation to stand proudly in the family of nations. For more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation has evolved a great national spirit centering on patriotism and featuring unity and solidarity, love of peace, industry, courage and ceaseless self-improvement. This national spirit has been enriched in light of the requirements of the times and social development by the people under the leadership of our Party over along period of practice. Confronted with interaction of different thoughts and cultures in the world, we must take it as a crucial task in our cultural development to carry forward and cultivate the national spirit and incorporate it into our national education and the entire process of building spiritual civilization so that the entire people are always filled with an enterprising spirit.

　　3. Promote ideological and ethical progress. Ruling the country by law and ruling the country by virtue complement each other. It is necessary to establish a socialist ideological and ethical system compatible with the socialist market economy and the socialist legal standard and consistent with the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation. We must carry out intensive publicity and education in the Party's basic theory, line and program and in the important thought of Three Represents, and guide people in fostering a common ideal for socialism with Chinese characteristics, correct world outlook, views on life and values. We must carry out the Program for Improving Civic Morality, promote patriotism and, with serving the people at the core, collectivism as the principle and honesty as a priority, intensify education in social and professional ethics and family virtues and especially intensify the ideological and ethical improvement among youth so as to guide people in their pursuit of higher ideological and ethical standards on the basis of observing the basic code of conduct. We must strengthen and improve ideological and political work and encourage popular participation in building spiritual civilization.

　　4. Develop education and science. Education is the foundation for scientific and technological advancement and personnel training. Playing a vanguard role and having an overall bearing on the modernization drive, education must be placed on our development agenda as a strategic priority. We must carry out the Party's education policy that education should serve socialist modernization and the people and integrate itself with productive labor and social practice so as to train socialist builders and successors featuring an all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique and art. We should encourage innovation in education, deepen its reform, optimize its structure, allocate its resources rationally, raise its quality and management levels and promote quality-oriented education to cultivate hundreds of millions of high-quality workers, tens of millions of specialized personnel and a great number of top-notch innovative personnel. We should build up the ranks of teachers and raise their professional ethics and competence. We should continue to make nine-year compulsory education universal across the country, intensify vocational education and training, develop continued education and set up a system of life-long education. We should increase input in education, give more support to rural education, and encourage nongovernmental sectors to run schools. We should improve the state policy and system for aiding students in straitened circumstances. We should formulate a long-term program for scientific and technological development. We should step up the development of infrastructure for research. We should disseminate science and promote the scientific spirit. We must lay equal stress on social sciences and natural sciences and give full play to the important role of philosophy and other social sciences in economic and social development. It is essential to create an atmosphere in society at large favorable for respecting and promoting science, encouraging innovation and opposing superstition and pseudo-science.

　　5. Develop cultural undertakings and industry. In developing cultural undertakings and industry, it is imperative to meet the requirements of developing advanced culture and always place social effects in the first place. The state supports and protects public cultural undertakings and encourages them to enhance their vigor for self-development. We must continue to improve the policies and measures for the development of public cultural undertakings. We must give our support to the major news media and research institutions of social sciences of the Party and state, to the major cultural projects and art schools and troupes that are up to national standards and embody national characteristics, to the protection of major cultural heritage and outstanding folk arts, and to the cultural development in the old revolutionary base areas, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, remote areas, impoverished areas and the central and western regions of the country. We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture. We should promote the reform and development of health and sports undertakings and carry on the nationwide fitness campaign to improve the physique of the entire people. We should make the 2008 Olympics a success. Developing the cultural industry is an important avenue to enriching socialist culture in the market economy and to meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of the people. It is essential to improve policies toward the cultural industry, support its development and enhance its overall strength and competitiveness.

　　6. Continue to deepen cultural restructuring. It is necessary to push forward cultural restructuring in light of the characteristics of the development of socialist spiritual civilization and laws governing it and in response to the needs of the growing socialist market economy. We must lose no time in working out overall planning for cultural restructuring. We must integrate the deepening of reform with structural adjustment and promotion of development and straighten out the relationship between the government and cultural enterprises and institutions. We must build up a legal system concerning culture and intensify macro-control. We should deepen the internal reform of cultural enterprises and institutions and gradually establish a management system and operational mechanism favorable to arousing the initiative of cultural workers, encouraging innovation and bringing forth more top-notch works and more outstanding personnel. In compliance with the principle of both enriching culture and intensifying management, we should improve the system of markets for cultural products and their management mechanism to create a social climate favorable for a flourishing socialist culture.

　　The Chinese civilization, extensive and profound, and with a long history behind it, has contributed tremendously to the progress of human civilization. We will surely have a new upsurge in building socialist culture and create an even more splendid advanced culture in the great struggle of the Chinese people in the contemporary era.

　　VII. National Defense and Army Building

　　Strengthening our national defense is a strategic task in our modernization drive and an important guarantee for safeguarding our national security and unity and building a well-off society in an all-round way. We must uphold the principle of coordinated development of national defense and the economy and push forward the modernization of national defense and the army on the basis of economic growth.

　　The army must take Mao Zedong's military thinking and Deng Xiaoping's thinking on army building in the new period as the guide to action and fully implement the important thought of Three Represents. It must persist in taking the road of fewer but better troops with Chinese characteristics and become more revolutionary, modernized and regularized in compliance with the general requirements of being qualified politically and competent militarily and having a fine style of work, strict discipline and adequate logistic support and in close connection with the two historic objectives of being capable of winning battles and never degenerating.

　　The army should give first priority to ideological and political development in all its endeavors and retain the nature, quality and style of work worthy of a people's army. The Party's absolute leadership over the army is the eternal soul of the army. There must be no wavering in upholding the fundamental principle and system that the Party leads the people's army.

　　The army must implement the military strategic principle of active defense and raise its defense capabilities and combat effectiveness under high-tech conditions. In response to the trend of military changes in the world, it must carry out the strategy of building a strong army through science and technology and improve its qualities. It should attach strategic importance to education and training, carry on intensive science- and technology-related military training and strengthen the building of military academies and schools so as to bring up a large number of high-quality military personnel of a new type. It is necessary to innovate and develop military theories. Efforts should be made to accomplish the historical tasks of mechanization and IT application, thereby bringing about leapfrog development in the modernization of our army.

　　It is necessary to explore the characteristics and laws for running the army under the new historical conditions and press ahead with reforms in the building of national defense and the army. The formation and structure of the army must be optimized and the related policies and systems should be adjusted and improved. The army must be strict with itself and improve the system of military rules and regulations so as to raise the level of handling its affairs according to law. It is essential to persist in building the army through diligence and thrift and establishing and improving an integrated logistic support system for the three armed services, for both military and civilian purposes and for both peacetime and wartime. It is necessary to deepen the restructuring of defense-related science, technology and industry, combine military efforts with civilian support, establish and improve the mechanism of competition, appraisal, supervision and incentives and enhance the capabilities of independent innovation so as to speed up the development of defense-related science and technology as well as arms and equipment. It is necessary to improve the mobilization system for national defense, strengthen the militia and reserves and develop strategies and tactics of the people's war under high-tech conditions. The armed police should strive for all-round improvement and be loyal guards of the Party and the people forever.

　　Party organizations and governments at all levels and the people should be concerned with and support the building of national defense and the army. The army should support and take an active part in national construction. We should strengthen education in national defense to enhance the entire people's awareness of its importance. The government and the people should support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of servicemen and martyrs, and the army should support the government and cherish the people so as to consolidate the solidarity between the army and the government and between the army and the people.