Full text of resolution on CPC Central Committee report

The following is the full text of Resolution of the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on the Report of its Seventeenth Central Committee adopted at the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on November 14, 2012:

The Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China approved the report delivered by Comrade Hu Jintao on behalf of the Party's Seventeenth Central Committee. Holding high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and following the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development, the report analyzes the developments and changes in the international and domestic environments, reviews our work in the past five years and the historic achievements we have made in the course of our endeavors since the Sixteenth Party Congress, and establishes the historical position of the Scientific Outlook on Development. The report sets forth the basic requirements for winning new victory for socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the goals of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and deepening reform and opening up in an all-around way. It lays out an overall plan for advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and sets forth explicit requirements for making Party building more scientific in all respects. The report also draws up a grand blueprint for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and accelerating socialist modernization and charts the course for making continued progress in the cause of the Party and country. It is the crystallization of the wisdom of the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups in China. It is a political declaration and a program of action for the Party to rally and lead the people of all our ethnic groups in winning new victory for socialism with Chinese characteristics. The report is a guiding Marxist document.

The congress held that the underlying theme set forth in the report is of great importance to the Party leading the people in building on our past success and carrying forward our cause with determination. The whole Party must hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development, free up the mind, implement the policy of reform and opening up, pool our strength, overcome all difficulties, firmly march on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

The congress stressed that at present, as the global, national and our Party's conditions continue to undergo profound changes, we are faced with unprecedented opportunities for development as well as risks and challenges unknown before. The whole Party must keep in mind the trust the people have placed in us and the great expectation they have of us. We must aim higher and work harder and continue to pursue development in a scientific way, promote social harmony, and improve the people's lives so as to complete the glorious and arduous tasks bestowed on us by the times.

The congress applauded the work of the Seventeenth Central Committee. Over the past five years since the Seventeenth Party Congress, we have marched boldly on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, overcome numerous difficulties and risks, achieved new success in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and made new and major achievements in all fields of our work.

The congress endorsed the Seventeenth Central Committee's basic review of our endeavors over the past ten years since the Sixteenth National Congress. It held that we have firmly seized and made the most of the important period of strategic opportunities for China's development, successfully met major challenges, and brought socialism with Chinese characteristics to a new stage of development. It also held that we have consolidated and developed the cause of reform and opening up and socialist modernization and raised China's international standing, and that all this shows the superiority and vitality of socialism with Chinese characteristics and has enhanced the pride and cohesiveness of the Chinese people and nation.

The congress stressed that the most important achievement in our endeavors in the past ten years is that we have developed the Scientific Outlook on Development and applied it by making courageous theoretical innovations on the basis of practice and developing closely interconnected new ideas and viewpoints on upholding and building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The Scientific Outlook on Development was created by integrating Marxism with the reality of contemporary China and with the underlying features of our times, and it fully embodies the Marxist worldview on and methodology for development. This theory provides new scientific answers to the major questions of what kind of development China should achieve in a new environment and how the country should achieve it. It represents a new level of our understanding of the laws of socialism with Chinese characteristics and reaches a new realm in the development of Marxism in contemporary China. The Scientific Outlook on Development is the latest achievement in developing the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China and a powerful theoretical weapon for guiding all the work of the Party and country. Together with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development provides the long-term theoretical guidance the Party must adhere to.

The congress pointed out that over the past 90-plus years, relying firmly on the people and adapting the basic tenets of Marxism to China's conditions and the underlying trend of the times, our Party has pursued its own course independently. The Party, enduring untold hardships and sufferings and paying various costs, achieved great success in revolution, development and reform, and created and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics, thus fundamentally changing the future and destiny of the Chinese people and nation. The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics are the fundamental accomplishments made by the Party and people in the course of arduous struggle over the past 90-plus years. We must cherish these accomplishments, uphold them all the time and continue to enrich them. To achieve new victory for socialism with Chinese characteristics under new historical conditions, we must have a firm grasp of the following basic requirements: We must maintain the people's principal position in the country, continue to release and develop the productive forces, persevere in reform and opening up, uphold social fairness and justice, strive for common prosperity, promote social harmony, pursue peaceful development and uphold the leadership of the Party.

The congress held that basing ourselves on China's actual economic and social development, we should work hard to meet the following new requirements while working to fulfill the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects set forth at the Sixteenth and Seventeenth National Congresses of the Party. They are: The economy should maintain sustained and sound development; people's democracy should be expanded; the country's cultural soft power should be improved significantly; living standards should be fully raised; and major progress should be made in building a resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society. To complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, we must, with greater political courage and vision, lose no time in deepening reform in key sectors and resolutely discard all notions and systems that hinder efforts to pursue development in a scientific way. We should set up a well-developed, scientific, standardized and effective framework of systems and ensure that operating institutions in all sectors are fully functioning.

The congress endorsed the plan made in the report for promoting socialist economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress in China. The congress emphasized the need to speed up the improvement of the socialist market economy and the change of the growth model and make development based more on improved quality and performance; and to fire all types of market participants with new vigor for development, increase motivation for pursuing innovation-driven development, establish a new system for developing modern industries, and create new favorable conditions for developing the open economy. This will make economic development driven more by domestic demand, especially consumer demand, by a modern service industry and strategic emerging industries, by scientific and technological progress, by a workforce of higher quality and innovation in management, by resource conservation and a circular economy, and by coordinated and mutually reinforcing urban-rural development and development between regions. Taking these steps will enable us to sustain long-term development and promote harmonized development of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization. The congress required us to keep to the socialist path of making political advance with Chinese characteristics, promote reform of the political structure and make people's democracy more extensive, fuller in scope and sounder in practice. We should ensure the unity of the leadership of the Party, the position of the people as masters of the country and law-based governance; and in order to guarantee the fundamental position of the people as masters of the country and reach the goal of enhancing the vitality of the Party and country and keeping the people fully motivated, we should expand socialist democracy, improve the system of socialist consultative democracy, improve community-level democracy, accelerate the building of a socialist country based on the rule of law, establish a sound mechanism for conducting checks and oversight of the exercise of power, and thus advance socialist political progress. The congress stressed the need to make steady progress in developing a strong socialist culture in China. We should keep to the goal of developing an advanced socialist culture, create a new surge in promoting socialist culture and bring about its great development and enrichment, increase China' s cultural soft power, and get culture to guide social trends, educate the people, serve society, and boost development. The congress emphasized the need to strengthen social development by improving the people's wellbeing and making innovations in management. In order to uphold the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people with high priority given to ensuring and improving the people's wellbeing, we should improve the people's material and cultural lives, bring as much benefit as possible to them, resolve as many difficulties as possible for them, intensify efforts to improve the basic public service system, strengthen and make innovations in social management, and boost the building of a harmonious socialist society. The congress called for making great efforts to promote ecological progress. We should raise our ecological awareness of the need to respect, accommodate to and protect nature, incorporate ecological progress into all aspects and the whole process of advancing economic, political, cultural, and social progress, intensify protection of the ecosystem and the environment, work hard to build a beautiful country, and achieve lasting and sustainable development of the Chinese nation. The congress emphasized the importance of responding to China's core security needs, following the three-step development strategy for modernizing national defense and the armed forces, intensifying efforts to accomplish the dual historic tasks of military mechanization and full IT application and building strong national defense and powerful armed forces that are commensurate with China's international standing and meet the needs of its security and development interests.

The congress highlighted the need to fully and faithfully implement the principle of "one country, two systems," under which the people of Hong Kong govern Hong Kong and the people of Macao govern Macao and both regions enjoy a high degree of autonomy. We must both adhere to the one-China principle and respect the differences of the two systems, both uphold the power of the central government and ensure a high degree of autonomy in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and both give play to the role of the mainland as the staunch supporter of Hong Kong and Macao and increase the competitiveness of the two regions. We must adhere to the principle of "peaceful reunification and one country, two systems," consolidate and strengthen the political, economic, cultural and social foundation for the peaceful growth of the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, open a new horizon in advancing the peaceful growth of these relations, and work with our compatriots in Taiwan to safeguard and build the common home of the Chinese nation, so as to create even better conditions for achieving peaceful reunification.

The congress endorsed the report's analysis of the international situation and the guiding principles it sets forth for China's diplomacy. The congress stressed that China will continue to hold high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit, firmly pursue an independent foreign policy of peace, unswervingly stay on the path of peaceful development, and unwaveringly follow a win-win strategy of opening up. We should be firm in our resolve to uphold China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and stay committed to growing friendship and cooperation in all fields with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. We should work to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity, and are ready to work with the people of other countries to unremittingly promote the noble cause of peace and development for mankind.

The congress stressed that, facing the new developments, the progress in our cause and the expectation the people have of us, we should comprehensively carry out the great new undertaking of Party building in an innovative and reform-driven way and make Party building more scientific in all respects. All Party members must heighten their sense of urgency and sense of responsibility and focus on strengthening the Party's governance capacity, advanced nature and purity. We must put people first and exercise governance for the people. We should continue to free up our minds, carry out reform and innovation, and uphold the principle that the Party should supervise its own conduct and run itself with strict discipline. We should make all-around efforts to strengthen the Party theoretically and organizationally, improve its conduct, fight corruption, uphold Party integrity and improve Party rules and regulations. We should enhance our capacity for self-purity, self-improvement, self-development and self-innovation and build the Party into a learning, service-oriented and innovative Marxist governing party. By taking these steps, we can ensure that the Party is always the firm leadership core guiding the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The congress underscored that combating corruption and promoting political integrity is a clear-cut and long-term political commitment of the Party and a major political issue of great concern to the people. We must make unremitting efforts to combat corruption, promote integrity and stay vigilant against degeneration. We should pursue a distinctive Chinese approach to combating corruption and promoting integrity. We should persist in combating corruption in an integrated way, addressing both its symptoms and root causes, and combining punishment and prevention, with emphasis on the latter. We should advance in an all-around way the establishment of a system of combating corruption through both punishment and prevention and see to it that officials are honest, the government is clean, and political integrity is upheld.

The congress emphasized that centralized leadership of the Party is the source of its strength and a fundamental guarantee for China's economic and social development, ethnic unity and progress, and enduring peace and stability. The more complexities the Party faces and the more arduous the tasks it undertakes, the more imperative it is for the Party to strengthen its discipline and uphold its centralized leadership. This will enable the whole Party from the leadership to the ranks to advance in unison as a great force.

The congress stressed that to live up to the people's trust in and expectation of us and stand new tests under new historical conditions, the whole Party must be keenly aware of potential dangers, be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and remain clear-headed. We must be innovative in our thinking, uphold truth and correct mistakes, and always maintain energy and drive. We must follow the guidance of the fundamental purpose of the Party, trust and rely on the people, and always put them above everything else. We must heighten our sense of mission, be realistic and pragmatic, defy difficulties and work hard, and preserve the political integrity of Communists.

The congress called on all Party members and the people of all ethnic groups in China to hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, rally more closely around the Party Central Committee, strive to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, continue to win new victory for socialism with Chinese characteristics, and make joint efforts to create an even brighter future for the Chinese people and nation.