General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "To further deepen the reform in an all-round way, we must closely focus on the theme of promoting Chinese modernization." The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese Modernization (hereinafter referred to as "Decision"), which was deliberated and adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, drew a grand blueprint for further comprehensively deepening reform and opening up a broad prospect of Chinese modernization, defined the overall goal and main tasks of further comprehensively deepening reform, and led the reform and opening up to always advance in the right direction.
The historic leap of two epoch-making "Third Plenary Sessions"
The "Decision" clearly defined the importance and necessity of further deepening the reform in an all-round way, and emphasized the important historical position of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party and the Second Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Party: the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party was epoch-making and opened a new era of reform, opening up and socialist modernization. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee is also epoch-making, which has opened a new journey of comprehensively deepening reform, systematically designing and promoting reform in the new era, and created a new situation of China’s reform and opening up. This is of great significance for us to deeply understand and grasp the importance and necessity of further comprehensive deepening reform.
In the early days of reform and opening up, the development level of China’s productive forces was relatively low. The core task of reform is to liberate and develop productive forces, promote rapid economic development, improve people’s living standards and enhance the country’s economic strength as soon as possible. Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out: "Poverty is not socialism" and "We should catch up with the times, which is the goal of reform". In the 1980s, the reform of household contract responsibility system in rural areas, the reform of enterprise contract system in cities and a series of reforms of price mechanism were all important measures to increase commodity factors and market factors and enhance incentive mechanism and economic vitality under the framework of planned economy system. Since then, the Third Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has made the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Economic System Reform", emphasizing that China has implemented a "planned commodity economy on the basis of public ownership"; The Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee made "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic System", emphasizing "making the market play a fundamental role in the allocation of resources under the macro-control of the state"; The Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee made "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Several Issues of Perfecting the Socialist Market Economic System", emphasizing "giving full play to the basic role of the market in resource allocation to a greater extent". Under the guidance of these programmatic reform documents, China’s reform revolves around establishing and improving the socialist market economic system.The reform of national macro-control mode, factor market, labor market, state-owned enterprises, fiscal and taxation system and social security system are all aimed at mobilizing the enthusiasm of individuals, enterprises and localities, liberating and developing productive forces and promoting sustained and rapid economic development.
The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in 2013 made "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Decision on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform", aiming at implementing the strategic plan of the 18th CPC National Congress on comprehensively deepening reform. This plenary session made arrangements for comprehensively deepening the reform, and made it clear that the overall goal of comprehensively deepening the reform is to improve and develop the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. At the same time, the plenary session emphasized that "the reform of economic system is the focus of comprehensively deepening reform, and the core issue is to properly handle the relationship between the government and the market", and put forward an important new expression of "making the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources and giving better play to the role of the government". Since then, China’s reform has embarked on a new journey of deepening the reform in an all-round way with the emphasis on deepening the economic system reform and promoting the reform through overall system design. It not only emphasizes the liberation and development of productive forces, but also emphasizes the improvement and development of the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.
This epoch-making change has a profound realistic background and concept guidance. After more than 30 years of reform and opening up, some deep-seated institutional problems and barriers to solidification of interests have become increasingly apparent, and reform has entered a critical period and deep water areas. It has become the common requirement of the whole society to comprehensively deepen reform, solve problems and promote development. For example, getting rid of poverty, promoting common prosperity, promoting environmental protection and ecological construction are all major issues that need to be solved urgently. If these problems are not solved, it will not only affect the realization of the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way, but also affect the people’s sense of happiness and security. Therefore, it is necessary to put it on the important agenda, push forward the reform with real guns and knives, highlight the system construction, and constantly promote the self-improvement and development of Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s system. At the same time, China is still in the primary stage of socialism, and development is still the key to solving all our problems. Therefore, we must further emancipate our minds, emancipate and develop social productive forces, emancipate and enhance social vitality, resolutely get rid of the shortcomings of various institutional mechanisms, and strive to open up broader prospects for the cause of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Promoting three "better adaptations" can provide institutional guarantee for Chinese modernization.
Further deepening the reform in an all-round way is not only a continuation of the practice of comprehensively deepening the reform since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, but also a new chapter in the era of promoting Chinese modernization in the new journey. The overall goal of further comprehensive deepening reform proposed in the Decision is to continue to improve and develop the Socialism with Chinese characteristics system and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, and in the "guiding ideology of further comprehensive deepening reform", it is proposed that "the relations of production and productivity, superstructure and economic base, national governance and social development should be better adapted to provide a strong impetus and institutional guarantee for Chinese modernization". Promoting three "better adaptations" is an important expression in the Decision. It is not only the progress of the reform goals of the past two landmark Third Plenary Sessions, but also a high summary of the situation and tasks facing the next reform based on building a socialist modernization power in an all-round way. In particular, "better adaptation of state governance and social development" is an important new formulation of this plenary session, which embodies the governance concept and requirements that match the new situation and new tasks in the new era of modernization.
Continuing to emancipate and develop productive forces requires simultaneous efforts to make the relations of production and productive forces, superstructure and economic base better adapt. To liberate and develop productive forces, we should not only "break" but also "establish". We still have many shortcomings to fill in the system construction. The "Decision" proposes to improve the basic system of market economy, including property rights system, market access system, social credit system and supervision system. These are the basic guarantees for the effective operation of the socialist market economy, including many important new requirements. For example, it is proposed to protect the economic property rights of all kinds of ownership equally and for a long time according to law. The expression "long-term" highlights that protecting the economic property rights of all kinds of ownership is not an expedient measure and will not change, giving all kinds of investors and entrepreneurs long-term confidence and expectations. For another example, in the part of building a unified national market and improving the macroeconomic governance system, many contents of institutional mechanism construction are put forward. For another example, private enterprises are required to build a system, and support and guide private enterprises to improve their governance structure and management system, and strengthen enterprise compliance construction and integrity risk prevention and control.
In view of the primary task of high-quality development, the Decision has deployed a number of reform tasks. At present, the incentive and restraint mechanism to promote high-quality development is still not perfect, and it faces many institutional and institutional obstacles and bottlenecks, which need to be solved by further comprehensively deepening reforms. For example, in the operation of the market, we have made great efforts to encourage entry into the market, but the institutional arrangements for exit from the market are still not perfect, which is not conducive to the market to play the role of survival of the fittest and improve the quality of development. The "Decision" proposes to improve the enterprise bankruptcy mechanism, explore the establishment of an individual bankruptcy system, promote the reform of enterprise cancellation, and improve the enterprise withdrawal system. Only by successfully eliminating the low-efficiency and low-competitiveness productive forces can we really promote the agglomeration of various advanced production factors to the development of new quality productive forces, greatly improve the total factor productivity, and provide new endogenous motivation and institutional guarantee for high-quality development.
To solve outstanding problems, we should not only persevere and overcome difficulties, but also establish rules and regulations and form long-term institutional mechanisms. This is because the reform measures to deal with outstanding problems often involve stock adjustment, and the interest relationship is complicated, which will inevitably encounter difficulties and challenges. Standardizing the order of income distribution and promoting common prosperity involves not only the problem of making a big cake and dividing it well, but also the problem of initial distribution and redistribution. Different subjects are in different positions, and their views are inconsistent. In addition, changes in economic development speed, capital flow tendency, local government preferences and other situations will affect the income distribution pattern. In view of the outstanding problems, the "Decision" insists on solving them by promoting institutional arrangements. For example, it is proposed to improve the tax system that is conducive to high-quality development, social equity and market unity, and optimize the tax structure, which has clearly defined the direction and measures for deepening the reform of the fiscal and taxation system. For another example, it is proposed to standardize the laws and regulations of local investment promotion, and it is strictly forbidden to give preferential policies in violation of laws and regulations. This is an institutional constraint on local investment promotion by building a unified national market.
Social progress brings diversified demands, which requires better adaptation between national governance and social development. Promoting "better adaptation between state governance and social development" is an important new formulation in the Decision, which embodies our Party’s profound understanding and grasp of new problems and challenges arising in the process of economic development and social progress. With the improvement of China’s economic development level and national education level, how to correctly handle the relationship between social vitality and social order is very important. Both practice and theory show that the period of modernization development is a period of simultaneous increase of social vitality and unstable factors. For example, the development of education has improved people’s literacy rate and education level, and increased the influence of the media on people. As people’s horizons are higher and farther, their expectations will continue to grow and expand, which is likely to exceed their ability to meet these expectations. Another example is that economic development will increase the geographical mobility of population, make the distribution of population and resources more balanced, and at the same time break the original social stability mechanism. With the increase of the population flowing from rural areas to cities, if the relevant supporting services can’t keep up, it will not be able to better meet the people’s expectations of integrating into cities. The "Decision" has made many major reforms and arrangements for these new problems, and proposed to improve the system and mechanism of urban-rural integration development, promote the equal exchange and two-way flow of urban and rural factors, narrow the differences between urban and rural areas, and promote the common prosperity and development of urban and rural areas; We will implement the system of providing basic public services by registered permanent residence accounts,Promote qualified agricultural transfer population social insurance, housing security, compulsory education for accompanying children, etc. to enjoy the same rights as the registered population in the place of migration, and accelerate the urbanization of agricultural transfer population; Wait a minute. To further comprehensively deepen reform, while giving consideration to fairness and efficiency, we should also give better consideration to vitality and order, and promote better adaptation between national governance and social development.
To properly handle the relationship between state governance and social development, it is necessary to promote the whole society to be both vibrant and orderly in the process of profound and complicated social progress and change. Therefore, we should make great efforts in system construction to meet the people’s growing needs in democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security and environment, and form a normalized system and mechanism to coordinate social interests, guard against social risks, resolve social contradictions and maintain social stability. This puts forward new requirements for the ability and level of protecting citizens’ rights, maintaining social justice and maintaining social security. For example, the "Decision" proposes to establish a minor criminal record sealing system, which is a concrete reform measure of the criminal justice system, highlighting the important concept of the state to strengthen judicial protection of human rights, especially to protect the legitimate rights and interests of people at fault, and is of great significance for minimizing social opposites and turning negative factors into positive ones. There are many reforms and arrangements in the Decision that reflect the new pattern of economic development, the new concept of social progress, and the new requirements of the people, all in order to let the people experience the level of national governance that matches the modern country from one specific reform measure.
In a word, there are many major theoretical innovations in the Decision. These innovations are based on an accurate grasp of the historical position of further deepening the reform in an all-round way, a deep understanding of the relationship between the China characteristics of Chinese modernization and the general laws of modernization, and a foresight of the new opportunities and challenges that may be faced in the modernization journey. They are another important document with symbolic and groundbreaking significance in the history of China’s reform and opening up. The comprehensive implementation of the major reform tasks proposed in the Decision will certainly provide a strong impetus and a solid institutional guarantee for promoting Chinese modernization.
(The author is a professor at China Academy of Social Sciences)