For Wang Xiuying, an 84-year-old retired railway worker in Changchun, Jilin Province, a xiaokang life means practicing morning tai chi in a park near her neighborhood and shopping around in the three supermarkets near her apartment. Her cozy life is guaranteed by a regularly increasing pension, which is a source of security and happiness. "For me, all these things constitute a xiaokang life, which was unimaginable when I was young, when the country was recovering and focusing on production and construction," Wang told Beijing Review.

On July 1, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, announced that China had realized its first centenary goal—building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

"This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects," Xi, also Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, said at a ceremony marking the CPC centenary in Beijing that day.

Reaching the goal

Xiaokang is a phrase about a well-off life first mentioned in the Book of Songs, China's first anthology of poems dating back more than 2,000 years. Xiaokang was first used to describe Chinese modernization by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the early years of China's reform and opening up. He proposed building a xiaokang or a moderately prosperous society.

In 1984, Deng further elaborated on the concept by saying, "Xiaokang means that our per-capita GDP reaches $800 by the end of this century." While according to official data, the country's per-capita GDP was about $250 that year; however, this goal was achieved 16 years later.

At the end of 1990, the Seventh Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee offered a more detailed definition of xiaokang to include adequate or ample food and clothing. This requires not only the improvement of material life, but also the enrichment of cultural life; it includes raising consumption levels, as well as that of social welfare and the working conditions.

"In the early 1990s, it was an enviable thing to hear some households were leading a xiaokang life," Wang said, adding that in her eyes, an imported color television set, a radio-cassette recorder, musical instruments like a piano and a car, among others, symbolized a moderately prosperous life at that time.

Although the Chinese people no longer had to worry about feeding and clothing themselves and saw their lives improve, the government was fully aware that the development was still not comprehensive and remained unbalanced. Back then, there were still a large number of poor people, big urban-rural disparity, and a deep contradiction between ecological and environmental protection and economic and social development.

In 2012, the 18th CPC National Congress formally proposed "completing the building of a xiaokang society in all respects." As China strived to achieve this goal, the meaning of "a moderately prosperous society" has been constantly revised. In that year, the congress expanded this goal to focus on five aspects: economic, political, cultural, social and ecological progress.

Based on global indices and conditions in the country, China set specific criteria concerning national per-capita GDP, urban per-capita disposable income, rural household per-capita net income, the Engel coefficient—the proportion of income spent on food—the per-capita living area for urban residents, the urbanization ratio, university enrolment, and the number of doctors per 1,000 people, among others.

For instance, one of the criteria is that per-capita GDP should exceed $3,000. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2020, the per-capita GDP figure exceeded $10,000 for the second year in a row. Additionally, the per-capita GDP of over a dozen cities exceeded $20,000. Also, China has built the world's largest social security system and medical insurance system, with basic pension insurance covering nearly 1 billion people and basic medical insurance covering more than 1.3 billion.

Wang Xiangming, a professor with the School of Marxism Studies at Renmin University of China, told press that building a xiaokang society has been a shared goal of the Party and the people.

With the completion of the first centenary goal put forth at the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the country is pooling efforts for realizing the second centenary goal by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which is to build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful.

Resonating significance

It is the unswerving goal of the CPC to run China's affairs well, ensure a happy life for more than 1.4 billion Chinese people, and promote peace and development of all humanity, Xi said while addressing the CPC and World Political Parties Summit via video link in Beijing on July 6.

"The CPC will unite and lead the Chinese people in pressing ahead with the Chinese-style modernization to make new contributions to humanity's search for ways to modernize," Xi said, adding that the CPC will unite and lead the Chinese people in taking concrete steps to deepen reform and opening up and make new contributions to shared development and the prosperity of all countries in the world. It will also shoulder its responsibility as a major political party in a major country to improve the wellbeing of humankind.

Over the past 40-plus years, more than 770 million people in China have worked their way out of poverty, reaching the poverty eradication target of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule.

Hu Angang, Director of the Center for China Studies at Tsinghua University, said that the sudden pandemic outbreak failed to prevent China from achieving the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects as scheduled. China, so far, has been the first country in the world to control the epidemic effectively and resume economic growth.

"It is also the first country in the world to provide large-scale anti-pandemic assistance funds, supplies, technology, and testing reagents to other countries, which demonstrates the country's determination and confidence in building a community of health for all, as well as its contribution to global public health governance," Hu said.

Wei Jianguo, Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said in an interview with China News Service that with the completion of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, China's middle-income group has further expanded, unleashing considerable consumption power. "China's economy will also be more resilient and inclusive, and become a reliable 'locomotive' for the recovery of the world economy," he said.

"China's fulfillment of its first centenary goal brings confidence to the global cause of poverty reduction, and provides valuable inspiration and reference for other countries in the push for inclusive development," Ronnie Lins, Director of the China-Brazil Center for Research and Business, told Xinhua News Agency. 

(Print Edition Title: Right on Schedule)

Copyedited by Ryan Perkins

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