Focusing on improving people's livelihood is comprised of another important part of accelerating social development set by the 17th Congress. This indicates that the Party will put in place the governance concept of thoroughly improving people's lives through establishing a sound system for social management and services, including education, income distribution, medical care, employment, and old-age care, which are closely related to the people's well-being.

Since 2002, the government has made policies for financially supporting employment for urban and rural residents, thus minimizing the unemployment rate below 4.3 percent and providing subsistence allowances for more than 45 million impoverished population. In January 2006, the state readjusted personal income tax, raising the rate for payers with higher income and lowering that for those with medium and lower income. In 2007, the Chinese Government provided a financial aid of 15.4 billion yuan for impoverished students; and the sum will be doubled in 2008, benefiting approximately 20 million college and middle school students.

It is a new goal for the Party to expand public services, improve social management and promote social equity and justice.

6. Democracy

Chen Guohua won out of others with two thirds of the votes for the position of Party Secretary of the Longxing Town Committee of the CPC, Yubei District, Chongqing (one of the four municipalities under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Government), because he promised the villagers he would redouble the local GDP after he won the campaign.

Since the implementation three years ago, the "recommendation in an open manner and direct election," a politically systematic reform at primary level for electing Party secretary, has been carried out in more than 200 townships and villages across Chongqing and the provinces of Sichuan and Hubei. Today, more than 90 percent of the administrative villages throughout the country select members of village committees through "direct election."

The CPC is quickening its pace in political restructuring.

The idea of "deepening political restructuring" was proposed at the 17th Congress on the basis of "going on steadily and surely with political restructuring" set at the 16th National Congress of the CPC convened in 2002.

The rate of the multi-candidate elections for deputies to the 17th National Congress surpassed 15 percent, 5 percent higher than that of the 16th, and that for deputies to provincial-level Party congresses was much higher than the previous congresses.

A couple of months ago, Wan Gang, a specialist in automobiles, and Chen Zhu, an expert in medical science, both non-Party members, were respectively appointed Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Public Health.

The Chinese characters of "democracy" appeared over 60 times in the Report of the 17th Congress by Hu Jintao, who stressed to "expand the citizens' orderly participation in political affairs at each level and in every field, and mobilize and organize the people as extensively as possible to manage state and social affairs."

"The CPC is building up a mechanism full of vigor and vitality through its reform of political restructuring," commented David Shambaugh, senior researcher from the U.S. Brookings Institutions.

7. Punishing and Preventing Corruption

Governmental corruption has remained a major topic in China. Recent polls evidence that corruption remains a problem, and citizens expect the government to tackle the issue as soon as possible.

Corruption has yet to be prevented once and for all although the Party has increasingly stepped up its efforts in fighting against it, particularly in the last four years, during which time it investigated and dealt with 29 provincial-level senior officials, including Chen Liangyu, former member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee. New social problems will occur and more issues will come to the fore as China deepens its reform and readjusts its economic, social and beneficial structures.

The Party firms its stand and draws on the experience of foreign countries to enhance the relating systems and improve the mechanism of restraint and oversight so as to ensure that "power must be exercised in the sunshine." In October 2005, China joined in the UN Anti-Corruption Convention; and on May 31, 2007, the government established the China National Bureau of Corruption Prevention.

Many people believe that the establishment of a system for combating corruption is a wise decision for the Party. The description of "expanding our efforts to curb corruption at the source" in the Report of the 17th Congress makes clear to the world that the country will thoroughly prevent and cure corruption through a comprehensive means of legislation, judicature, and administration.

8. Conservation Culture

Water birds, fish, shrimps, lotus roots, and water caltrops are among the happy childhood memories for Zhang Shengyuan, who resides along the lakeside of Honghu. Beginning in the mid-1980s, however, almost all natural aquatic products were on the verge of distinction due to excessive artificial cultivation.

The tragedy of Honghu Lake is not rare in China.

The Party therefore urges the promotion of harmony between man and nature and pulls all out to balance the economic development with population control, resource conservation, and environmental protection. From 2003 through 2006, more than 5 million hectares of farmland were resumed to forests, and nearly 30 million hectares of pastures to grassland. In 2006, China saved 30 million tons of standard coal; and the rate of treating both sewage and daily garbage surpassed 50 percent. In the first half of 2007, the state shut down a great number of small power generators of high pollution and high energy consumption, in addition to small coal mines of high energy consumption and with high frequency of accidents.

It was also during this period that Honghu Lake was harnessed effectively. Today, the water quality is better and more than 95 percent of the lake is covered with aquatic plants, making it an ideal home for more than 50,000 water birds. Zhang Shengyuan, now a guard to protect the lake area, is happy to see the recovery of the beautiful scenery he enjoyed as a child.

"Conservation culture" was, for the first time, set forth as one of the strategic objectives of the governing Party at the 17th Congress. Some specialists hold that this conception is the result of the reasonable confession on China's civilization of traditional industry and has ample evidence on the great importance of coexistence between conservation culture and the progress of the Chinese nation.

9. Peace Agreement

The CPC has put forward the idea of "constructing a framework for peaceful development of cross-Straits relations" and made a solemn appeal for negotiations and signing a "peace agreement," a term which had never appeared in the report of any CPC national congress before.

The compatriots on both sides of the Straits derive from the same origin and are related by blood, with the same ancestors, sharing the same culture, and having the same passion for their homeland. These facts will never change.

Lee Kuanxin, President of the Kunshan Association for Enterprises Invested by the Compatriots from Taiwan, was deeply impressed by the statement "the 1.3 billion people on the mainland and the 23 million people in Taiwan are of the same blood and share a common destiny" in the Report. "This congress has offered businessmen from Taiwan a favorable environment and platform for investment; and we are moved by the great concern and support from the mainland," Lee said.

Since the communication between the two sides of the Straits in 1987 and by the end of July 2007, cross-Straits trade volumes had reached $669.9 billion. The trade surplus of Taiwan to the mainland was $438.6 billion. By then, businessmen from Taiwan invested in nearly 74,000 projects on the mainland. Today, the number of businessmen and their families who permanently reside on the mainland exceeds 1 million. It is thus clear that the trade between the two sides of the Straits is bustling; and it is a common wish for both sides to conduct cooperation at higher level and to make win-win benefits.

As a fundamental principle for the solution of Taiwan issues, "one and the same China" has been reaffirmed by the 17th Congress, which makes clear CPC's policies for dealing with Taiwan issues: With the greatest sincerity, China lays hopes on peace; while never yielding on resisting the concept of "Taiwan independence."

10. Harmonious World

October 2007 saw the dispatching of China's first peace-keeping troops to Darfur, Sudan. It is one of the great endeavors that China has made in the promotion of solving the problems of Darfur.

China takes its own share of responsibility in the promotion of peaceful development, as well as facing down the challenges of mankind in common. Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO, remarked that an opening China is undoubtedly a truly powerful country with responsibility.

November 2006 witnessed the opening of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which made a declaration on establishing a new type of strategic partnership. The eight policies and measures raised by the Chinese Government for the development between China and Africa were widely acclaimed. As evidenced by recent report issued by the World Bank, Chinese investment is playing an active part in the economic growth in Africa. In light of the world's continuous widening of the North-South gap, China is contributing in its own way to eliminating the difference between the rich and the poor and to assisting the weak.

Harmony is the quintessence of traditional Chinese culture. As believed by Confucius (551-479 B.C.), philosopher, educator and founder of Confucianism in the late Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.), the world should be "harmonious yet different." It is true that the world is full of differences and contradictions, but a virtuous man is able to maintain balance among contradictions and conflicts and to realize harmony. As a matter of fact, it has always been an extension for its own peaceful development when China focuses on world peace while accelerating the country's economic development.

Consequently, the 17th National Congress of the CPC emphasized that "China will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development" and "strive to build a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity."