The Communiqué is adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013.

Adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 12, 2013

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing from November 9 to 12, 2013.

Present at the plenum were 204 full members and 169 alternate members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Members of the Standing Committee of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and leading officials of departments concerned attended the meeting as non-voting delegates, so did some delegates to the 18th CPC National Congress from the community level, experts and scholars.

This plenum was chaired by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made an important speech.

The plenum heard and discussed the work report delivered by Xi Jinping, entrusted by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and adopted the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform." Xi Jinping made an explanatory speech on the Decision (draft) to the plenum.

The plenum fully affirmed the work of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee since the 18th CPC National Congress. The plenum unanimously agreed that the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, in the face of a complicated international situation and challenging tasks related to reform, development and stability in China, has thoroughly implemented the guidelines of the 18th CPC National Congress, and the first and second plenums of the 18th CPC Central Committee, held high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and followed the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee has united and led the whole Party, military and Chinese people of all ethnic groups to maintain the?principle of making progress while keeping stability, and worked hard to sustain growth, readjust structure and promote reform. It has calmly dealt with all risks and challenges, promoted all-round progress in socialist economic, political, cultural, social and ecological development, as well as the new great project of Party building, and carried out the education campaign in the Party's mass line steadily. New progress has been witnessed in all these undertakings, ensuring that the results of development better benefit all the people in a fairer way and making a good start in the first year in implementing the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress.

?The plenum spoke highly of the successful practice and great achievements of reform and opening up in the past 35 years since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, and studied certain major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reform. It concluded that reform and opening-up drive represents a grand new revolution the Party leads the people of all ethnic groups of China to carry out under conditions of the new era; it is the most distinctive characteristic of contemporary China, a critical choice that has determined the destiny of contemporary China, and a key weapon for the cause of the Party and the people to catch the tide of the times. In face of the new situation and tasks, to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eventually to build a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious modern socialist country and realize the Chinese dream of a great revival of the Chinese nation, we must comprehensively deepen reform at this new historical point.

?The plenum stressed: To deepen the reform comprehensively, we must hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. We must have firm confidence, forge consensus, make holistic planning, and promote development in a coordinated way. We will uphold the direction of reform towards the socialist market economy, put the promotion of social fairness, justice and improvement of people's lives as the starting point and ultimate goal, further emancipate the mind, continue to release and develop the productive forces, release and strengthen vigor of the society, get rid of defects in various systems and mechanisms, and strive to open up broader prospects for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The plenum pointed out: The overall goal of deepening the reform comprehensively is to improve and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, and to promote the modernization of the national governance system and capacity. We must pay more attention to implementing systematic, integrated and coordinated reforms, promoting the development of socialist market economy, democratic politics, advanced culture, a harmonious society and ecological progress. We must make sure that the vigor of labor, knowledge, technology, managerial expertise and capital keeps bursting forth, all the wealth-creating sources fully flow, and that the fruits of development benefit all people still more and equally.

The plenum pointed out: We must deepen economic system reform by centering on the decisive role of the market in allocating resources, adhere to and improve the basic economic system, accelerate the improvement of the modern market system, macro-control system and open economic system. We must accelerate the transformation of the growth pattern, and make China an innovative country. We must promote more efficient, equal and sustainable economic development. We must deepen political system reform that features the organic unity of upholding the leadership of the Party, the people being the masters of the country, and governing the country according to the rule of law. We should work harder to accelerate socialist democracy in a systematic way by adopting due standards and procedures. We should build a socialist country with the rule of law, and develop people's democracy with wider, more adequate and sound participation. We must deepen cultural system reform by centering on building the core socialist value system and developing a strong socialist culture in China. We should accelerate improvement of the system for managing the cultural sector and the mechanism for cultural production and operation, establish and improve a modern public cultural service system, establish the basic framework of a modern cultural market system, and bring about great development and enrichment of socialist culture. We must deepen social structural reform by centering on safeguarding and improving the people's wellbeing and promoting social fairness and justice. We should reform the income distribution system and promote common prosperity. We should promote system innovation in the social sector, promote equal access to basic public services, and step up efforts to form a scientific and effective social management system so that our society is full of vigor, but also harmonious and orderly. We must deepen ecological environment management reform by centering on building a beautiful China. We should accelerate system building to promote ecological progress, improve institutions and mechanisms for developing geographical space, conserving resources and protecting the ecological environment and promoting modernization featuring harmonious development between Man and Nature. We must deepen the reform of the Party building system by centering on enhancing the Party's capacity to govern in a scientific and democratic way and in accordance with the law. We should strengthen the building of democratic centralism, and improve the leadership system and governing style of the Party. We should maintain the Party's advanced nature and purity, thus providing strong political support for reform and opening up and socialist modernization.

The plenum pointed out: To deepen the reform comprehensively, we must bear in mind the fact that China is still in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so for a long time to come. We should adhere to the major strategic judgment that development is still the key to solving all problems in China, take economic construction as our central task, give full play to the leading role of economic system reform, balance the relations of production with the productive forces as well as the superstructure with the economic base, and promote sound, sustainable economic and social development.

The plenum pointed out that economic system reform is the focus of deepening the reform comprehensively. The underlying issue is how to strike a balance between the role of the government and that of the market, and let the market play the decisive role in allocating resources and let the government play its functions better. The plenum stressed: The success of reform and opening up has provided us with important experience for deepening the reform comprehensively. We have to adhere to it in the long term. What is the most important is to uphold the leadership of the Party, adhere to the Party's basic line, reject both the old and rigid closed-door policy and any attempt to abandon socialism and take an erroneous path, firmly take the socialist road and ensure that our reform is in the right direction. We should emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts, keep up with the times, be realistic and pragmatic, base ourselves on reality in everything we do, summarize successful domestic experience, learn useful experience from other countries, and boldly promote innovation both in theory and practice. We should put people first, respect the people's central position in the country, give full rein to their creativity, promote reform with the close support of the people, and promote well-rounded development of the person. We should strike a balance between reform, development and stability, implement reform boldly and steadily, combine the top-level design with cautious advance, promote both comprehensive advance and breakthroughs at key points, improve scientific decision-making, rally consensus from all sides and form joint force for reform.

The plenum required that by 2020 decisive results will have been achieved in the reform of important areas and crucial segments, and institutions and systems that are structurally complete, scientifically standardized and effective in operation are to be formed, to ensure that institutions in all areas become more mature and complete.

The plenum made overall deployment for comprehensively deepening reform, stressing that it is necessary to uphold and improve the basic economic system, speed up the improvement of a modern market system, accelerate the transformation of government functions, deepen fiscal and taxation reform, improve the integration of urban and rural development, build a new open economic system, speed up the building of socialist democracy, promote the rule of law in the country, improve the mechanism for conducting checks and oversight over the exercise of power, encourage innovation in the cultural sector, social undertakings and social governance, acclelerate ecological progress, deepen reform in national defense and the armed forces, and strengthen and improve the Party's leadership over the reform.

The plenum pointed out: The basic economic system with public ownership playing a dominant role and different economic sectors developing side by side is an important pillar of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and is the foundation of the socialist market economy. Both the public and non-public sectors are key components of the socialist market economy, and are important bases for the economic and social development of China. We must unswervingly consolidate and develop the public economy, persist in the dominant position of public ownership, give full play to the leading role of the state-owned sector, and continuously increase its vitality, controlling force and influence. We must unwaveringly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector, and stimulate its dynamism and creativity. It also points out that it is necessary to improve the property rights protection system, vigorously develop a mixed economy, promote establishment of the modern corporate system in state-owned enterprises, and support the healthy development of the non-public sectors.

The plenum pointed out: Establishing a unified, open, competitive and orderly market system is the basis for the market to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources. We must put in place a modern market system in which enterprises enjoy independent management and fair competition, consumers have free choice and make autonomous consumption decisions, products and factors of production flow freely and are exchanged on an equal basis, strive to remove market barriers, and raise the efficiency and fairness of resource allocation. It stresses that it is necessary to enact market rules that are fair, open and transparent, improving the mechanism whereby prices are mainly determined by the market, forming a unified construction land market for both urban and rural areas, improving the financial market, and deepening reform of the management system for science and technology.

The plenum stated: Scientific macro control and effective government administration are the intrinsic requirements for exploiting the advantages of the socialist market economy system. We should transform government functions, deepen the reform of the administrative system, exercise government administration in an innovative way, increase public trust in the government and improve its competence, and build a law-based and service-oriented government. Towards this end, it is necessary to improve the macro control system, fully and correctly perform government functions and streamline government structure, so as to enhance the level of scientific administration.

The plenum pointed out: Finance is the foundation and an important pillar of state governance. Good fiscal and taxation systems are the institutional guarantee for optimizing resources allocation, maintaining market unity, promoting social equity, and realizing enduring peace and stability. We must improve legislation, clarify powers and responsibilities, reform the taxation system, stabilize tax burdens, have transparent budgets, increase efficiency, and establish a modern fiscal system to mobilize the initiative of both the central and local governments. In this regard, the specific tasks proposed are: Improving the budget management system, improving the taxation system, and establishing a system whereby authority of office matches responsibility of expenditure.

The plenum pointed out: The urban-rural dual structure is a main obstacle to the integrated development of urban and rural areas. We must improve the mechanisms and institutions to form new relations between industry and agriculture and between urban and rural areas in which industry promotes agriculture, urban areas support rural development, agriculture and industry benefit each other, and urban and rural areas achieve integrated development, so that the overwhelming majority of farmers can participate in the modernization process on an equal basis and share the fruits of modernization. Towards this end, it proposed the tasks of accelerating the building of a new type of agricultural operation system, endowing farmers with more property rights, promoting equal exchanges of factors of production and balanced allocation of public resources between urban and rural areas, and improving the institutions and mechanisms for promoting the sound development of urbanization.

The plenum pointed out: To adapt to the new trend of economic globalization, we must promote domestic openness together with openness to the outside world, better integrate the "bring in" and "go global" strategies, stimulate the orderly and free flow of international and domestic factors of production, highly efficient allocation of resources and in-depth market integration, and foster new advantages in participating in and leading international economic cooperation and competition at a faster pace, in order to promote reform through opening up. For reform in this regard, the plenum proposed the following major tasks of relaxing control over investment access, speeding up the construction of free trade zones, and further opening up inland and border areas.

The plenum pointed out: To develop socialist democracy, we must ensure the position of the people as masters of the country, uphold and improve the system of people's congress, the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of community-level self-governance. We will attach greater importance to improving the system of democracy and diversifying the forms of democracy, and expand citizens' orderly political participation in all levels and fields to give full play to the strength of the socialist political system. In this regard, the plenum set out the following tasks of bringing the people's congress system in line with the times, promoting wide, multi-tiered and institutionalized consultative democracy, and giving full play to democracy at the community level.

The plenum pointed out: To build a China under the rule of law, we must uphold the unity of the rule of law, we will deepen reform of the judicial system, accelerate the building of a just, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system to safeguard the people's rights and interests. In this endeavor, we must maintain the authority of the Constitution and laws, deepening reform of the administrative law-enforcement system, ensure the independent exercise of the judicial and procuratorial power in accordance with the law, improve the mechanism for the use of judicial power, and improve the judicial system to protect human rights.

The plenum pointed out: The fundamental solution to keeping power under control is to put power, government operations and personnel management under institutional checks to ensure that the people oversee the exercise of power and that power is exercised in a transparent manner. We must build a power-exercise mechanism featuring scientific decision-making, resolute enforcement and effective oversight. We will improve a system that combats and prevents corruption, promote political integrity, and see to it that officials are honest, the government is clean, and political integrity is upheld. In this regard, the plenum proposed forming a scientific and effective mechanism to check and coordinate power, being more innovative in creating mechanisms and institutions to combat corruption, and having systemic rules to improve work style.

The plenum pointed out: To develop China into a nation with a strong socialist culture and improve its cultural soft power, we must adhere to the orientation of advanced socialist culture and the socialist path of making cultural advances with Chinese characteristics, stick to the principle that people are the center of all cultural work, and further deepen cultural reform, improve the cultural management system, establish and improve a modern cultural market system, build a modern public cultural services system, and improve cultural openness.

The plenum pointed out: In order to make sure that more fruits of development are shared by all the people in a fairer way, we must accelerate the reform of social undertakings, satisfactorily resolve the most pressing and real problems of the greatest concern to the people, and better satisfy the people's demands. The tasks listed in this regard include: deepening the comprehensive reforms in the area of education, improving systems and mechanisms that boost employment and business startups, forming a reasonable and orderly pattern of income distribution, instituting a fairer and more sustainable social security system, and deepening reform in medicine and health care.

The plenum pointed out: To make innovations in social governance, we must direct our primary attention to safeguarding the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people, increase the factors of harmony to the maximum, invigorate social development and improve the social governance level, safeguard national security, ensure that the people live and work in peace and contentment, and that the society is stable and orderly. The specific objectives listed in this regard include improving methods of social governance, kindling the vigor of social organizations, innovating systems that can effectively prevent and solve social conflicts, improving the public security system, establishing the Council of State Security, and improving the national security system and strategies to guarantee the country's national security.

The plenum pointed out: To promote ecological progress, we must establish complete and integrated institutions and systems, with which the ecological environment is protected, improve the system of natural resource property rights and the system of natural resource utilization control, delimite a red line for ecological protection, implement sound compensation systems for use of resources and for damage to the ecological environment, and reform the ecological protection management system.

The plenum pointed out: Aiming at the goal of building up the people's armed forces that are loyal to the CPC, be able to win and uphold fine traditions under the new conditions, we will endeavor to resolve the prominent problems that constrain the development of national defense and the armed forces, be innovative in developing military theories, enhance military strategic guidance, implement correct military strategy for the new period, and build a system of modern military forces with Chinese characteristics. For endeavor in this regard, the tasks listed include deepening the adjustment and reform of the military administrative setup and staffing, promoting adjustment and reform of military policies and systems, and deepening the integration between the military and civilian sectors.

The plenum stressed: To deepen reform comprehensively, we must enhance and improve the Party's leadership, ensure that the Party plays its role as the leadership core in exercising overall leadership and coordinating all efforts, and improve the Party's art of leadership and governance to ensure the victory of our reform. Towards this end, the plenum decided to establish the Leading Group for Deepening Reform Comprehensively to be in charge of designing reform on an overall basis, arranging and coordinating reforms of different sectors, pushing forward reforms as a whole and supervising the implementation of reform plans; demanded that the Party committees at all levels should perform their duty of leadership in the reform, in addition to listing the tasks of deepening reform of the systems for the management of officials and personnel, establishing institutions and mechanisms to pool talented people, giving full play to the people's enthusiasm, initiative and creativity, and encouraging bold exploration by the people and at local and community levels before timely summing up experience. The plenum analyzed the current situation and tasks, emphasizing that all Party members should focus on the central government's major policy decisions for deepening the reform in both thinking and action, be more enterprising, raise their awareness of opportunities and responsibility, keep to the right direction, explore and practice boldly, pay attention to planning and coordination, consolidate consensus for reform, perform leadership responsibilities and be resolute in realizing the reform decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee. We should follow these decisions and arrangements, seek progress and accomplishment while maintaining stability, do work well on all fronts, maintain the momentum in economic and social development, show concern for the people's livelihood, particularly those in difficulties, and promote social harmony and stability. We will continue to push forward with the education campaign in the Party's mass line and strive to achieve the goal of economic and social development as planned.

The plenum called on all Party members to rally closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as General Secretary, forge ahead with determination to tackle difficult problems, usher in a new chapter of the great cause of reform and opening up, strive to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, continue to win new victories for socialism with Chinese characteristics, and realize the Chinese dream of the great revival of the Chinese nation!