The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee pointed out that "ensuring and improving people's wellbeing in the course of development is a major task of Chinese modernization." Improving people's wellbeing is the fundamental purpose of development; further comprehensively deepening reform must take promoting social fairness and justice and enhancing people's wellbeing as its starting point and ultimate goal. How do we uphold a people-centered approach and enable more people to share the fruits of reform? Today we continue our series program "Holding High the Banner of Reform and Opening Up," focusing on the interpretation of reforms in the field of ensuring and improving people's wellbeing.

　　Reform and development ultimately serve the goal of enabling the people to live better lives. In the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Advancing Chinese Modernization," deliberated and adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, "adhering to a people-centered approach" is one of the major principles that must be upheld in further comprehensively deepening reform, and "ensuring and improving people's wellbeing in the course of development is a major task of Chinese modernization."

　　Lu Zhiyuan, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs: "General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that in Chinese modernization, people's wellbeing is of paramount importance, and that we should better ensure and improve people's wellbeing in the course of development. The systematic deployment of a system of institutions for ensuring and improving people's wellbeing fully reflects the Party's original aspiration and purpose."

　　The Decision states that to achieve the goals and tasks of further comprehensively deepening reform, we must "focus on improving the quality of people's lives." Among the reform measures to be deployed as priorities over the next five years, "improving the system of institutions for ensuring and improving people's wellbeing" is an important one.

　　Cai Fang, Chief Expert of the National High-End Think Tank and Member of the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: "We have already reached the stage of comprehensively building a great modern socialist country. The people have higher demands for their wellbeing, including per capita income levels, income distribution, and the supply of public goods. Only when these are fully guaranteed can we truly speak of improving the quality of people's lives."

　　Employment is the foundation of people's wellbeing. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has consistently regarded employment as the most fundamental aspect of people's wellbeing, implemented the employment-first strategy, enriched and developed proactive employment policies, and maintained overall stability in the employment situation. However, at present and for some time to come, the pressure of aggregate employment will remain, and the structural changes in the labor force will continue to deepen, posing many new challenges to employment.

　　Wang Xiaoping, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security: "The new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation has set new and higher requirements for workers' skill levels. At the same time, China's population aging trend is evident, new urbanization is accelerating, employment forms are diversifying, and in particular the rapid development of new forms of employment has all brought about a series of new situations."

　　How do we continue to improve the employment-first policy and promote both a qualitative improvement in employment and a reasonable quantitative growth? The Decision proposes to "improve the mechanism for promoting high-quality and full employment, improve the public employment service system, and focus on resolving structural employment contradictions."

　　Wang Xiaoping: "We will make high-quality and full employment a priority goal of economic and social development, promote coordinated linkage between fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial, and regional policies and employment policies, and gradually raise the remuneration levels of skilled workers. We will improve support policies for the employment of key groups, consistently make college graduates and other young people the top priority, continue to build a comprehensive public employment service system that covers all people, runs through the entire process, radiates across all regions, and is convenient and efficient, and at the same time improve the labor rights protection system adapted to flexible employment and new forms of employment."

　　By the end of 2023, the number of people covered by basic old-age insurance nationwide had reached 1.07 billion, and basic medical insurance covered 1.33 billion people, making China home to the world's largest social security system. However, on the path of further advancing Chinese modernization, some groups still lack adequate social security. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee also proposed a series of reform measures for improving the social security system.

　　Wang Xiaoping: "We need to promote high-quality and sustainable development of the social security system. We will improve the social insurance system for flexible workers, migrant workers, and people in new forms of employment, and expand pilot programs for occupational injury protection for people in new forms of employment. We will accelerate the improvement of a unified public service platform for social insurance and promote a new model of one-card people's wellbeing management and services with the social security card as the carrier."

　　Lu Zhiyuan: "In the field of civil affairs, the Decision deploys reform tasks such as improving the social assistance system, improving the system for protecting children's legitimate rights and interests, and improving the social security system and care service system for persons with disabilities. These reflect the great importance the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core attaches to strengthening inclusive, basic, and bottom-line people's wellbeing initiatives."

　　Educational equity is the most basic and most important form of social equity, and reforms in the field of education also attract much attention. Entering the new era, China has built the world's largest and quality education system; 2,895 counties nationwide have achieved basic balanced compulsory education, and the popularization levels of education at all levels have reached or exceeded the average level of upper-middle-income countries. Moving from meeting the demand for "quantity" to achieving improvement in "quality" is one of the key directions for China's next steps in deepening comprehensive education reform.

　　Huai Jinpeng, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Education: "The problem of 'being able to go to school' has now been basically solved, but 'going to a good school' has become the people's greatest expectation. In the face of current changes in population and social structure, especially difficulties such as overcrowding in cities and weakness in rural areas, our main measure is to promote the expansion, optimization, and quality improvement of basic education. We will explore the gradual expansion of the scope of free education, promote the inclusive and universal development of preschool education, and run boarding schools and small rural schools well. We will improve the educational level of basic education, accelerate the building of a modern vocational education system, enable students with different aptitudes and different development interests to become talented in diverse ways, and at the same time make better use of modern technology, especially the development of digital technology, to enrich lifelong learning resources."

　　To keep advancing Chinese modernization, high-quality development of education not only concerns individual development but, together with science and technology and talent, provides foundational and strategic support for Chinese modernization. The Decision states that we should coordinate and advance the integrated reform of the systems and mechanisms for education, science and technology, and talent, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the national innovation system.

　　Huai Jinpeng: "At this Third Plenary Session, coordinating and advancing the integrated reform of education, science and technology, and talent has been placed at an important stage and position. The integrated linkage of education, science and technology, and talent is most fully reflected in higher education. Higher education is not only reflected in our national strategy but is also what the people expect and seek. Therefore, how to make higher education play an extremely important role in Chinese modernization and better reflect the reform requirements of the Third Plenary Session is also where our future goals lie."

　　Next, how to focus on comprehensively improving the quality of independent talent cultivation, focus on supporting high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, and focus on how the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements in universities can highlight orientation and serve national economic and social development will become the three most important aspects of China's higher education reform.

　　Huai Jinpeng: "Focusing on the laws of scientific and technological development and the urgent needs of national economic and social development, we will dynamically adjust discipline settings and talent cultivation mechanisms, strengthen the integration of science and technology education with humanities education, and strengthen the cultivation of young scientific and technological talent. We advocate long-term support in policies and long-term support in resource allocation, and in evaluation mechanisms we will not pursue quick wins or seek instant benefits; we will carry out long-cycle evaluation mechanisms so that young scientific and technological talent can both 'sit on the cold bench' and apply 'painstaking effort' and long-term effort, truly spending ten years to sharpen a sword, and promoting self-reliance and self-strengthening in science and technology and the development of scientific and technological innovation."

　　Health is the most important symbol of modernization, and medical and health services are also the people's most concerning livelihood issue. The Decision proposes that in deepening the reform of the pharmaceutical and health system, we should implement the "health priority development strategy."

　　Lei Haichao, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Health Commission: "We now face both the threat of infectious diseases and the threat of chronic non-communicable diseases. It is very important for us to do a good job in prevention and enable more social units and more individuals to participate in the patriotic health campaign and health promotion work."

　　Today, China has built the world's largest medical and health system. However, the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development of health undertakings still needs to be resolved through reform. The Decision proposes to "promote the expansion and downward transfer of high-quality medical resources and the balanced regional layout, accelerate the building of a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system, advance the building of tightly integrated medical consortiums, and strengthen primary-level medical and health services."

　　Lei Haichao: "The state has built national medical centers in 13 categories and has also built 125 national regional medical centers, distributed across 29 provinces, so that patients with serious illnesses do not need to leave their province. For the vast majority of cities and counties, tertiary hospitals are required to regularly dispatch professional personnel to secondary hospitals at the primary level to provide year-round stationed services; for primary-level medical and health institutions, tightly integrated county-level medical consortiums will be built within county areas to help townships and even villages further improve services."

　　For most people, public hospitals remain the first choice for medical treatment, and the service level and quality of public hospitals are directly related to people's health. This plenary session proposed that we should "deepen the reform of public hospitals oriented toward public welfare."

　　Lei Haichao: "First, in terms of investment in public hospitals, the government must effectively implement the six basic fiscal investment policies; on the other hand, we must dynamically adjust the staffing of public hospitals so that medical and health personnel who are qualified, capable, competent, and able to provide good health services have the opportunity to be included in formal staffing; we have also made corresponding designs in the remuneration system so that more people are willing to work in pediatrics, anesthesiology, pathology, mental health, nursing, and other disciplines and specialties that are needed by the people and society but are currently weak."

　　In addition, this Decision proposes for the first time that we should "improve the population development support and service system. Focusing on responding to aging and declining birthrates, we will improve the population development strategy, improve the population service system covering all people and the whole life cycle, and promote high-quality population development."

　　Cai Fang: "The central leadership has proposed that high-quality population development supports Chinese modernization. This high-quality development has many connotations, such as maintaining a reasonable fertility level and a moderate population size. We will build a population support service system and policy system from the perspective of the whole life cycle and the whole population. Therefore, all departments must coordinate and advance this. One part is people's health, and another part comes from education, expanding the integration of childcare and education, to the environment and atmosphere provided by society, and the human resources and social security departments making maternity leave a system."

　　Promoting high-quality population development also requires actively responding to population aging. The Decision also proposes multiple reform measures for developing elderly care undertakings and developing the silver economy.

　　Lu Zhiyuan: "We will integrate a positive view of aging and healthy aging into the whole process of economic and social development, and accelerate the improvement of an elderly care service system pattern in which home, community, and institutional care are coordinated and medical care and health care are combined."

　　Cai Fang: "In the past, it was enough to provide for the elderly; now we also need to enable them to enjoy life and make contributions. We have highlighted the policy system for elderly care undertakings and the elderly care industry and made many new deployments. We need both tangible support measures and the establishment of a knowledge system, and we also need to integrate existing policies to unleash greater policy effectiveness and form genuine institutional development."