Promoting Common Prosperity for All People by 2035

Abstract

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly stated: By 2035, our country’s GDP per capita will reach the level of medium-developed countries, the middle-income group will be significantly expanded, the basic public services will be equalized, and the gap between urban and rural regional development and the gap in living standards will be significantly narrowed; people’s lives will be better, and people’s all-round development will be improved. More obvious substantive progress will be made for the common prosperity of all people.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly stated: By 2035, our country’s GDP per capita will reach the level of medium-developed countries, the middle-income group will be significantly expanded, the basic public services will be equalized, and the gap between urban and rural regional development and the gap in living standards will be significantly narrowed; people’s lives will be better, and people’s all-round development will be improved. More obvious substantive progress will be made for the common prosperity of all people.¹ General Secretary Xi Jinping specifically pointed out: this is the first time this kind of expression has been given in an official document of the Party. It not only points out the direction and goal of struggle, but also seeks truth from facts, conforms to the law of development, and takes into account needs and possibilities. It is ultimately conducive to positive and stable implementation of our strategies. It will allow us to move forward on the road of promoting common prosperity for all people.²

From building a moderately prosperous society that benefits 1.4 billion people in an all-round way to common prosperity for all people, this is the continuation and expansion of the first centenary goal and the core task of realizing the second centenary goal. Based on the above development tasks, we can look forward to the basic realization of socialist modernization in China by 2035, and make medium and long-term forecasts and analysis of major social development goals and indicators.

4.1 People’s Living Standards Reaching the Level of a Moderately Developed Country

The per capita disposable income of urban and rural households in China is growing at a medium and high speed. The average growth rate during the period from 2020 to 2035 will remain at about 5%, which is basically in line with the GDP growth. China remains one of the major countries with a relatively high growth rate in terms of the per capita income. It will take about 15 years, based on the constant price of the international dollar in 2017 (the same below), to double the income of residents from that of 2020 by 2035.

China’s middle-income group will expand significantly and become the world’s largest middle-income group.³ From the perspective of international comparison, the World Bank’s definition of middle income means that the per capita daily income or expenditure is 10–100 international dollars, and the per capita annual income nationwide will increase from 8394 international dollars in 2021 to 16,600 international dollars in 2035 (see Table 4.1), that is to say it will be doubled in fifteen years. The average annual income of each household in the country (calculated based on 2.6 people, according to the data of the seventh national census in 2020⁴) is about 36,000 international dollars. Calculated in international dollars per capita per day, the income rose from 23 international dollars in 2021 to more than 28 international dollars in 2025, and to more than 45 international dollars in 2035. In the process of continuous growth of per capita income, the proportion of high-income and middle-income groups continues to increase. The sources of income of residents across the country are more diversified. In addition to salary income, the proportion of net business income, net income from property and net income from transfer has been increasing.

Table 4.1 Per capita income, consumption expenditure and Engel’s coefficient of Chinese residents (2021–2035)

The per capita consumption expenditure of urban and rural households in China is growing at medium and high speed. It will remain at a growth rate of about 5% during the period of 2021–2035, growing in line with the GDP. From an international comparison, the per capita daily consumption expenditure of Chinese residents has increased significantly, from 13.8 international dollars in 2021 to about 20 international dollars in 2025, and to about 32 international dollars in 2035. The final consumption expenditure nationwide will rise from 9.16 trillion international dollars in 2020 to about 18.68 trillion international dollars in 2035, equivalent to 2.0 times that of 2020, making it the world’s largest and most potential household consumption market with huge room for growth. To this end, the core of implementing the strategy of actively expanding domestic demand is, to actively expand the consumption demand of 1.4 billion consumers and 500 million households, so as to better realize the individualization, diversification and maximization of consumer welfare. This has become the main driving force for domestic demand to support the sustainable medium and high-speed growth of China’s economy.

The consumption structure of urban and rural residents in China has changed from an affluent consumption structure to a medium-developed consumption structure. By 2021, the Engel’s Coefficient of urban and rural households will drop to 27.6% and 30.0% respectively, showing convergent tendencies; it is expected that by 2025, the Engel’s Coefficient of urban households will drop below 25%, which is close to that of medium-developed countries, and the Engel’s Coefficient of rural households rural households will drop to below 26%. By 2035, the Engel’s Coefficient of urban and rural households will drop to about 22% (see Table 4.1). From the perspective of consumption structure, a typical basic trend is that the service consumption of households in China has risen rapidly, exceeding the proportion of commodity consumption. The housing level of urban and rural residents will reach or exceed the level of medium-developed countries, the per capita living area of urban and residents will increase from 39.8 m² in 2019 to 50 m² in 2035, and the per capita housing area of rural residents will increase from 48.9 m² to more than 60 m². This will help and encourage urban and rural residents to accumulate more and more household assets.⁵ It can be expected that by 2035, the actual living standard and quality of urban households in China will reach the level of developed countries, the actual living standard and quality of rural households will be close to the level of medium-developed countries, the living environment in rural areas will be significantly improved, the income and consumption levels of urban and rural residents will be doubled, and the total household assets will be increased by more than 50%.

4.2 Realizing Fuller and Higher-Quality Employment

Employment is the most important part of people’s livelihood, and achieving fuller and higher-quality employment is a foundation for promoting common prosperity for all people. This includes: first, effectively controlling the unemployment rate; second, securing a relatively high labor participation rate; third, maintaining the simultaneous and continuous growth of labor remuneration and labor productivity; fourth, making sure the unemployed have unemployment benefits and re-employment opportunities.

The basic national conditions of China’s employment are: first, China is the country with the most abundant labor force in the world. In 2020, the amount of China’s labor force was 776 million people, accounting for 22.9% of the world’s total, higher than the amount of 668 million people and the percentage of 19.7% of the OECD countries.⁶ Second, China is the country with the greatest employment pressure in the world. The number of new jobs in cities and towns alone is as high as tens of millions each year. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, 65.64 million new jobs were created in cities and towns nationwide, with an average annual growth of 13 million people, accounting for more than 1/3 of the world’s labor force growth (increasing an average of 37 million people every year). Third, China is also one of the countries with the highest labor force participation rate in the world. In 2019, China’s labor force participation rate was as high as 75.6%, higher than the OECD countries’ 72.2%.⁷ Fourth, China is a country that has basically achieved full employment. The surveyed urban unemployment rate is controlled at around 5%, which is lower than the lowest unemployment rate of 5.4% of the OECD countries in 2019.⁸ Fifth, the human capital level of the working-age population in China has been improved. The average schooling of the working population has increased from 10.23 years in 2015 to 10.75 years in 2020, growing by an average of 0.1 years per year, and the total human capital has increased by 100 million person-years. Sixth, the total number of skilled workers in China has continuously increased, from 130 million in 2009 to 200 million in 2020, accounting for an increase from 17.2 to 26.7% of the total employed population.

China’s employment situation is generally stable, the employment structure has been continuously optimized, and the quality of employment has been continuously improved. The goal of fuller and higher-quality employment has been achieved, which is the greatest well-being of more than 700 million labor force.⁹

China has entered a stage of gradual decline in total employment. In 2014, the total employment of China had reached a peak of 763 million people, and it dropped to 751 million people in 2020.¹⁰ The employment pressure of the total population is gradually decreasing, but the structural employment contradictions are becoming more prominent. These will become the main contradictions in the field of employment, especially in new urban jobs. 11 million to 13 million new jobs need to be created every year, among which 9 million to 10 million jobs are created for college graduates.¹¹ There are a large number of agricultural laborers move to non-agricultural industries, and lots of rural laborers move to cities, shifting from low wages to higher wages. In particular, the application of intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence is accelerating, and the employment replacement effect is emerging. The international environment is also becoming more and more complex with the instability and uncertainty increasing significantly, and the potential impact on employment needs to be watched out.¹²

The future development trend of employment in China: First, the proportion of China working-age population in the total population will continue to decline, from 68.5% in 2020 to 62.7% in 2035, and the total labor supply also continues to decrease. Second, the total jobs in China will continue to decrease, from a peak of 776.4 million in 2017 to 768.71 million in 2025, and will further decline by 2035. The employment rate will continue to decline. Although it remains above 50%, it remains its global status as a country with a high employment rate. Similarly, China’s labor force participation rate (as a proportion of the population aged 15–64) continues to decline, but it also remains a high position around the world, at 75.9% in 2019.¹³ The Chinese people’s life expectancy has continued to be improved, and it will reach 79.5 years by 2035, which is 14.5–19.5 years higher than the current retirement age of 55–60 years old. China has already met the population conditions for delaying the retirement age. According to the “Proposals” of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, it will “implement a progressive delay of the statutory retirement age”. Given that variance of the average life expectancy of between women and men continues to be higher, from 2.99 years in 1981 to 5.79 years in 2015, becoming a unique female health dividend in China, it is necessary to implement institutional arrangements for the convergence of male and female retirement ages.¹⁴ It is helpful to actively develop “aging human resources (for the people aged between 56 and 65)”, and it is also helpful to improve the level of women’s pensions. These mechanisms are compatible with the incentives of the state and individuals, society and families. The state supports the elderly self-employed entrepreneurs and workers, and will also increase the employment or entrepreneurial participation rate of the younger (60–69) elderly population, and increase the expected level of pensions. Third, the number of agricultural jobs will continue to decline, falling to 152.21 million in 2025 and 96.1 million in 2035, 98.35 million fewer than in 2020. Most of the relevant people will move to non-agricultural industries, which will help increase the growth rate of the agricultural labor productivity, actively promote migrant workers to move to new jobs, ease the transfer of jobs, help locating employment nearby, and help workers return to their hometowns to start businesses.¹⁵ Fourth, the number of jobs in the tertiary industry will continue to rise, from 358.06 million in 2020 to 491.74 million in 2035 by an increase of 133.68 million, with an average annual growth rate of 2.1%, becoming the main source of emerging employment in urban areas and agricultural and industrial transfer employment. Fifth, the per capita fixed capital stock of employees has grown rapidly, which will help to continuously improve the level of labor productivity (the average annual growth rate is about 5%), and increase the pay of labor. The average growth rate of actual wage is above 5%. Sixth, the average schooling of the working-age population will continue to increase, from 10.75 years in 2020 to 11.3 years in 2025, and will reach 12.8 years in 2035, reaching the average level of a country with a very high level of human development. To this end, we will continue to prioritize employment in economic and social development and in the macro policy, make it the top priority for ensuring and improving people’s livelihood, and take stabilizing and expanding employment as the priority goal of macroeconomic regulation and the lower limit of a reasonable range for economic operation. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, more than 55 million new urban jobs will be created, and efforts will be made to achieve this goal on a larger scale. The surveyed urban unemployment rate will be controlled to be within 5.5%, and the employment of key groups will remain stable. The total amount of high-skilled personnel nationwide has been steadily expanded. The average schooling of the working-age population has reached 11.3 years, and the proportion of newly-added laborers who have received higher education has reached 55%.¹⁶ More than 10 million students will graduate from junior colleges or above every year.

In the future, the evolution of China’s employment structure will show an optimization trend. The number of employed persons in the primary industry will continue to decline, and it is expected that it may be reduced by more than half, and the corresponding labor productivity will be more than doubled. The proportion of employed persons in the whole country will drop from 23.6% in 2020 to 13.1% in 2035. The number of employed persons in the secondary industry shows a decreasing trend, with the labor productivity increasing significantly; the proportion of employment in the country continues to decline, dropping from 28.7% to 21.7%. Only the proportion of employment in the tertiary industry continues to increase, from 47.7 to 65.2%, namely 2/3 (see Table 4.2), making the tertiary industry the largest employment sector. This has helped promote the continuous convergence of comparative labor productivity in agriculture to the secondary and tertiary industries, thereby increasing the average labor productivity of the whole society, and achieving the goal of growing in line with the economic growth rate.

Table 4.2 China’s total population, employment and structure (2020–2035)

Achieving the goal of high-quality and full employment. China is the country with the richest labor force in the world and one of the countries with the highest labor force participation rate. Achieving high-quality as well as full employment is the greatest boon for people’s livelihood.

Significant changes have taken place in the number and composition of urban and rural employment in China. By 2020, the proportion of urban employment in total employment would increase from 23.1% in 2000 to 61.6% in 2020, while the proportion of rural employment would drop from 67.9 to 38.4%, showing the ratio of urban employed persons to rural employed persons is 6:4—a new employment pattern. Therefore, the core goal of achieving “full employment” in China is mainly reflected in the fact that more than 10 million new jobs are created in cities and towns every year, creating employment opportunities and jobs for the new labor force. The surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas is controlled at about 5.5%, and the registered unemployment rate in urban areas is controlled within 4.5%. At the same time, China provides labor market information to the large number of migrant rural laborers who have moved to work in cities, enabling them to find jobs and even helping them become new urban residents.

In China, to achieve the goal of “ensuring all people have the right to employment and pay”, the so-called “employment” is the enabling of employees to continuously improve labor productivity and create more economic and social wealth. The so-called “pay” is the simultaneous improvement of the wages and salaries, thus bringing about expected economic income. This includes promoting employment fairness, ensuring the dignity of workers, strictly prohibiting wage arrears, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers; promoting the transfer of occupations or employment of surplus rural workers, providing migrant workers with equal employment services and rights; strictly implementing the system of holiday leave and annual leave with pay; improving labor standards and conditions and the working environment, and ensuring the safety and health of workers. It also involves the following: promoting harmonious employment, and helping private enterprises establish and improve harmonious labor relations; improving and perfecting the employment mechanism, and realizing “in-dependent job-seeking by workers, employment based on market forces and the promotion and encouragement of employment by the government”, so that labor resources can be more fully utilized; improving and strengthening labor security supervision, the ability to handle labor issues using mediation and arbitration, and providing high-quality services for laborers’ employment; continuing to implement the national employment action plans and entrepreneurship training plans, encouraging job growth through the creation of new businesses, and providing a full range of public employment services for the entire employment life cycle (18–64 years old).

4.3 Significantly Narrowing the Gap Between Urban and Rural Residents’ Living Standards

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly put forward the strategic goal of significantly narrowing the gap between urban and rural residents’ living standards by 2035. This is a major sign of “more obvious and substantive progress in achieving the common prosperity of all people”.¹⁷

General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that “without the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, there will be no modernization of the entire country.” The modernization of agriculture and rural areas has always been the weakest link of realizing the modernization with Chinese characteristics. Therefore, the realization of the rural revitalization strategy will enable 500 million rural people to enter a high-income level with the people of the whole country. This requires basically realizing the urban–rural integrated development by 2035; the income and consumption expenditure of rural residents will then increase rapidly, the Engel’s coefficient of urban and rural households will decline simultaneously, and the rural infrastructure and public services should be significantly improved.

First of all, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents is growing at a medium–high speed, the per capita disposable income in urban areas is relatively high, and the average annual growth rate can be maintained at more than 4%. The daily income per person should increase from 28.4 international dollars in 2020 to 54.0 international dollars by 2035. The per capita disposable income in rural areas is relatively low, and the average annual growth rate should be maintained at about 6%. The daily income per person in rural areas will be raised from 11.1 international dollars in 2020 to 27.0 international dollars in 2035, reaching the World Bank’s middle-income standard (10–100 international dollars per person per day). At the same time, the relative gap ratio between urban and rural per capita disposable income will continue to narrow, from 2.56 times in 2020 to 2.37 times in 2025. By 2035, it will be below 2 times.

Secondly, the per capita consumption expenditure of urban and rural residents is growing at a medium–high speed, the average annual growth rate of urban per capita consumption expenditure can be maintained at around 5%, and the average annual growth rate of rural per capita consumption expenditure can be maintained at around 6%. The consumer spending gap will be narrowed from 1.97 times in 2020 to below 1.7 times in 2035. Taking into account that urban households pay higher living expenses than rural households (equivalent to 2.35 times that of rural households in 2020), the actual per capita consumption expenditure ratio of urban and rural residents will be lower.

In addition, the Engel’s coefficient of urban and rural households will decline simultaneously, with an average drop of about 8 percentage points by 2035, from the affluent consumption structure, that is, the Engel’s coefficient is less than 30%, to the more developed consumption structure, that is, the Engel’s coefficient is about 20% (see Table 4.3). Taking into account the per capita housing area of urban and rural residents and the facilities such as household appliances, the actual consumption capacity and consumption structure will reach the standards of medium-developed countries. Considering that rural residents pay only 40% of the living expenses of urban residents, the Engel’s coefficients of actual urban and rural residents are basically the same, which means that their actual consumption benefits are the same, which is smaller than the nominal income gap.

Table 4.3 Trends of per capita indicators of urban and rural residents (2020–2035) (the price in 2020)

Rural infrastructure construction has been strengthened. China has promoted the simultaneous planning and construction of urban–rural gigabit optical networks, 5G, Mobile Internet of Things, and improved rural broadband networks. There will be acceleration of the development of rural e-commerce, expansion in the coverage of e-commerce in rural areas, acceleration of the cultivation of rural e-commerce entities, and guidance of market entities such as e-commerce, logistics, commerce, finance, supply and marketing, postal services, express delivery and so on to be deployed in rural areas. By 2025, the rural transportation and basic infrastructures will be further developed: the proportion of natural villages (groups) with larger populations that have access to paved roads will exceed 85%; the penetration rate of rural tap water will increase from 83% in 2020 to 88% in 2025, and will be basically universal by 2035.¹⁸

To summarize, China has entered a stage of narrowing the gap between urban and rural residents’ income and consumption, which has become one of the major signs of achieving the goal of “making solid progress toward prosperity for everyone” and has more and more favorable conditions. These conditions include: the continuous reduction of the rural population, direct transfer of the population to cities and towns, the integration of urban and rural infrastructure and public service facilities, increase of the state’s various inputs to agricultural development and rural construction, as well as direct transfer payments to peasant families, the improvement of public services, and the continuous growth of social security expenditures.

4.4 Building a Powerful Education and Talent System in a Comprehensive Way

The essence of the modernization with Chinese characteristics is the modernization of people, and the essence of people’s modernization is the continuous improvement of human capital. This includes the modernization of education, which has become a solid foundation for the modernization with Chinese characteristics.

The most abundant resource in China is its human resources. China used to be a populous country filled with illiterates. In 1949, the illiteracy rate was as high as 80%; in 1982, the illiteracy rate dropped to 1/3; by 2020, it has dropped to 2.67%, taking the lead in basically eliminating the illiterate population among developing countries with a large population.¹⁹ With the gross enrollment rate of higher education being 15.0% in 2002, China entered the stage of mass higher education. By 2021, it increased to 57.8%, an increase of 42.8 percentage points, and an average annual increase of 2.3 percentage points. China has entered the stage of universal higher education²⁰ and greatly exceeds the world average (40.2%). The relative gap with the OECD average has narrowed from 42.3 percentage points in 2000 to 18.5 percentage points in 2020.²¹ China not only has a large population, but also has had a continuous increase in the number of schooling years per capita. In particular, China has become the world’s largest country with its people have access to high school education and above (including technical secondary school). The number of people with an education background of high-school and above has risen from 187 million people in 2000 to 431 million people in 2020,²² which greatly exceeds the total population of the United States (329 million people in 2020), the third most populous country in the world. It has achieved the strategic goal of moving from a country with just a large population to a country with strong human resources.²³ The modernization of education has played the biggest role in this transition, that is, the entire population, especially the school-age population (from pre-school education to higher education), has obtained continuous human capital investment, especially the compulsory education. As of 2020, 96.8% of county-level units across the country have achieved basically balanced development of compulsory education, and 85.8% of the children of migrant workers who have relocated to cities are studying in public schools or enjoying government-supported degrees.²⁴ In a trend of continued improvement of the level of human capital, the average schooling years of the super-large one-billion working-age population continue to increase, and the average schooling years of the population aged 15 and over increased from 9.08 years in 2010 to 9.91 years in 2020.²⁵ In the process of the working-age population (quantity) dividend decreasing, the population quality dividend will be continuously improved. This fully reflects that the essence of modernization with Chinese characteristics is the modernization of the people, and the comprehensive development ability of the people should be continuously improved through educational modernization, especially lifelong education (from the fetus to old age).

From the comparison between China and the United States, in 2020, the per capita schooling years in China and the United States (population aged 15–64) reached 10.8 years and 13.4 years, respectively. China’s total human capital (referring to the product of the population over the age of 15 and the per capita schooling years) has reached 8.87 billion people a year, equivalent to 3.11 times that of the United States.²⁶ It is not only the largest human capital wealth for every Chinese person, but also the largest human capital wealth of China. This shows that among all kinds of modern resources or capital, China has a very competitive advantage in human capital. It is expected that by 2035, the per capita education years in China will increase to 12.3 years, and the relative gap with the United States will be further narrowed. Considering the total population of China’s total population is 4.3 times that of the US, this means that China’s total human capital will still be several times that of the United States! This is “strength in numbers (talents)”, which has become the scale advantage, comparative advantage and long-term resource advantage of China’s socialist modernization development.

China has entered a new era of becoming an educational power. In 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: “We must give priority to developing education. Strengthening education is fundamental to our pursuit of national rejuvenation. We must give priority to education, further reform in education, speed up its modernization, and develop education that people are satisfied with.”²⁷ To this end, the “China’s Education Modernization 2035” plan was formulated, and it was proposed that in the next 15 years, we should speed up the modernization of education, build a world education power, create an education system that the people are satisfied with, and to train socialist builders and successors who have all-round attainments in moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic education. By 2025, the overall strength and international influence of China’s education will be significantly enhanced, the average schooling years of the working-age population will increase significantly, and important progress will be made in the modernization of education. There will be an acceleration of the construction of a number of world-class universities and disciplines, improvement in the overall level of China’s higher education development, and enhancements in the core competitiveness of national talents. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China once again put forward the strategic goal of building China into a world education power by 2035.²⁸

By 2035, China will realize a modernization of its education system and step into the ranks of the world’s foremost educational powers. We should make efforts to build China into a great country in learning, human resources and talents, and lay a solid foundation for building a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful socialist modernized country by the middle of this century.²⁹ In general, the development of education is more based on the needs of national development, and is aimed at building a dynamic modern education system in an all-round way, a country with a higher level of human resources, a fair education society that benefits the whole people, and a life-long learning society with a complete system, so as to allow for continuous development that benefits the country. This will allow for the creation of educational dividends, human resources dividends, and talent dividends, so that China’s education modernization will reach the level of developed countries. The specific education development goals and trend indicators are:

First, the popularization level of pre-school, high school and higher education in China will reach the level of medium-developed countries. In 2020, the gross enrollment rate of China’s pre-schools reached 85.2%, exceeding the average level of OECD countries (81.7%), and it will reach over 90% by 2025,³⁰ and over 97% by 2035. The gross enrollment rate for high school education will increase from 91.2% in 2020 to over 92% in 2025, and over 99% by 2035. The gross enrollment rate of higher education will increase from 54.4% in 2020 to more than 75% in 2035, reaching the average level of OECD countries (76.9% in 2020³¹), a considerable increase of 20 percentage points, and an average annual increase of 1.3 percentage points. Additionally, the gross enrollment rate of women in higher education has increased from 63.9% in 2020 to over 80%. It is estimated that the population of junior college students and above in China will increase from 218 million in 2020 to more than 400 million in 2035, which not only exceeds the total population of the United States (360 million in 2035),³² but also accounts for from 15.5% of the country’s total population to above 1/4 of the total population. The average schooling years of the working-age population nationwide will increase from 10.8 years in 2020 to 11.3 years in 2025, and to 12.3 years in 2035. The overall level of education in China has reached the level of medium-developed countries. The total human capital dividend (referring to the product of the working-age population and the per capita schooling years) will reach 14.1 billion people a year in 2035 from 10.5 billion people a year in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 2.0%. China will become a true human resources powerhouse.

Second, China’s expected schooling years will reach a very high level of human development index. According to the statistics of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in 2018, China’s expected schooling years was 13.9 years, which was higher than the world average of 12.7 years, and reaches the average level of high human development countries of 13.8 years. However, it is lower than the very high human development average of 16.4 years. China strives to increase the gross enrollment rate of higher education by the Three Five-Year Plan, so that the expected schooling years in China will reach or be close to the average of the very high human development index at that time. There will be an acceleration of the implementation of 15-year compulsory education (three years before school and 12 years of primary and secondary education), and by 2035, the gross enrollment rate of the three years before school will reach over 97%, the gross enrollment rate of high school will reach over 99%, and the gross enrollment rate of higher education will reach 75%. The average number of schooling years of the newly added labor force is more than 16.4 years.³³ The total human capital of education in China, that is, the product of the per capita schooling years and the population over 15 years old, will increase from 10.40 billion person-years in 2020 to 11.36 billion person-years in 2035, with an average annual growth rate of 0.6%. The total human capital continues to rise and remains one of the sources of long-term sustained economic growth.

Third, we should substantially increase the human capital investment. The ratio of total education expenditure (including household education expenditure) to GDP will increase from 5.69% in 2020 to more than 7.5% in 2035. According to the price in 2020, the total expenditure will increase from CNY 5.3 trillion to CNY 15.7 trillion, which is equivalent to 3 times that of 2020, of which the ratio of fiscal education expenditure to GDP increases from 5.7% to over 7% (see Table 4.4).

Table 4.4 Trend indicators of China’s education modernization and talent development (2020–2035)

Fourth, we should comprehensively improve the quality of various types of education. China will set an excellent foundation in pre-school education for three years, develop nine-year compulsory education in a balanced way, professionally popularize high school education, accelerate the development of modern vocational education, actively develop continuing education, and form a life-long, multi-level and all-round education system to meet the increasingly diverse needs of the people. It is necessary to vigorously promote educational equity, rationally allocate educational resources, support the development of education in rural, remote, poverty-stricken, and ethnic areas, support the development of special needs education, encourage and guide social entities to set up education institutions, and protect every child’s right to education.

Fifth, we should make efforts to build the world’s largest higher education power of higher-level. The State Council formulated the Overall Plan for Promoting the Construction of First-Class Universities and Disciplines of the World, and proposed that by 2030, more universities and disciplines will enter the ranks of global first-class, several universities will enter the forefront of the global first-class universities, and a number of disciplines will enter the forefront of global first-class disciplines. The overall strength of higher education has been significantly improved.

By the middle of this century, the number and strength of first-class universities and first-class disciplines will be at the forefront of the world, and a country with higher education will basically be built.³⁴

Accelerating the modernization of China’s education is not only an important part of basically realizing socialist modernization, but also greatly promotes China’s going into a new era of a world power in human resources and talents resources.

China has entered a new era of human resource power. The total number of human resources in the country continued to grow, and the average schooling years of the working-age population in the country have increased from 10.75 years in 2020 (equivalent to 69% of that of the United States, the schooling years of which were 13.3 years) to more than 12 years (equivalent to 88% of that of the United States, the schooling years of which were 13.3 years).³⁵ The average schooling years of the newly added labor force increased from 13.8 years (equivalent to a high school or above) to 15.2 years (equivalent to a junior college degree or above). In particular, the population of junior college students and above in the country continues to grow. It is expected to increase from 218 million in 2020 to 330 million in 2030, and will be more than 400 million in 2035, with an average annual growth rate of 4.1% (lower than 6.2% from 2010 to 2020). Its proportion of the total population has increased from 15.5% to 27.6%. Although the demographic dividend has declined, the human capital dividend has continued to rise, which has also provided an important source for the continuous growth of the total amount of various types of human resources. This has allowed for increased levels of resource advantages and helped China enter the ranks of the world’s human resources power. China’s human capital investment (including R&D expenditure, total education expenditure, and total health expenditure) continues to grow rapidly, and its ratio to GDP will rise from 13.7% in 2020 to more than 20% in 2035 (see Table 4.4), becoming the world’s largest country investing in human capital. The country with the largest human capital investment has produced a huge human resource dividend for China’s economy, society, culture, ecology and civilization.

China has entered a new era of talents power. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated: “We must deeply implement the strategy of strengthening the country with talents in the new era, and accelerate the construction of an important talent center in the world.” Talents refer to people who have certain professional knowledge or skills, perform creative work and make contributions to society, and they are workers with higher abilities and value in terms of human resources.³⁶ Talent is the first resource for China’s economic and social development.³⁷ The total amount of national talents continues to grow. The total number of national human resources has increased from 120 million in 2010 to 220 million in 2019, ranking the first in the world, of which professional and technical talents have increased from 55.504 million to 78.398 million in 2021. There is a population of more than 60 million highly-skilled individuals.³⁸ By 2030, the total number of skilled talents of China will reach more than 280 million, the proportion occupied by these workers in terms of total employment will increase from 29.3% to nearly 2/5, and the total number of professional and technical personnel will exceed 100 million. By 2035, the total amount of talent will reach more than 320 million, an increase of 100 million compared with that in 2020. Among them, the full-time equivalent of various R&D personnel will be more than doubled, from 5 million people person a year in 2020 to more than 13 million people a year in 2035.

This is equivalent to 2.3 times of the 5.57 million people a year of OECD countries in 2018.³⁹ This this has become China’s largest talent comparative advantage, competitive advantage and innovation advantage, leading China to become the world’s talent powerhouse. We should cultivate a large number of world-class scientists and technologists in strategically important fields, scientific and technological leaders, and young scientists and engineers, as well as high-performing innovation teams: “the contribution of talents to economic and social development has increased year by year”.⁴⁰ We must strengthen international scientific and technological exchanges, make full use of “two kinds of talents”, actively support overseas visiting research and cooperative research of domestic scientific and technological talents, vigorously attract the world’s top scientists on a global scale, sponsor and invite world-class scholars to visit and give lectures on a short-term basis, and strengthen international cooperation with world-class scientific research institutions, “assemble the best minds across the land and draw fully on their expertise”.

To this end, it is necessary to formulate the second “Outline of the National Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2021–2035)”, of which the core goal is to become the world’s largest talent power (see Table 4.4), and this will help build the powerful foundation to realize the second centenary goal.

4.5 Building a Healthy China in an All-Round Way

Health is an inevitable requirement to promote the all-round development of human beings and the basic condition to enhance economic and social development. Promoting the construction of a healthy China is an important foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and basically realizing socialist modernization. The essence of the modernization with Chinese characteristics is the modernization of people, and the essence of people’s modernization is the continuous improvement of the human capital. These include health modernization, which is not only an important part of the modernization with Chinese characteristics, but also the human capital (health capital) basis of the modernization with Chinese characteristics. Remarkable achievements have been made in the reform and development of China’s health sector. The main health indicators are generally better than the average level of middle and high-income countries, and some indicators are close to the average level of the OECD countries, which will further increase the health productivity of the more than one billion people.

In 2016, China took the lead among developing countries in formulating a national health medium and long-term strategy, namely the Outline of the “Healthy China 2030” Plan, which has become an action plan promoting the construction of a healthy China.

In 2017, the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward: we should carry out the Healthy China initiative. A healthy population is a key mark of a prosperous nation and a strong country. We will improve the national health policy, and ensure the delivery of comprehensive lifecycle health services for our people.⁴¹

In 2019, China issued the “Healthy China Action Plan (2019–2030)”, which proposed that by 2030, the health literacy of the whole people will be greatly improved, a healthy lifestyle will be basically popularized, the main health factors of residents will be effectively controlled, and the premature mortality rate caused by major chronic diseases will be significantly reduced. The healthy life expectancy per capita will be greatly improved, the main health indicators of residents will enter the ranks of high-income countries, and health equity will be basically achieved.

In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed that we should comprehensively promote the construction of a healthy China. It advocated to prioritize the protection of people’s health, put disease prevention first, implement the Healthy China Action in depth, improve national health promotion policies, build a solid national public health protection network, and provide the people with a full range of full-cycle health services.⁴²

At present, China has established a basic medical and health care system with Chinese characteristics covering 1.4 billion urban and rural residents. Everyone can enjoy basic medical and health services. The main health indicators are showing that China is in the forefront of middle and high-income countries, which has become one of the important symbols of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. By 2020, China’s average life expectancy reached 77.93 years, which is 5.2 years higher than the world average (72.7 years), and also higher than the average level of middle and high-income countries (75.9 years).⁴³ In 2021, China’s average life expectancy reached 78.2 years. According to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US average life expectancy decreased from 78.1 years in 2019 to 77.0 years in 2020, and to 76.1 years in 2021, with a decrease of 2.0 years.⁴⁴ In 2020, China’s infant mortality rate dropped to 5.4‰, lower than the original target of 7.5‰ and lower than that of the OECD countries average (6‰). The mortality rate of children under 5 dropped to 7.5‰, lower than the original target of 9.5‰, close to 7.0‰ of the OECD countries.⁴⁵ The maternal mortality rate dropped to 16.9 per 100,000 people,⁴⁶ which was lower than the original target of 18 per 100,000 people and was also lower than 18 per 100,000 people of the OECD countries (data from 2017). The survival rate of women aged 65 and over reaches 89%, which is close to 90% that of the OECD countries, which is significantly higher than the world average of 82%.⁴⁷ The survival rate of men aged 65 and over reaches 84%, which has exceeded 83% that of the OECD countries, and it is far higher than the world average level of 74%,⁴⁸ which fully reflects the superiority of the socialist system, that is, the health indicators not only came up to convergence to, but even surpassed that of the OECD countries when the per capita level is much lower than that of medium-developed countries. For the 1.4 billion people, it is the greatest health benefit. This is the most important achievement of the 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, as it focuses on all the people and invests in people’s health. It also lays a higher development foundation for building a healthy China in all aspects.

On the other hand, the pace of industrialization, urbanization, aging population, changes of the incidences of diseases, ecological conditions and lifestyles are all posing new challenges to China’s efforts to maintain and promote people’s health, with the provision of healthcare services falling short of increasing demands. The unbalanced and inadequate development of medical and health services have constrained China to meet the huge, diversified and individualized health needs of the people; the Covid-19 pandemic has especially further revealed the shortcomings such as infectious disease prevention and control and the construction of public health emergency systems. There are other shortcomings. The smoking rate of people aged over 15 years old in China is 25.8%, with a total amount of nearly 300 million people, which is still far from achieving the national tobacco control target (20%) in 2030. The proportion of urban and rural residents who regularly participate in physical exercise in China is only 33.9%. The prevalence of mood disorders and anxiety disorders, mainly depression, is on the rise in China. The prevalence of depression is 2.1%, nearly 30 million people. Additionally, there are about 200 million people in China exposed to hazardous factors of occupational diseases, and nearly 180 million seniors suffering from chronic diseases. It is necessary to fully implement the Healthy China Strategy. For this reason, China has formulated the Healthy China Action Plan (2019–2030).⁴⁹

As a type of special human capital, health is not only the foundation of people’s well-being, but also the foundation of social productivity. In the new era, priority should be given to the development of healthcare productivity, and the promotion of the productivity of healthcare systems, which requires a transition from inequity to fairness and from insufficiency to sufficiency. This may require a comprehensive construction of a health service system that follows the life-cycle of human beings, the promotion of fair access to basic medical and health care systems, and the promotion of the healthcare industry. It may also need the full development of other non-basic medical and health service fields, the comprehensive improvement of the modernization of health management, and the active improvement of the construction of the universal medical insurance system.⁵⁰

The basic idea of promoting the Healthy China Strategy is to promote the supply-side structural reform of healthcare services, improve the universal medical insurance system, provide fair and accessible, systematic and continuous medical services covering the whole population and the whole life-cycle, and establish a healthcare industry with a complete system and an optimized system, so as to achieve the goal of greatly enhancing the physical fitness of all people.

According to the main indicators and requirements of the Outline of the “Healthy China 2030” Plan, by 2030, the institutional system for promoting national health will be further improved, the development of the healthcare industry will be more coordinated, healthy lifestyles will be popularized, and the quality of health services and health security will be continuously improved. The healthcare industry will be prosperously developed, and health equity will be basically achieved, and the main health indicators will enter the ranks of high-income countries. By 2050, China will be built into a healthy country compatible with a great modern socialist country. The main development goals and indicators of the Healthy China are as follows (see Table 4.5):

Table 4.5 China’s Main Health development trend indicators (2020–2035)

First, by 2025, the main health indicators will enter the ranks of high-income countries, and by 2035, it will enter the rank of a medium-developed countries. Firstly, the average life expectancy will increase from 77.93 years in 2020 to 78.9 years by 2025, 80.0 years by 2030, and 81.1 years by 2035, which is close to the level of the OECD countries (80.2 years in 2020⁵¹). The average healthy life expectancy of the people has increased continuously. According to the World Health Organization, China’s average life expectancy was 68.5 years old in 2019, which has exceeded the average of world and that of the Europe. In the future, the average healthy life expectancy of the people will increase by one year every five years, a cumulative increase of three years. Secondly, the infant mortality rate in China will continue to decline, from 5.4‰ in 2020 to 4.2‰ by 2025, and to 2‰ by 2035. There will be an additional continuous decline in the mortality rate of children under 5 in China, from 7.5‰ in 2020 to 6.0‰ by 2025, and it will drop to less than 4‰ by 2035. The maternal mortality rate will drop from 16.9 per 100,000 people in 2020 to 14.0 per 100,000 people by 2025, and it will drop to less than 8 per 100,000 people by 2035. All this above means the health indicators will reach the level of a medium-developed country.

Second, the ratio of total health expenditure to GDP will continue to increase, reaching 7.5% by 2025 and around 9% by 2035. The ratio of government health expenditure to GDP will continue to increase, reaching over 3% by 2035.

Third, the capability of securing national health will be significantly improved. The number of licensed physicians & physician assistants per 1000 population will rise from 2.9 in 2020 to 3.2 in 2025, and the number of registered nurses per 1000 people will rise from 3.36 in 2020 to 3.8 in 2025. The basic medical insurance participation rate will also increase from 95% in 2020 to over 95% in 2025.⁵²

Fourth, China will build a strong public health system and improve the ability to respond to public health emergencies, including command and dispatch capabilities, monitoring and early-warning capabilities, prevention and control capabilities, emergency treatment capabilities, and capabilities of securing basic supplies.

Fifth, China will vigorously popularize the health-related knowledge, vigorously enhance the health awareness of the whole people, greatly improve the health literacy of the whole people, guide the formation of a healthy lifestyle that is self-disciplined and in line with their own characteristics, effectively control major health risk factors, and basically build a healthy environment for production and living. Especially in the implementation of the Healthy China Tobacco Control Action. According to the Office of the Healthy China Promotion Committee, the secondhand smoke exposure rate of non-smokers nationwide in 2020 was 56.6%. Meanwhile, the smoking rate of people aged over 15 years old (1.16 billion people) in China is 25.8%, the total amount of which is as high as 299 million, which is significantly higher than the world average (19.2%).⁵³

Sixth, the total value of the health service industry will increase from CNY 8 trillion in 2020 to CNY 22 trillion by 2035. Calculated in 2017 international dollars, it will reach 5.26 trillion international dollars by 2035 from 1.91 trillion international dollars in 2020. The average annual growth rate will be as high as 7%, making the healthcare service industry a pillar industry of the national economy and allowing it to leap to the forefront place of the world. By 2035, China’s main health indicators will basically reach the level of developed countries.

Seventh, China’s total healthy human capital will continue to rise, that is, the product of average life expectancy and the total population will increase from 110.02 billion person-years in 2020 to 114.08 billion person-years in 2035. As the total population declines, although the per capita life expectancy has increased, the total healthy human capital will continue to decline. It will fall to 108.18 billion person-years by 2050, remaining above 100 billion person-years.

China has transformed from the country with the world’s largest population to the country with the world’s largest amount of human capital. According to the Human Capital Index (HCI) provided by the World Bank, there is a new definition of human capital; it also proposes that what health and education contribute to increasing the productivity of the next generation of workers should be quantified. Countries can use it to assess the loss of income from human capital gaps, and to understand the effectiveness of immediate action in turning losses into gains, and to calculate the contribution of health and education to the productivity of workers. Being scored on a scale from 0 to 1, the index measures the productivity of a child born today as a worker of the future, given optimal health and education conditions. The larger the index, the larger productivity and the higher wage of the workers, resulting in higher total wealth and a stronger economy.

China’s total human capital will rank the first in the world for a long time. In 2020, China’s HCI was 0.653, the US’s HCI was 0.702, and India’s HCI is 0.494.⁵⁴ In 2020, China’s total human capital (the product of total population and HCI) was 921 million, the United States’ total human capital was 231 million, and India’s total human capital was 687 million. China’s total human capital was 3.99 times that of the United States and 1.34 times that of India. Although the total population of India exceeds that of China, China’s total human capital still ranks the first in the world. This shows that the essence of the modernization with Chinese characteristics is the level of China’s human capital, especially the level of education, health and economic growth, becoming the world’s largest human capital stock, which in turn greatly promotes the continuous improvement of the level of modernization with Chinese characteristics.

As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “China’s modernization must cover a massive population. The 1.4 billion people will enter a modern society as a whole, and its scale will exceed the sum of the existing developed countries. It will completely rewrite the world map of modernization, which is a major event with far-reaching influence in human history.”⁵⁵ Modernization with Chinese characteristics is entirely a people-centered modernization, which fully reflects the level of human capital of all people, especially the continuous improvement of health indicators such as life expectancy and it will allow China to take the lead in narrowing the relative gap with developed countries.

4.6 Promoting the Long-Term Balanced Development of the People

China is the country with the largest population in the world, and it is also a country undergoing rapid modern transformation of its population. To this end, the “Proposals” of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the implementation of the national strategy of actively responding to the population aging. This involves formulating long-term population development strategies, optimizing fertility policies, enhancing the inclusiveness of fertility policies, improving the level of prenatal and postnatal care services, developing a nursery service system benefiting all, reducing the cost of fertility, parenting, and education, promoting long-term and balanced population development, and improving population quality.

China’s national condition of the population has undergone major changes. The rapid aging as well as the huge scale of the population will become the biggest development challenge in the future. Based on the data of the seventh national census, the total population of China will grow from 1411.78 million in 2020 to 1442.09 million—1461.39 million in 2035, estimated by the total fertility rates (1.678–1.800) of different women. The annual average growth rate will be between 0.19 and 0.27% (see Table 4.6). According to the data provided by the World Population Prospects 2019 released by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division of the United Nations,⁵⁶ the proportion of China’s total population to the world’s total population will decrease from 18.2% in 2020 to 16.2–16.5% in 2035. The amount of the population aged 15–64 will drop from 967 million in 2020 to 924 million in 2035, and its proportion to the world total will drop from 19.0% in 2020 to 16.2% in 2035. The elderly population aged 60 and over will rise from 262 million in 2020 to 441 million in 2035. The annual average growth rate will be as high as 3.43%, with an annual average increase of 11.93 million people aged 65 and over will increase from 190 million in 2020 to 327 million in 2035. The annual average growth rate will be as high as 3.67%, with an annual average increase of 9.13 million people. In 2020, it has already accounted for 23.4% of the world total, and it will increase in the future.

Table 4.6 Trends of major indicators of population development in China (2020–2035)

To this end, the “Proposals” proposed by the Central Committee put forward: “implementing a national strategy to actively respond to population aging” for the first time. To this end, it is necessary to seize the strategic opportunity for coping with population aging, formulate national special medium and long-term plans, actively develop aging human resources, develop the Silver Economy, and give full play to the “longevity dividend”. Additionally, efforts will be made to coordinate elderly care programs and elderly care industries, improve the basic elderly care service system, develop elderly care services that benefits all and is mutually-assisted, support families to undertake elderly care responsibilities, cultivate new elderly care businesses, build an elderly care service system that coordinates home care and community services and integrates medical care and health care, and improve the comprehensive supervision system of elderly care services.⁵⁷

According to the “Proposals”, the relevant state departments have formulated the “14th Five-Year Plan” for National Aging Development and Elderly Care Service System. The Plan focuses on speeding up the improvement of social security, elderly care services, and health support systems, integrating the concept of active aging and the concept of healthy aging into the entire process of economic and social development, doing our best and do what we can to deepen reform and comprehensively implement policies, increasing system innovation, policy supply, and the fiscal investment, and continuing to make new progress in supporting the elderly, providing medical care for the elderly, doing something for the elderly, giving learning opportunities to the elderly, and providing entertainment for the elderly, so that the elderly can share the fruits of reform and development and enjoy a happy old age.⁵⁸

4.7 Equalization of Basic Public Services

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that by 2035, the strategic goal of realizing equal access to basic public services will be achieved.⁵⁹ China needs to use three more five-year plans to establish a national basic public service system that is compatible with the goal of basically realizing socialist modernization. By 2035, the equal access to basic public services in China will be basically achieved, and a national basic public service system that is more balanced, of higher-quality, more convenient, and more sustainable will be basically built so that the basic public services can cover the entire population. The income gap will continue to narrow, the level of equalization of basic public services will be significantly improved, and the people’s multi-level and diverse needs for basic public services will be met.

The social security system will cover the entire population, and the security standards will be steadily improved. There will be reform and improvement of the social security system, implementation of a national insurance plan, improvement of the basic old-age insurance system for employees and residents, realization of the national overall planning of old-age insurance, steady increases in the level of basic pensions, and full coverage for the people in terms of the participation of basic medical insurance. A multi-level and diversified social security system will be basically formed, the scale of enterprise annuities and commercial old-age insurance will be continuously expanded, and a sustainable old-age insurance system will be formed to achieve the unification of social and economic benefits.

Building the world’s largest healthy age-friendly society. There will be a comprehensive building of a social service system in which “the elderly enjoys the recreational activities, has access to knowledge, has something to do, can contribute to the society, can be supported, and has health care.” According to the “14th Five-Year” Plan for Public Services, firstly, the basic old-age insurance participation rate will be greatly increased, from 90% in 2020 to 95% in 2025, and more than 97% by 2035. Secondly, there will be an increase in the total number of elderly care beds, from 8.24 million in 2020 to more than 10 million in 2025. Thirdly, there will be an increase the proportion of nursing beds in elderly care institutions from 38% in 2020 to 55% in 2025, and to more than 60% in 2035, and this will be used as a binding indicator; Fourthly, the coverage rate of elderly care service facilities in newly-built urban areas and residential (community) areas will reach 100% by 2025, which will also be used as a binding indicator. There are indicators such as the number of elderly care beds per 1000 elderly people, the proportion of nursing beds used for elderly patients, and the proportion of elderly people receiving education and training to the elderly population. These will be used to build a social environment for the elderly that contains filial piety and respect.

To ensure common prosperity, even one cannot be left behind. The system and mechanism for solving the problem of relative poverty has been basically perfected. China will improve the social welfare system focusing on helping the elderly, the disabled, children, and people in straitened circumstances, and continuously raise the minimum social security standards for residents. In December 2019, the average benchmark for rural subsistence allowances formulated by China was CNY 5,336 per person per year.⁶⁰ It is estimated that by 2025, the poverty population of 3.2 international dollars per person per day can be eliminated, and the incidence of poverty population of 5.5 international dollars per person per day can be reduced to less than 1% (Table 4.7). China will focus on the living security of key groups without the ability to work and without a source of income, including the elderly in rural areas who doesn’t have a source of support from relatives, poor children from rural low-income families, children from single-parent low-income families, and people with disabilities who are unable to work and lack a source of support.

Table 4.7 Trends of main indicators of social development and public services (2020–2035)

Significant progress has been made in housing. According to the “14th Five-Year” Plan for Public Service, firstly, by 2025, the guarantee rate of urban household recipients of subsistence allowances and that of low-income families applying for public rental housing should be secured as much as possible, and it should be used as a binding indicator. Secondly, the housing security rate of rural low-income groups who has reached the level of protection should also be guaranteed, and this should be used as a binding indicator. Thirdly, China will renovate old urban communities, and the amount of which will reach 219,000 by 2025, not only for providing basic living arrangements but also for improving the quality of life.

Assistance will be provided for the whole vulnerable group. According to the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, 1.075 million people with disabilities received assistance and support for the extremely poor, 10.768 million people with disabilities received minimum subsistence allowances, 12.126 million people with disabilities and difficulties received living allowances, and 14.738 million people with severe disabilities received nursing care allowances. The participation rate of basic old-age insurance for the disabled in urban and rural areas exceeded 90%, and the participation rate of basic medical insurance reached 95%. According to the “14th Five-Year” Plan for Public Service, China’s living subsidies for the disabled and the nursing subsidies for the severely disabled have achieved a coverage of 100%, fully reflecting the superiority of the socialist system.

It can be expected that by 2035, China will realize the beautiful vision of “ensuring people’s access to childcare, education, medical services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance”, and it will see that our people will always have a strong sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security.

4.8 Solid Progress Has Been Made Toward Prosperity for Everyone

In essence, the process of China’s basic realization of socialist modernization is to make all the people be prosperous together. This requires China to develop through different stages. “A select few achieving wealth” is not the ultimate goal, but the starting point, breakthrough point and basic means to achieve the goal of common wealth. Similarly, the realization of “common wealth” cannot be a quick victory but instead a longer term battle,⁶¹ which can be divided into several distinct phases: the first stage is “a select few first achieving wealth” (1978–2000), the second stage is building a moderately prosperous society in all respects (2000–2020), and the third stage is the stage of common prosperity for all (2020–2035).

By 2035, as China basically realizes its modernization, it will also usher in an era of common development, common prosperity and common wealth. Common development creates common prosperity, and common prosperity drives an increase in the wealth for all. There must be a continuously narrowing of the gap between urban and rural areas, of the gap between different regions, and of the gap between urban and rural income. It is also necessary to significantly narrow the gap in wider fields, including the development gap in multi-dimensional indicators such as consumption, housing, employment, education, health, culture, basic public services, and social security. China must enable all the 1.4 billion people to live a richer, higher-quality and safer life, and the level of human capital owned by workers will be higher and higher. They will have the ability to independently start a business, bring about innovations, and create wealth, and can fairly share the fruits of social development and achieve the grand goal of “making solid progress toward prosperity for everyone”.

By 2035, China will not only become a medium-developed country, but also a country with a very high level of human development. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), China’s Human Development Index (HDI) reached 0.761 in 2019, ranking the 85th among 189 countries-the top 45% of the world. Among them, China’s GDP per capita is 15,011 international dollars (constant price in 2017), the average life expectancy is 76.7 years,⁶² the expected schooling years are 13.9 years, and the average schooling years are 7.9 years.⁶³ It is estimated that by 2025 or so, China’s HDI will be 0.810, entering a very high level of human development, which will increase the total population of the world’s very high human development by more than 90%. By 2035, China’s HDI will exceed 0.850 (see Table 4.8), to become the most dynamic and creative modern country in the world, and become one of the major international symbols for the common prosperity of all people.

Table 4.8 Trends of China’s human development index (1990–2035)

In short, by 2035, the grand goal of “China’s entry into the ranks of high-income countries, and the life expectancy of its population and the level of national education reaching the world’s advanced level” will be achieved as scheduled.