VIII. Building Cultural Confidence and Strength and Securing New Successes in Developing Socialist Culture

 

To build a modern socialist country in all respects, we must develop a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics and be more confident in our culture. In our efforts to turn China into a country with a strong socialist culture, we will focus on upholding socialism with Chinese characteristics, rallying public support, fostering a new generation of young people, developing Chinese culture, and better presenting China to the world. We will develop a sound, people-oriented socialist culture for our nation that embraces modernization, the world, and the future. We will ignite the cultural creativity of the entire nation and build a powerful source of inspiration for realizing national rejuvenation.

We should uphold the foundational system for ensuring the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological domain. We will ensure that culture serves the people and serves socialism. We will follow the principle of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, and we will encourage creative transformation and innovative development of traditional Chinese culture. Guided by the core socialist values, we will develop advanced socialist culture, promote revolutionary culture, and carry forward fine traditional Chinese culture. In doing so, we will be well-placed to meet people’s ever-growing intellectual and cultural needs, consolidate a common intellectual foundation for the whole Party and all Chinese people to strive in unity, and continuously grow China’s cultural soft power and the appeal of Chinese culture.

1. Developing a socialist ideology that has the power to unite and inspire the people

Ideological work is about forging the character of a country and the soul of a nation. We must ensure that the Party firmly exercises leadership over this work and that the responsibility system for it is fully implemented. We will cement and expand the mainstream thoughts and ideas that inspire hard work in the new era.

We will refine the working systems for arming Party members, educating the people, and guiding our practice with the Party’s new theories. We will make further progress in the project to study and develop Marxist theory. In philosophy and the social sciences, we will work faster to develop Chinese systems for fields of study, academia, and discourse, and we will cultivate a pool of talented philosophers and social scientists.

We will improve the systems for communications across all forms of media and create a new environment of mainstream public opinion. We will improve the system for conducting comprehensive cyberspace management and foster a healthy online environment.

2. Extensively applying the core socialist values

The core socialist values have immense power to rally the people’s support and pool their strength. We will carry forward the long line of inspiring principles for the Chinese Communists that originated with the great founding spirit of the Party; put resources related to the Party’s heritage to great use; conduct extensive public awareness activities to promote the core socialist values; enhance commitment to patriotism, collectivism, and socialism; and foster a new generation of young people to shoulder the mission of realizing national rejuvenation.

We will develop and institutionalize regular activities to foster ideals and convictions, and we will carry out public awareness initiatives on the history of the Party, the People’s Republic of China, reform and opening up, and the development of socialism, in order to foster love for the Party and the country. These efforts will help strengthen the people’s commitment to our common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

We will draw on the core socialist values to forge inner strength and inspire our people, improve the system of theoretical and political work, and integrate the political education curriculum across all levels, from elementary schools to universities.

We will uphold both the rule of law and the rule of virtue and see that the core socialist values are incorporated into efforts to advance the rule of law, into social development, and into the people’s daily lives. 

3. Enhancing civility throughout society

We will continue the civic morality campaign, carry forward traditional Chinese virtues, foster stronger family ties, values, and traditions, and raise the intellectual and moral standards of minors. We will build public commitment to the greater good, public morality, and personal integrity. These efforts will help raise public moral standards and enhance public civility.

To promote cultural-ethical progress, we will take coordinated steps to raise awareness, apply principles, and develop initiatives and advance efforts in both urban and rural areas. We will foster an ethos of work, enterprise, dedication, creativity, and frugality throughout society and cultivate new trends and new customs for our times.

We will increase people’s knowledge of science and encourage everyone to read. The system and working mechanisms for volunteer services will be improved. We will promote integrity and credibility in society and work to perfect relevant long-term mechanisms.

We will see that Party and state awards and honors play a guiding and exemplary role and that a public atmosphere prevails in which people emulate paragons of virtue, look up to heroes, and strive to become pioneers.

4. Developing cultural programs and the cultural sector

We will encourage people-centered cultural creation and production of more outstanding works that inspire the people, and we will nurture a great number of writers and artists of both moral and artistic stature as well as a large contingent of talented personnel in culture and the arts.

We will make sure the cultural sector prioritizes social benefit while also producing economic returns, deepen reform of the cultural management system, and improve economic policy for the cultural sector.

We will implement a national cultural digitization strategy, improve the modern system of public cultural services, and launch new public-benefit cultural programs. We will improve the modern systems for cultural industries and markets and implement major cultural projects to spur the development of the sector.

We will put more effort into protecting cultural artifacts and heritage, better protect and preserve historical and cultural heritage in the course of urban and rural development, and build and make good use of national cultural parks. We will encourage positive interplay between culture and tourism and advance deeper integration of the two sectors.

We will launch extensive public fitness initiatives, improve physical education for our young people, promote all-around development of recreational and competitive sports, and move faster to build China into a country strong in sports.

5. Extending the reach and appeal of Chinese civilization

We will stay firmly rooted in Chinese culture. We will collect and refine the defining symbols and best elements of Chinese culture and showcase them to the world. We will accelerate the development of China’s discourse and narrative systems, better tell China’s stories, make China’s voice heard, and present a China that is credible, appealing, and respectable.

We will strengthen our international communications capabilities, make our communications more effective, and strive to strengthen China’s voice in international affairs so it is commensurate with our composite national strength and international status. We will deepen exchanges and mutual learning with other civilizations and better present Chinese culture to the world.