The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that China had basically realized the lower limits of xiaokang, the condition of the country's citizens being well-off, at the end of 2000.
The NBS, along with the State Planning Commission (now the State Development Planning Commission) and the Ministry of Agriculture, launched a nationwide project in the early 1990s to gauge how far Chinese people were from enjoying the state of xiaokang, bureau staff member Cheng Xi said.
NBS designed 16 indexes in five categories, including economic level, material life, population quality, cultural life and living environment, and compared the respective data in 1980 with the data expected for the lower limits of xiaokang society.
As a matter of fact, China realized in 1997, three years ahead of time, Deng Xiaoping's plan to quadruple the 1980 per capita GNP by the end of the 20th century, said sources from the NBS.
According to the NBS, taking all the indexes into account, China averaged a xiaokang achievement rate of 96 per cent nationwide by the end of 2000.
The xiaokang indexes, designed according to NBS standards, indicate just the lower limits of xiaokang life. China has only crossed the threshold of xiaokang, Cheng said.
To view it from the global perspective, China's xiaokang at its current stage is tantamount to the average development level of the world's middle or lower-income countries by the international standard, said Li Zhongjie of the Party School.
By the time when the country completes a fully xiaokang society, China is expected to reach the average development level of the world's middle or high-income countries, Li said.
(China Daily November 6, 2002)
