At the opening ceremony of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held on October 15, President Hu Jintao delivered a report in line with the development of the times and the interests of the people, and conducive to advancing the Party's cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

On October 16, Professor Zhang Yu, director of the department of economics, College of Economics at Renmin University came to China.org.cn to discuss part of the report concerning economic construction.

"Realizing fairness and justice is an important development of our cognition since the launch of the Scientific Outlook on Development and the thought of constructing a harmonious society. The vital principle for us to further our reform and social development is to realize fairness and justice," Zhang said.

The distribution system should be improved in order to realize fairness and justice. The widening gap has drawn much attention; the Chinese economy and GDP have grown quickly so we have paid more attention to this problem since the 16th National Congress of the CPC. The Third Plenary Meeting, Fourth Plenary Meeting, Fifth Plenary Meeting and the Sixth Plenary Meeting all put emphasis on the problem of social fairness and income gap which includes the gap between rural and urban residents, among urban residents and among areas, etc. Thus the distribution system requires deep reform.

The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee specially discussed this problem last year, advocating adjusting high incomes and combating illegal incomes.

The income gap problem is mentioned again in Hu's report. A new theory in the report states that not only the distribution but also the redistribution needs balance between efficiency and fairness. Redistribution especially needs to take into account social fairness. Hu Jintao said that the Party's basic experience is realizing efficiency and fairness when summarizing the great achievements of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The experience includes the unification of Socialism and the market economy and the unification of development and stability. Now we have put fairness into an even more important position.

Besides the distribution system, social fairness also includes education fairness, medical service fairness, public service fairness and fairness of democracy and politics.

Realizing fairness and justice is the inner requirement of a harmonious society. Deng Xiaoping said that the essence of socialism is to "emancipate and develop productive forces, eliminate exploitation and polarization and eventually realize common prosperity". Jiang Zemin also said that special attention should be paid to fairness and efficiency under socialist system in order to allow the people share in the achievements of the reform and opening up. Thus we should pay more attention to fairness.

Zhang Yu says that sticking to reform and opening up is also a theme in Hu's report. The report advocates furthering the reform. Reform will remain our main task in the next five years though its environment and aim may change.

As for the environment, we have joined the WTO and we've set up a market economy. Our aim now is to improve the Socialist market economy system including the property rights system, deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises, etc.

The reform now emphasizes the problems around people's livelihoods - medical service, education and social security. We should better enhance the scientific development in reform to secure the balance between the resources and the environment.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua October 17, 2007)