[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

With different educational backgrounds and working experiences from their predecessors, the newly elected leaders of the Communist Party of China are expected to push for some changes in China's established development strategy and policies.

Speaking to the media at the closing of the First Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping sought to usher in a more democratic direction for China's economic development in the years ahead, and a shift in focus to the protection of grassroots interests, especially those of middle and low-income groups.

"Our people expect better education, more stable jobs, better incomes, more reliable social security, higher-standard medical care, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment," Xi said in his debut media address as the new Party chief. "People's aspiration for a good and beautiful life is the goal for us to strive for."

As a step toward this, the new leadership should strengthen its efforts to make the housing market accessible to the majority of ordinary people instead of it being utilized as an important money-making tool by a minority. As early as 2010, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang headed the promulgation of a series of measures aimed at regulating the real estate sector. But the leaders will need to show determination if they are to transform the housing market to one that serves the people rather than speculators. The country's basic real estate policies will determine the development direction of China's housing market in the years ahead. Without a policy orientation to improve access for ordinary people, it will be impossible for the country to eliminate the incorrect practices that have become deeply rooted in the housing market, or for it to adjust the firmly entrenched interest relations in this speculation-prone sector. At the same time, the establishment of a housing market aimed at ordinary people will help extricate the national economy from excessive dependency on the housing market and offer a basic guarantee for the coordinated development of the economy.

The new leadership is also expected to accelerate China's steps toward pursuing common prosperity.

"To fulfill our responsibility, we will rally and lead the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups in China in making continued efforts to free up our minds, carry out reform and opening-up, further release and develop the productive forces, work hard to resolve the difficulties the people face in both work and life, and unwaveringly pursue common prosperity," Xi said.

Different from past calls for some people to be allowed to become rich before others, Xi's remarks stressed the importance of both national economic and social development, and the fairness of wealth distribution. To double people's income by 2020 from the 2010 level, as former Party leader Hu Jintao mapped out in his report to the Party's 18th National Congress, China's new leaders must go all out to promote a same-pace increase in their incomes and national economic development and take all available measures to give ordinary people unblocked access to the fruits of the nation's economic boom. This is also the only way for China to develop itself into a modern civilized society.

Residents' incomes are related to the country's economic and social development and its production efficiency, and are determined, to a large degree, by income distribution policies. Without a just and reasonable income distribution regime, increasing ordinary people's incomes will be impossible and only a minority of people will manipulate the increased national wealth.

With eight years left to achieve the goal of doubling people's incomes from the 2010 level, China should try to eradicate factors that lie in the way of fair income distribution. To promote common prosperity, China's new leaders should accelerate efforts to push forward the long-overdue income distribution reform as part of a campaign to carry out sweeping economic reforms.

China's new leaders are determined not to aim at fast growth at the cost of the environment and will shift to the pursuit of quality growth instead of expanding size alone. So it is pragmatic for China to set the target of doubling its gross domestic product by 2020 from the 2010 level, a 7 percent economic growth rate year-on-year.

Aside from pursuing higher economic efficiency and a better environment, higher-quality GDP growth should also aim to extend more chances to ordinary people so that they share the fruits of national economic development. From this perspective, increased efforts to transform the country's economic development strategy, adjust its economic structure and extricate the national economy from excessive dependence on the housing market will be on top of new leaders' agendas in the years ahead.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/yixianrong.htm