From The New York Times:
China’s Communist Party, devoted in recent years to expanding the economy at any cost, on Wednesday endorsed a new doctrine that puts more emphasis on tackling the severe side effects of unrestrained growth.
The annual meeting of the ruling party’s Central Committee formally adopted President Hu Jintao’s proposal to “build a harmonious socialist society,” a move some analysts said was one of most decisive shifts in the party’s thinking since Deng Xiaoping accelerated the push for high growth rates in the early 1990’s.
The leadership declared that a range of social concerns, including the surging wealth gap, corruption, pollution and access to education and medical care, must be placed on a par with economic growth in party theory and government policy.[Full Text]
See related article: “Leaders underline social harmony in New Year speech” from Xinhua. China’s top leaders such as Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao declared that efforts would be made to tackle employment, social security, poverty relief, education, medical care, housing, environment and security issues.
