Social construction to go through three stages
China has entered a new stage of social construction.(Photographed by Tian Jun)
Observed from the practice of China’s international and domestic long-term development, the major aim of social construction is to realize social modernization. To achieve the aim, China must make all efforts to realize the modernization of people's livelihood, social undertakings, social institutions, social management, social organization, social life and social structure etc.
During more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China has been sticking to centering on economical construction and achieved the basic realization of modernization of the economy. According to indicators to measure the stages of development of the industrial society made by international academic community, China's economic structure has reached the level of the mid-stage of industrial society. However, social structure remains at the level of lower stage. The phenomenon of unbalance of China's economic and social development began to demonstrate itself as early as in the late 1990s. In March 2011, the National People's Congress of China passed the 12th Five-Year Plan, emphasizing to take the need to change the mode of economic development as the main line, and to make protecting and improving people's livelihood as the fundamental starting point and goal to accelerate the transformation of economic development. Driven by various forces, China has entered a new stage of social construction.
Given the fundamental realities of China, future development of the Chinese society will go through three stages. At the first stage, the government should start with the issues that most people concern, for example, improving people's livelihood, career and social security. Innovation of social management is also a key factor to resolve major problems that affect social harmony and stability, making sure to prevent and reduce the generation of social contradictions. At the second stage, it is necessary to focus on promoting social restructuring, innovation of social policy, and improvement of social management. Integration of urban and rural areas is also crucial. The core task of this stage is to build a reasonably open industrial society compatible of the middle stage of construction of the industrial society. At the third stage, since social reform and social institutions has been gradually improved, it is possible to form a social structure more compatible with the socialist market economic system and in harmony with the modern economic structure of modern society.
Lu Xueyi is honorary academician at the Institute of Sociology,Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(Translated by Zheng Ou)
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