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16th Party Congress Report
VI. Cultural Development and Restructuring To build a well-off society in an all-round way calls for major efforts to develop socialist culture and spiritual civilization. In the present-day world, culture is interactive with economic and political activities, and its status and functions are becoming more and more outstanding in the competition in overall national strength. The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality, creativity and cohesion of a nation. All Party members must fully understand the strategic significance of cultural development and make socialist culture develop and flourish. 1. Keep the orientation of advanced culture firmly in hand. In contemporary China, to develop advanced culture means to develop national, scientific and popular socialist culture geared to the needs of modernization, of the world and of the future so as to enrich people's mental world and reinforce their mental strength. We must uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as our guidelines in the realm of ideology and have the important thought of Three Represents in command of the development of socialist culture. We must keep to the orientation of serving the people and socialism and the principle of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend and highlight the themes of the times while encouraging diversity. We should continue to arm people with scientific theory, provide them with correct media guidance, imbue them with lofty ideals, and inspire them with excellent works of literature and art. We must exert ourselves to develop advanced culture and support healthy and useful culture, changing what is backward and resisting what is decadent. Literary and art workers should go deep among the masses and into the thick of life so as to contribute to the people more works worthy of the times. The press, publishing, radio, film and television must give correct guidance to the public, and Internet web sites should serve as important fronts for spreading advanced culture. Basing ourselves on the practice of reform, opening up and modernization and keeping abreast of the latest developments in world culture, we must carry forward the fine tradition of our national culture, draw on the strong points of other nations and make innovations in content and form so as to enhance the attraction and appeal of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics. 2. Continue to carry forward and cultivate the national spirit. National spirit is the moral kingpin on which a nation relies for survival and development. Without an inspiring spirit and lofty character, it is impossible for a nation to stand proudly in the family of nations. For more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation has evolved a great national spirit centering on patriotism and featuring unity and solidarity, love of peace, industry, courage and ceaseless self-improvement. This national spirit has been enriched in light of the requirements of the times and social development by the people under the leadership of our Party over along period of practice. Confronted with interaction of different thoughts and cultures in the world, we must take it as a crucial task in our cultural development to carry forward and cultivate the national spirit and incorporate it into our national education and the entire process of building spiritual civilization so that the entire people are always filled with an enterprising spirit. 3. Promote ideological and ethical progress. Ruling the country by law and ruling the country by virtue complement each other. It is necessary to establish a socialist ideological and ethical system compatible with the socialist market economy and the socialist legal standard and consistent with the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation. We must carry out intensive publicity and education in the Party's basic theory, line and program and in the important thought of Three Represents, and guide people in fostering a common ideal for socialism with Chinese characteristics, correct world outlook, views on life and values. We must carry out the Program for Improving Civic Morality, promote patriotism and, with serving the people at the core, collectivism as the principle and honesty as a priority, intensify education in social and professional ethics and family virtues and especially intensify the ideological and ethical improvement among youth so as to guide people in their pursuit of higher ideological and ethical standards on the basis of observing the basic code of conduct. We must strengthen and improve ideological and political work and encourage popular participation in building spiritual civilization. 4. Develop education and science. Education is the foundation for scientific and technological advancement and personnel training. Playing a vanguard role and having an overall bearing on the modernization drive, education must be placed on our development agenda as a strategic priority. We must carry out the Party's education policy that education should serve socialist modernization and the people and integrate itself with productive labor and social practice so as to train socialist builders and successors featuring an all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique and art. We should encourage innovation in education, deepen its reform, optimize its structure, allocate its resources rationally, raise its quality and management levels and promote quality-oriented education to cultivate hundreds of millions of high-quality workers, tens of millions of specialized personnel and a great number of top-notch innovative personnel. We should build up the ranks of teachers and raise their professional ethics and competence. We should continue to make nine-year compulsory education universal across the country, intensify vocational education and training, develop continued education and set up a system of life-long education. We should increase input in education, give more support to rural education, and encourage nongovernmental sectors to run schools. We should improve the state policy and system for aiding students in straitened circumstances. We should formulate a long-term program for scientific and technological development. We should step up the development of infrastructure for research. We should disseminate science and promote the scientific spirit. We must lay equal stress on social sciences and natural sciences and give full play to the important role of philosophy and other social sciences in economic and social development. It is essential to create an atmosphere in society at large favorable for respecting and promoting science, encouraging innovation and opposing superstition and pseudo-science. 5. Develop cultural undertakings and industry. In developing cultural undertakings and industry, it is imperative to meet the requirements of developing advanced culture and always place social effects in the first place. The state supports and protects public cultural undertakings and encourages them to enhance their vigor for self-development. We must continue to improve the policies and measures for the development of public cultural undertakings. We must give our support to the major news media and research institutions of social sciences of the Party and state, to the major cultural projects and art schools and troupes that are up to national standards and embody national characteristics, to the protection of major cultural heritage and outstanding folk arts, and to the cultural development in the old revolutionary base areas, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, remote areas, impoverished areas and the central and western regions of the country. We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture. We should promote the reform and development of health and sports undertakings and carry on the nationwide fitness campaign to improve the physique of the entire people. We should make the 2008 Olympics a success. Developing the cultural industry is an important avenue to enriching socialist culture in the market economy and to meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of the people. It is essential to improve policies toward the cultural industry, support its development and enhance its overall strength and competitiveness. 6. Continue to deepen cultural restructuring. It is necessary to push forward cultural restructuring in light of the characteristics of the development of socialist spiritual civilization and laws governing it and in response to the needs of the growing socialist market economy. We must lose no time in working out overall planning for cultural restructuring. We must integrate the deepening of reform with structural adjustment and promotion of development and straighten out the relationship between the government and cultural enterprises and institutions. We must build up a legal system concerning culture and intensify macro-control. We should deepen the internal reform of cultural enterprises and institutions and gradually establish a management system and operational mechanism favorable to arousing the initiative of cultural workers, encouraging innovation and bringing forth more top-notch works and more outstanding personnel. In compliance with the principle of both enriching culture and intensifying management, we should improve the system of markets for cultural products and their management mechanism to create a social climate favorable for a flourishing socialist culture. The Chinese civilization, extensive and profound, and with a long history
behind it, has contributed tremendously to the progress of human civilization.
We will surely have a new upsurge in building socialist culture and create an
even more splendid advanced culture in the great struggle of the Chinese people
in the contemporary era.
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