"Scientific Outlook on Development Study Book"
(Serial 4)
4. The basic requirement of the scientific outlook on development is comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable
The basic requirement of the Scientific Outlook on Development is comprehensive coordination and sustainability. This is an important manifestation of grasping the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics from an overall perspective. It reflects our party’s profound understanding of the laws of socialist modernization and reveals the entry point for implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development in all aspects. To thoroughly implement the Scientific Outlook on Development, we must adhere to this basic requirement, strive to promote coordination in all links and aspects of modernization, and comprehensively promote socialist economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, social construction, and ecological civilization construction.
1． Adhering to comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development is an inevitable requirement for my country’s economic and social development
The understanding of the basic requirements for comprehensive coordination and sustainability was gradually formed and continuously deepened in practice by our party’s exploration of the laws of socialist modernization based on the basic principles of Marxism. Classic Marxist writers believe that the ideal society in the future is a society in which social productivity is highly developed and people's spiritual life is highly developed. It is a society in which people live in harmony with each other and people and nature coexist harmoniously. Marx pointed out: “Socialized people, united producers, will rationally regulate the material transformation between themselves and nature, and bring it under their common control, rather than letting it rule themselves as a blind force; by consuming the least power, they will make the most worthy of and most suitable for their human nature. This material transformation can be carried out under certain conditions. "The basic requirement of comprehensive coordination and sustainability not only emphasizes the connection and coordination of all aspects of economic and social development, but also emphasizes the connection and coordination of people and people, people and society, and people and nature, and adheres to the basic Marxist perspective on the development of human society.
Comprehensive coordination of the basic requirements for sustainability has rich connotations. Comprehensive means that development must be comprehensive and holistic, not only economic development, but also development in all aspects; coordination means that development must be coordinated and balanced, and the development of all aspects and links must adapt to and promote each other; sustainable means that development must be durable and continuous, not only for current development, but also to ensure long-term development. To adhere to comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development, it is necessary to correctly handle the major relationships in modernization such as economic and social development, urban and rural development, development of the east, middle and west, development of man and nature, domestic development and opening to the outside world, reform, development and stability; it is necessary to make overall arrangements and handle consumption and investment, supply and demand, the speed, structure and quality of development. We must persist in regarding socialist material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, construction of a harmonious society, construction of ecological civilization, and comprehensive human development as interrelated, mutually reinforcing, and inseparable processes.
The Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized comprehensive coordination and sustainability as a basic requirement of the scientific outlook on development, which reflects the objective requirements of my country's economic and social development at this stage: on the one hand, after long-term development, we have accumulated a relatively strong material and technological foundation, which can make greater achievements in promoting comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development; on the other hand, problems such as unbalanced urban and rural regional development, uncoordinated economic and social development, and incompatibility between economic development and population, resources and environment have become more prominent before us. The basic requirement of comprehensive coordination and sustainability puts forward new ideas to solve the problem of unbalanced and uncoordinated development between urban and rural areas, regions, economic society, man and nature, and points out the correct direction for my country's economic and social development. Only by more consciously promoting comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development can we better resolve various constraints on our country's development, better promote our country's development process, and ensure the realization of our country's development strategic goals.
2． Comprehensively promote various constructions in accordance with the overall layout of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics
Adhere to the basic requirements of comprehensive coordination and sustainability, we must follow the overall layout of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, adhere to economic construction as the center, and continuously promote economic development and comprehensive social progress.
The four-in-one overall layout of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics is put forward by a profound summary of the historical experience of our party’s leadership in socialist construction. Long before the founding of New China, Comrade Mao Zedong proposed that we should not only build a politically free and economically prosperous China, but also a civilized and advanced China. After the founding of New China, our party conducted arduous explorations on the road to socialist construction. On the basis of practice, it proposed the construction of modern industry and modern agriculture, and proposed the idea of our country's industrial layout. Later, it proposed the realization of the four modernizations of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology. In the new era of reform and opening up, our party has formed a series of new understandings about the layout of socialist construction in its exploration. The Sixth Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed the overall layout of socialist modernization, which is to focus on economic construction, unswervingly carry out economic system reform, unswervingly carry out political system reform, and unswervingly strengthen the construction of spiritual civilization. The 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the Party’s basic line for the primary stage of socialism. The 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the establishment of a socialist market economic system. The 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed a basic program for the primary stage of socialism, further clarifying the basic goals and basic policies for building a socialist economy, politics, and culture with Chinese characteristics. The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society is to make the economy more developed, democracy to be more complete, science and education to be more advanced, culture to be more prosperous, society to be more harmonious, and people's lives to be more prosperous, to continuously promote the coordinated development of socialist material civilization, political civilization, and spiritual civilization, to promote all-round social progress, and to promote all-round human development. Since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as General Secretary has put forward the major task of building a socialist harmonious society, making the overall layout of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics more clearly developed from the trinity of socialist economic construction, political construction, and cultural construction to the four-in-one socialist economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, and social construction. This has further deepened the understanding of the strategic tasks and principles and policies of socialist modernization, and deepened the understanding of the development laws of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
In accordance with the four-in-one overall layout, to comprehensively promote the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, we must correctly understand and grasp that economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, and social construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics are an organic unity that are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Economic construction provides the material foundation for political construction, cultural construction, and social construction. Without economic development, other aspects of construction will lack material conditions. We must insist on tightly focusing on economic construction and not relax, deeply understand the strategic significance of accelerating economic development, and unswervingly promote the sound and rapid development of the national economy. Political construction provides political guarantee for economic construction, cultural construction, and social construction. Without political construction, it is impossible to fully mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of the people. There will be no development environment guaranteed by a sound legal system, and other constructions will not be able to proceed smoothly. We must adhere to the path of socialist political development with Chinese characteristics, adhere to the organic unity of the party's leadership, the people's ownership of the country, and the rule of law, adhere to and improve the system of the People's Congress, the multi-party cooperation and political consultation system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of grassroots mass autonomy, expand socialist democracy, build a socialist country under the rule of law, deepen the reform of the political system, and continuously promote the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system. Cultural construction provides ideological guarantee, spiritual motivation, cultural environment and intellectual support for economic construction, political construction and social construction. Without cultural construction, there will be no common ideals, beliefs and moral norms, and a high-spirited, pioneering and enterprising mainstream spirit will not be formed, and other constructions will not have indispensable spiritual support. We must consolidate the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field, insist on developing a national, scientific and popular advanced socialist culture that is oriented to modernization, the world and the future, adhere to being close to reality, life and the people, strive to build the socialist core value system, strive to consolidate and strengthen mainstream ideas and public opinions, strive to promote the reform and innovation of content, methods and means, systems and mechanisms, promote the great development and prosperity of socialist culture, rise a new upsurge in socialist cultural construction, and improve the country's cultural soft power. Social construction provides favorable social conditions for economic construction, political construction, and cultural construction. Without social construction, a good social environment that promotes other construction cannot be formed. We must accelerate social construction focusing on improving people's livelihood, promote social fairness and justice, improve social management, stimulate social creative vitality, and promote a more harmonious society. In accordance with the requirements of the overall layout, socialist economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and social construction must be grasped as unified tasks, deployed as unified work, and implemented as unified goals, vigorously develop the socialist market economy, vigorously develop socialist democratic politics, vigorously develop socialist advanced culture, vigorously build a socialist harmonious society, and comprehensively promote the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
3． Adhere to the civilized development path of development of production, prosperity of life and good ecology
Adhering to the civilized development path of production development, prosperous life, and good ecology is related to the vital interests of the broad masses of the people, to the realization of good and rapid development requirements, and to the survival and development of the Chinese nation. It is an important manifestation of adhering to the basic requirements of comprehensive coordination and sustainability, and is an inevitable choice for the implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development.
We must correctly understand that development of production, prosperity of life, and good ecology are closely linked and dialectically unified. Production development is the basic link in taking the path of civilized development. Without production and development, there will be no prerequisite for social progress, and it will be impossible to achieve a prosperous life. Living a prosperous life is an important manifestation of taking the path of civilized development. Only by continuously improving the material and spiritual living standards of the entire society, rationally distributing social wealth, and allowing all members of society to share the fruits of development can human civilization continue to progress. A good ecology is what it means to follow the path of civilized development. Only by following the laws of economics and nature, making rational use of natural resources, protecting and optimizing the ecological environment, adhering to sustainable development, and achieving harmonious coexistence between man and nature can human civilization achieve lasting and sustainable development.
Adhering to the path of civilized development means that in the process of economic and social development, we must organically integrate the promotion of production development, the realization of a prosperous life, and the maintenance of a good ecology. We must adhere to the development of production as the basis, the goal of prosperous life, and the good ecology as the condition, and strive to achieve a virtuous cycle of the socioeconomic system and the natural ecological system. We must comprehensively advance the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics in accordance with the basic requirements of comprehensive coordination and sustainability, so that social productive forces, especially advanced productive forces, continue to develop, the country's economic strength and comprehensive national strength continue to increase, people's quality of life and affluence continue to improve, their democratic rights and legal protections become more adequate, their spiritual life and spiritual pursuits become richer and nobler, society becomes more harmonious, stable and full of vitality, and people work and live in a good ecological environment.
Adhering to the path of civilized development is the right choice based on our country’s national conditions. my country has a large population and a small amount of resources per capita. The per capita water resources are only one-quarter of the world average. The per capita arable land is less than one-half of the world average. The per capita mineral resources are only one-half of the world average. Overall, resource shortage is a basic national condition of our country. Since the reform and opening up, my country's economic and social development has achieved world-renowned achievements. However, due to the traditional development model of economic growth over-reliance on resource consumption, the development of some areas has come at the expense of the environment, resulting in relatively serious environmental pollution and ecological damage. The environmental problems that have appeared in stages during the industrialization process in developed countries over hundreds of years have already appeared intensively in our country. Especially with the in-depth development of my country's industrialization, informatization, urbanization, marketization, and internationalization and the increasing population, the problem of insufficient resources such as energy, water, land, and minerals has become increasingly prominent. Adhering to the path of civilized development is an inevitable requirement to deal with resource and environmental issues and achieve sustainable development. It is a fundamental plan related to the survival and long-term development of the Chinese nation.
Constructing ecological civilization is an important strategic task first proposed by the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, marking the further deepening of our party’s understanding of adhering to the path of civilized development. Nature is the cradle of all living things, including humans, and is the basic condition for human survival and development. Building ecological civilization is the result of deep reflection on traditional civilization forms, especially industrial civilization. It is also the practical result of protecting and improving the ecological environment in the process of building material civilization. Building ecological civilization does not deny industrial civilization, but emphasizes that advanced industrial civilization must achieve harmony between man and nature, so that people can maintain and enjoy good ecological civilization achievements while enjoying the achievements of modern material civilization. We must fully understand the relationship between realizing industrialization and informatization and promoting the construction of ecological civilization, adhere to resource carrying capacity as the basis, natural laws as the criterion, and sustainable development as the goal, form an industrial structure, growth mode, and consumption model that saves energy resources and protects the ecological environment, and strive to build a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.
We must promote the construction of a resource-saving and environment-friendly society and organically integrate economic development, improvement of living standards and the realization of sustainable development. Correctly handle the relationship between economic construction, population growth, resource utilization, and ecological environment protection, resolutely prohibit the practice of plundering and destroying nature, resolutely abandon the practice of destroying first and then treating, or destroying while treating, implement the most stringent environmental protection measures, and leave sufficient development conditions and space for future generations. We should regard energy conservation and emission reduction as an important starting point to promote scientific development, develop environmental protection industries, increase investment in energy conservation and environmental protection, develop and promote advanced and applicable technologies for conservation, substitution, recycling and pollution control, develop clean energy and renewable energy, and build a scientific and reasonable energy resource utilization system. Efforts will be made to solve outstanding problems that affect economic and social development, especially those that seriously endanger people's health, focusing on the prevention and control of water pollution, the safety of urban and rural drinking water sources, urban air pollution control, soil pollution control, etc., improve the urban and rural living environment, and promote ecological restoration. Further improve laws and policies that are conducive to saving energy resources and protecting the ecological environment, and accelerate the formation of systems and mechanisms for sustainable development. Enhance the public's conscious awareness of protecting the ecological environment, and form a good trend of caring for and protecting the ecological environment in the whole society. Strengthen capacity building to address climate change and make new contributions to protecting the global climate.
