Editor's note: Cao Li is a professor and deputy director of the Economics Department of the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The National Development and Reform Commission of China last week held a press conference to discuss the progress in high-quality development and the common prosperity demonstration zone in east China's Zhejiang Province.

Common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism, an important feature of Chinese-style modernization, a common expectation of people, and a relentless pursuit of the Chinese Communists. Since the 18th Party Congress in 2012, the Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has adhered to the people-centered development ideology and placed greater importance on the gradual realization of common prosperity for all people.

In 2021, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, pointed out at the 10th meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Commission that common prosperity is the prosperity of all people, the prosperity of both the material and spiritual lives of the people, not the prosperity of the few or egalitarianism, and common prosperity should be promoted in stages.

Achieving common prosperity is not only an economic issue. Thinking about common prosperity cannot be limited to economic income, but should take into account the people's sense of access, happiness and security. It is also necessary to achieve spiritual wealth, ecological and environmental friendliness.

At this stage, improving the balance, coordination and inclusiveness of development is an inherent requirement for achieving common prosperity. These three are dialectically related: inclusive development means emphasizing that all members of society, including the disadvantaged, are fair, comprehensive and shared in terms of development opportunities, development content and development outcomes; and inclusive development is achieved by improving the balance and coordination of development. This means that promoting common prosperity in high-quality development means addressing the imbalance and incoherence of development, making up for the shortcomings, improving the capacity of the disadvantaged groups and enhancing the inclusiveness of the development of society as a whole.

The promotion of common prosperity depends on the common efforts of the entire population. It is necessary to cut and divide the "cake" on the basis of the common efforts of all people to make the "cake" bigger and better. Only when everyone participates and does his or her best can everyone truly enjoy it. The spirit of hard work and prosperity should be vigorously promoted throughout the society, and all workers should be encouraged to lead a happy and prosperous life through honest work, lawful business and innovation.

To promote common prosperity, we must do our best and act within our means. On the one hand, we should insist on safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods in the course of development, and do a good job of practical matters for people's livelihoods with care and affection, so as to enhance the sense of access, happiness, security and identity of all people with practical measures; on the other hand, we should be sober enough to see that the level of development in China is still far from that of developed countries.

The promotion of common prosperity cannot be achieved overnight, but must be carried out in stages gradually. It is important to correctly understand and grasp the strategic goals and practical ways to achieve common prosperity, which is a long-term historical process.

In June 2021, China's central authorities issued a guideline on building Zhejiang Province into a demonstration zone for achieving common prosperity. Zhejiang is expected to continuously achieve new results and be a good role model and driver for the whole country. The eastern province has initially built a target system, work system, policy system and evaluation system for the construction of the common prosperity demonstration zone, and it is meaningful to pave the way for the whole country to promote common prosperity by exploring first.

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