The Press Center for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday to brief the media on the building of rule of law in China.

With the topic "Under the Guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, Strive to Build Higher-Standard Rule of Law in China," CPC officials told reporters about China's recent achievements in building the rule of law.

The following are what they said during the press conference.

Yin Bai: Deputy secretary-general of the Commission of Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee

In a report delivered by Xi Jinping at the opening session of the 20th CPC National Congress, the term "rule of law" was mentioned 23 times, fully demonstrating the great importance the Party has attaches to the field.

Significant progress has been made in the reform of the judicial system, with 85 percent of personnel in judicial authorities working cases directly, the number of cases handled per capita rising by 20 percent and the clearance rate increasing by 18 percent.

He Rong: Vice president of the Supreme People's Court

In the past decade, People's Courts at all levels have been protecting intellectual property rights strictly in accordance with the law, and facilitating innovation-driven development and building China's strength in science and technology.

The strength and scope of judicial protection has been consistently improving. So far, intellectual property cases that can go to trial have covered the protection of rights such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, layout designs of integrated circuits, new plant varieties and geographical indications as well as unfair competition and monopolistic behavior.

Since 2013, over 2.7 million first-instance intellectual property cases have been concluded, with an average annual increase of 24.5 percent.

Tong Jianming: Grand prosecutor and first deputy prosecutor general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate

Since 2013, procuratorial organs have appealed against 119,000 erroneous criminal, civil and administrative rulings.

Through the strengthening of legal supervision over investigations, trials and executions of sentences, procuratorial organs strive to make the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case.

Over the past four decades, with violent offenses dropping significantly and crimes such as dangerous driving and telecom fraud on the rise, procuratorial organs have adapted to the new reality and combined strictness with leniency depending on the seriousness of the crimes.

The pretrial detention rate in criminal cases dropped from 69.7 percent in 2012 to 28.3 percent in the first nine months of 2022.

Xu Ganlu: Vice minister of Public Security and commissioner of National Immigration Administration

China is one of the countries with the lowest homicide rate, the lowest criminal rate and the lowest number of cases involving guns and explosives. The ratio of murder cases per 10,000 people is 0.5.

In the past 10 years, five major indexes including criminal cases and safety accidents have fallen sharply.

In 2021, the eight major crimes including homicide and rape dropped by 64.4 percent compared to 2012, while drug cases, robberies, thefts and traffic accidents causing three or more deaths decreased by 56.8 percent, 96.1 percent, 62.6 percent and 59.3 percent, respectively.

People's sense of security reached 98.6 percent in 2021, an 11 percentage point rise from 2012. China has become one of the safest countries in the world.

In the past decade, 3,799 police officers died in the line of duty and over 50,000 were injured.

Zuo Li: Vice minister of Justice

The supervision of the administrative reconsideration system has been strengthened. In the past 10 years, over 1.9 million cases were reconsidered, with the average rate of error correction reaching 13.6 percent.

A nationwide network of public legal services has been built to cover both urban and rural areas. It comprises of over 570,000 entities, and more than 600,000 villages or communities are installed with legal consultants.

(Cover: Officials answer questions from reporters at the Press Center for the 20th National Congress of the CPC, October 19, 2022. /CFP)