China’s development has entered a new era in which China faces multiple, complex challenges both at home and abroad. So the principal contradiction Chinese society now facing has evolved. At the 19th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping stated that the new principal contradiction is “the contradiction between imbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life”.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn raised this question with Wu Changqi, professor at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University: “As an economist, when you first heard about the new principal contradiction in Chinese society at the 19th CPC National Congress, what was your first reaction?”

 “I think this is based on the sound judgement about current stage of the development of China because indeed the situation now is very much different from when China started economic reform, that is almost 40 years ago. At that time, we had a shortage economy with scarcity and poverty. That was throughout China. But currently, as we see, after record-breaking economic gains in the past almost 40 years, China has reached a certain level of prosperity. That’s why the shortage issue has been solved; rather we have an abundant supply of the necessities, the food and clothing, and the housing. Those problems have been solved essentially. Most essential needs for society have been met by the efforts, by the political senses in the past 40 years. But you know that’s why people’s expectations continue to rise. It is rising expectation for better life and must be met with increasingly sophisticated goods and services. This is what we called goals of the new era.”