I. Implementation of the 2020 Plan for National Economic and Social Development

 

Last year was an extraordinary year in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Faced with a grave and complex international situation, the challenging tasks of advancing reform and development and ensuring stability at home, and the severe impact of the Covid-19 epidemic in particular, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, while keeping overall national interests in mind, maintained a strategic focus, judged situations accurately, formulated meticulous plans, took decisive action, made arduous efforts, and promptly adopted the major policy of coordinating epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development.

Under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, all regions and departments fully implemented the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress and the second, third, fourth, and fifth plenary sessions of the 19th CPC Central Committee. In accordance with the decisions and plans of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, we faithfully implemented the Report on the Work of the Government and the 2020 Plan for National Economic and Social Development approved at the Third Session of the 13th NPC, and adopted the NPC Financial and Economic Affairs Committee’s suggestions based on its review of the 2020 plan.

We responded to risks and challenges with composure, and continued to pursue high-quality development. We coordinated the Covid-19 response with economic and social development, and took solid steps to ensure stability on six key fronts and maintain security in six key areas.[1]

China’s economy saw a quarter-on-quarter improvement and gradually returned to normality, constituting the sole major economy to have realized positive growth. We achieved a complete victory in the battle against poverty, and scored decisive achievements in securing a full victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, delivering a globally-acclaimed performance that satisfied the needs of the people and that will be recorded in the annals of history.

1. We put the health and safety of our people before all else and saw major strategic achievements in the fight against Covid-19.

Faced with the sudden and severe challenges posed by Covid-19, General Secretary Xi Jinping personally took charge, planned our response, and unified the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in rapidly launching an all-out people’s war to contain the virus. In just over a month’s time, we had largely contained the spread of the virus in China. In roughly two months, we had reduced the daily number of new local cases to single digits. And in approximately three months, we had secured a decisive victory in the battle to defend Hubei Province and its capital city Wuhan. After this, we effectively dealt with a number of local outbreaks and sporadic cases.

1) No effort was spared to control the epidemic and treat patients.

We coordinated the efforts of the whole country in accordance with the general requirement to stay confident, stand united, and adopt both a science-based approach and targeted measures. A central leading group for coordinating the epidemic response was established and a central guidance team was dispatched to Hubei. Full play was given to the functions of the State Council interdepartmental task force. The entire country was mobilized in the fight to protect Hubei and Wuhan and to curb local transmission of the virus. We gave clear guidelines for the early detection, reporting, isolation, and treatment of cases, and mandated that patients be treated in designated facilities where the best doctors and medical resources were concentrated. We ensured that all treatment-related costs were borne by the state, and worked to raise hospital admission and recovery rates and to bring down infection and mortality rates.

We carried out an interdepartmental and society-wide epidemic prevention and control effort. One after another, provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government activated level-one responses to this major public health emergency. Officials were dispatched to communities to ensure effective local epidemic control, and social organizations of all kinds, specialized social workers, and volunteers received the guidance required to provide epidemic control and social services in accordance with the law and in an orderly manner.

We took firm steps to guarantee medical supplies and to stabilize the supply and prices of daily necessities. We quickly ramped up the production of face masks and other medical protective materials and medical equipment, and added more hospital beds, thereby ensuring that epidemic control needs were essentially met. We did everything possible to ensure the well-coordinated allocation of labor in key production areas to guarantee stability in the supply and prices of grain, cooking oil, and other foods such as meat, eggs, vegetables, and milk. Various measures were taken to maintain the security and stability of energy supplies, and to ensure safe medical waste and wastewater disposal.

We coordinated scientific research with clinical treatment and prevention and control work, speedily developed nucleic acid testing kits, accelerated both the selection of effective medicines and vaccine development, and began vaccination using domestically produced vaccines. In so doing, we fully leveraged the role of science and technology in our efforts to contain the epidemic.

In response to the rapid spread of the epidemic around the world, and while still guarding against the risk of inbound cases, the Chinese government provided care and support for overseas Chinese nationals and arranged temporary flights to support the orderly transit of Chinese citizens facing difficulties abroad back to China.

 

2) There was no let-up in routine epidemic control efforts.

As the situation evolved, we shifted the focus of our national response to guarding against inbound cases and domestic resurgence, and changed from an emergency response mode to one of routine epidemic control. We developed routine mechanisms for rapidly detecting and handling cases, for taking targeted measures to suppress resurgence, and for providing effective treatment. Substantial utilization of modern information technologies and the widespread introduction of health code verification allowed for continuous improvement in the precision of routine control work, thus helping to maintain regular production and daily household activities.

Faced with a domestic resurgence characterized by sporadic local outbreaks, we continued to apply differentiated response measures tailored to different localities. Targeted adjustments were made to the risk levels of different regions, while epidemiological investigations and the use of big data for tracing infections were launched as rapidly as possible. We focused on discovering and strengthening weak links, continuously improved our nucleic acid testing capacity, and strengthened prevention and control in key areas such as cold-chain logistics.