Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

A rare painting with unique subject matter among extant Tangut cultural heritage, the so-called astral maṇḍala (more accurately, Grahamātṛkā-maṇḍala) from Khara-khoto deserves focused academic attention. Now in the collection of Hermitage, this painting broadens the horizons of research from multiple perspectives, including the history of astrology, Tangut culture, Esoteric Buddhism, and ritual studies. Introduced into Tangut Buddhism likely via Tibet, the Grahamātṛka-maṇḍala contributed to the construction of both a new iconographical system and a new pantheon of astral deities. The painting provides important visual details that gradually reveal a complete series of liturgies based on the Tangut astral cult, from the maṇḍala construction to fire ritual with offerings and visualization. Therefore, it helps to demonstrate astrological knowledge and religious practices prevalent in the Tangut period but previously overlooked by modern researchers. The Tangut people learned with an encompassing mind and became skilled at new teachings, methods, and practices through transcultural communications with India and Tibet. They actively combined this learning with the existing Chinese astrological and religious traditions in the Héxī region.

In 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the innovation-driven development strategy, stating that innovation is the primary driving force for development

In recent years, employment and the operation of the labor market are generally stable. Although the labor market showed short-term fluctuations under the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, in the medium and long term, the basic conditions for the stable development of the labor market still exist.

Although the income distribution situation is generally improving, in the medium and long term, there are still many challenges to continuously improve the income distribution.

In recent years, China has made great achievements in opening to the outside world. The layout of foreign trade, investment and region has been continuously optimized; important progress has been made in the new system of opening up to the outside world, and the ranking of business environment has jumped sharply. The construction of the “Belt and Road” Initiative has been deeply promoted, and the “Belt and Road” Initiative and its core concepts have been incorporated into the outcome documents of important international mechanisms such as the United Nations, APEC and the SCO, and its international acceptance has been continuously improved. The Initiative has played a constructive role in global governance and actively assumed international responsibilities and obligations.

In China’s “Five in One” overall layout and “Four Comprehensive” strategic layout during the “13thFive-Year Plan” period, the construction of ecological civilization is an important content.

The next 15 years will be a crucial period for China to move from building a moderately prosperous society in all respects to basically realizing socialist modernization. It is also a historical intersection period of the “Two Centenary Goals”, and an important opportunity period for China to comprehensively embark on a new journey to build a great modern socialist country.

The year of 2020 is the last year of China's “13th Five-Year Plan” period, in which we will achieve the strategic goals of basically realizing industrialization and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. For a long period of time in the future, China's industry will face opportunities such as upgrading domestic demand, expanding markets in developing countries, and the rise of a new industrial revolution.

Since the current international financial crisis, the international community has paid more attention to resilience.

Our country will thrive only if our culture thrives, and our nation will be strong only if our culture is strong. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that: “Without a rich and prosperous culture, the Chinese nation will not be able to rejuvenate itself.”

The rural vitalization and anti-poverty strategy is an important part of China’s strategies for mid-to-long-term economic and social development. The 14th Five-Year Plan period is the launching period of rural vitalization strategy, and the transitional period of anti-poverty strategy. With the realization of the goals of the fight against poverty, China’s anti-poverty policy will change from hypernormal poverty alleviation to conventional poverty governance, and the focus of the national work related to “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” will also shift from poverty alleviation to the full implementation of the rural vitalization strategy.

In recent years, China has further strengthened efforts in improving the social security system, and achieved remarkable results in eliminating absolute poverty, promoting fairer income distribution and other aspects. The overall planning goals have been basically realized, and some projects have been completed ahead of schedule.

The Decision of CPC Central Committee on Some Major Issues Concerning How to Uphold and Improve the System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Advance the Modernization of China’s System and Capacity for Governance adopted at the 4th Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly proposes that we will uphold and improve the livelihood system for protecting both urban and rural residents and work to meet people’s ever-increasing needs for a better life.

China’s five-year plan for national economic and social development is essential to state government’s macroeconomic and social management. As a long-term plan for China’s national economic and social development, each five-year plan articulates the goals and directions for long-term economic and social development, and delineates major national construction projects, allocation of productive forces as well as key proportional relations of the national economy and social undertakings. In the light of the five-year plan, the central government is able to mobilize and allocate all resources of the whole society to promote economic and social development.

In the next 15 years, China’s economy will increase significantly in scale, but also and change significantly in structure. The decreasing total fertility rate and the aging trend of the population will have a direct negative impact on the supply-side production factors, and will eventually lead to a slowdown in the potential growth rate. Considering the domestic and international environment at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan and in accordance with the goal of embarking on a new journey of basically realizing socialist modernization, the objectives of China’s economic and social development for some time in the future should cover: promoting innovation-driven development, upgrading industries, enhancing domestic market, opening wider to the outside world, heightening living standards, making remarkable progress in green development, and perfecting the state governance system.

Creating a new dynamic for urbanization and coordinated regional development is one of the important goals and tasks of China’s medium and long-term development strategy.

China's service sector is in a critical period of transformation, upgrading and improvement in all respects. Over 40 years’ development and accumulation of reform and opening-up, we have been equipped with the economic foundation, technical conditions and institutional environment to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of our service sector towards a service-based economy, and make possible the transformation and upgrading of our service sector and high-quality development.

The year 2020 is the target year set by China to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and it is also the concluding year for the 13th Five-year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development.

The practice of more than 40 years of reform and opening-up shows that unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy, unswervingly encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public sector of the economy, and adhering to and perfecting the socialist basic economic system of “public sector as the main body and multiple ownership economies developing together” are an important experience for China to create a miracle of economic growth.