Hu Jintaos Discourse on Building a Harmonious Society - Coursework Example

Topic: Hu Jintao’s discourse on building a, “harmonious society” Name: Professor: Institution: Course: Date of Submission: Abstract: Hu Jintao was the president of the people’s republic of China. During his reign, he devised ways that aimed at building a society he termed as a, “socialist harmonious society”. Social harmony according to Hu did not really mean a state of lack of disagreement or misunderstanding. He defined a, “socialist harmonious society” as a “democratic and ruled by law, fair and just, trustworthy and fraternal, full of vitality, stable and orderly, and maintains harmony between man and nature.” In his definition, all the issues that hinder development for any nation are addressed for this reason, the rubric, building a “harmonious society” turned into building a harmonious world and it was later employed by all states that wished to attain economic, political, social, cultural and environmental stability (Bank of China International, 2008). In the plenum resolutions set by the CPC party, the issue that are to be addressed and dealt with in order to build a, “socialist harmonious society”. These issues include, enhancing equal allocation of resource in the entire state of China as opposed to the ancient development philosophy set by leaders such as Jieng. The rubric, building a, “socialist harmonious society” was president Hu’s personal intellect product but it was later referred to as the CPC party’s resolution aimed at facilitating national development. The building a, “socialist harmonious society” rubric has been discourse to the development in the whole world. This because, the main issues that affect regional and general global development are addressed by Hu in the rubric. Table of Content: 1.1 Introduction: 1.2 Ways applied by Hu’s government to develop a, “Harmonious Society”: 1.3 Plenum Resolution under Hu Jintao: 1.4 .a. Issues addressed in the Plenum Resolution: 1.5 The Hu Jintao and the “Socialist Harmonious Society”: 1.6 Hu’s International Vision for China: 1.7 Social Quality and Social Harmony: 1.8 The contemporary social and political Aspect in China that inspired a harmonious society: 1.9 Conclusion: 1.10 References: i. Introduction: According to President Hu of the people’s republic of China, a harmonious society refers to a society that is, “democratic and ruled by law, fair and just, trustworthy and fraternal, full of vitality, stable and orderly, and maintains harmony between man and nature.” When the Central Committee of the CCP met in 2005 to discuss on ways of building a socialist society that is harmonious, they declared that the values mentioned by president Hu were not only meant to aim at developing the society politically and economically but also to improve on the society’s environmental and cultural dimensions (Baum, 2005, p. 56). In the real life situation, harmony refers to state of peace, calmness, and togetherness but in Hu’s case, he arrived at designing the rubric referred to as, “harmonious society” which aims at classifying more than what a society in a harmony state is. To him, a harmonious society is one that has all the qualities and value he mentioned in the definition of what a harmonious society is. Therefore, harmony in his case, does not means a state of lack of conflicts but rather a society whose people does what it calls for to achieve political, economical, social, cultural and environmental stability. The main emphasis of achieving a harmonious society was centered on social order and stability which had to inevitably ignore and minimize conflicts and social disparities in the society. This paper is further going to examine and expound Hu’s information pertaining to the building of a, “socialist harmonious society”. The paper would look at the following aspects related to building a, “socialist harmonious society” based on Hu’s information; Ways applied by Hu’s government to develop a, “Harmonious Society”: Plenum Resolution under Hu Jintao under which the different issues pertaining to the resolution would be discussed, the Hu Jintao and the “Socialist Harmonious Society”, Hu’s International Vision for China, social Quality and Social Harmony, the contemporary social and political Aspect in China that inspired a harmonious society and a conclusion which would address important issues covered by this paper (Central Committee, CPC, 2003). ii. Ways applied by Hu’s government to develop a, “Harmonious Society”: Hu’s administration aimed at achieving a society that is well-off with a rapidly growing economy, gaps in regional development being small and tremendously widened social strata. It was first realized that the act of denying the rural peasants and the workers that were laid off was the source of the society’s political unrest and therefore in order to achieve a harmonious society, there was need to do away with it. Thus Hu’s administration decided to reduce the size of the social inequalities that was widening to the smallest size. This was to be done through iii. Plenum Resolution under Hu Jintao: The sixth plenum resolution was adopted under president Hu’s leadership. The resolution aimed at addressing the major issues that concerns the building of a socialist harmonious society. This resolution was part of Hu’s attempt to lay down the programmatic response to the emerging consequences in the Chinese society as a result of economic reforms that was set in place 25 years ago. The resolution of the plenum sketches priorities in a series of work that is to be embarked on in a series of time until 2020 with an aim of addressing issues that target to achieve a stable society and political order. iii. a. Issues addressed by the plenum resolution: i. Adequate provision of legal processes and social services in the remote areas under the rubric of, “building a new socialist countryside” and stem the incidents that are of disaffection and unrest to the rural areas. ii. Redressing regional development imbalance after only two decades which majorly emphasizes on fast economic growth in the coastal regions of China. This was to be done through directing accelerated revenue transfer of the central to the western and central provinces (European Commission, 2001). iii. Redressing the disparities in income and dislocation of labor which results from the dissolution of the industries that are owned by the state of China and agricultural collectivism (Bonta, 2001, 207). iv. Expanding education and newly focusing on ensuring that there is an easy access to the education in the regions of China that are less developed by enhancing central allocation of resources in the regions. v. Reconstruction of the public health and medical services by dissolution of the work units that are owned by the state for economic purpose. vi. Emphasizing on the impact that economic development would have on the environment rather than focusing on the economic growth. According to the Hu’s administration, the set resolution for the plenum was to achieve, “a socialist society that is democratic and law-based, fair and just, trustworthy and friendly, full of vigor and vitality, secure and orderly, and in which man and nature are in harmony”. The leaders developed an attention to the theme; “socialist harmonious society” first emerged in the year 2004 in the party congress by Jiang Zemin. The goal was later forwarded in the party’s authoritative statement in the Central Committee under the resolution that aimed at improving the CCP’s governing ability. iv. The Hu Jintao and the “Socialist Harmonious Society”: The plenum resolution concept of, “socialist harmonious society” is never credit in any place in China as a personal product of Hu Jintao’s designed for personal initiative. Instead the plenum resolution is regarded as, “the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the entire Party and the people of all nationalities of the entire country.” Hu is only depicted frequently by many as a person who played an important role in the formulation of the, “socialist harmonious society” concept but not the intellectual master who thought very hard to come up with or real author of the concept. Since 2002, when Hu was installed in the party as the party secretary and this based on the PRC media group has been emphasized his part as a collective leader who took the role of party leadership and played roles that were very unique. Most of the roles were in formulation of new party initiative policies and ideologies. The “socialist harmonious society” concept ended up complementing the policy and theoretical departures in the time of Hu. These theoretical and policies and roles include such tasks as formulating and building a socialist country that was new. v. Hu’s International Vision for China: China is a country that has strived very hard to achieve certain international that would enable it to feature out as a, “socialist harmonious society”. Below are the Hu’s international visions: a. “Building a harmonious society” was transformed into “building a harmonious world” as could be seen on the China’s front foreign policy. This was arrived at the time when the interest of the China’s leadership in peaceful development/rise had developed ideas that fizzled out after failing to make a mark of its own in international discourse. Therefore, in order for China to develop into a “socialist harmonious society”, there is need to target building a harmonious world (Ai, 2008, p. 143). b. According to Hu, many of the China’s circumstances would remain unchanged unless the country attains an international environment that is peaceful for it to attain domestic development. Hu declared that despite all that has passed people’s mouths pertaining to refocusing on social sustainability, the main requirement of the people’s republic of China is to further its economic wellbeing as this should be set as a national and political priority. Hu claims that this can only be possible if the nation would underpin the international environment onto its economic success in the near decades. c. The core of the so referred to as a, “socialist harmonious society” should in the real sense mean that it carries a deeper message to the whole world. Therefore, the harmonious society like China’s should have potential to invite the outside world to come together and take part in their development participation. China must first bring itself on the par along with the rest of the international states and take a greater responsibility in facilitating the international affairs. d. China having a greater urge to go out and since is mainly confined in both its cultural and economic spheres of the nation, it has strive hard in developing or improving the state for achievement of social harmony. China like its capital city, Beijing should strive all it can to work within its set limelight in order to feature in the international framework (CPC (Communist Party of China), 2007). This can be effectively achieved through gaining membership in international agencies such as UN and other initiatives of regional cooperation. vi. Social Quality and Social Harmony: According to Hu, social quality refers to the extent at which human beings have ability to take participation in economical and social life of the communities that belongs to them under environmental conditions that enhance their individual potential and well being. It has been seemingly clear that European has been as a reference point since the quality of the Chinese social relations that have been promoting personal development and participation in order to achieve a life that is typically above the standards that require basic needs. This is because the original definition for social quality was; a standard of measure by which the daily lives of the citizens of any given country attains a European level that is acceptable. Due to the lack of the theoretical coherency that is strong, the concept of life quality of citizens of any country is not by any chance used as a measure of standard quality. The assessment of social quality is a measure of the impact that the society and its institution has on its people. Therefore, in order to achieve social balance, there is need for every individual to incorporate their structural and personal level of productive factors in order to maintain balance between collectivism and responsibility at the individual level. The theoretical coherence is underpinned by conceptualization the society’s social being which in the real sense means, “Configuration of the interacting people as social being” (Gordon, 2005). The, “democracy and rule of law” working together with “fairness and justice” are not what is referred to as Confucian in any ideological or cultural sense. This is because; according to the Confucian ideas pertaining to social harmony is all about self-realization moral character of each individual at their personal level and the observation of the principles, rules and propriety. Underneath the, “democracy and rule of law” element, the idea of equality at each individual level is applied. Evidently it has been confirmed by research and tests that any subject in the hierarchy and with social order is not regarded as having social value that is equal to the ruler. In social order, any conflict is managed by allowing the subjects to develop a stronger believe in carrying out their proper role according to rules, propriety and principles of the state. vii. The contemporary social and political Aspect in China that inspired a harmonious society: There were some China’s consequences that were troublesome to the extent of threatening the society through attempts to achieve China’s modernization and general development. This is because the growth policies that were put in place by the earlier leaders such as Deng and Jiang greatly favored coastal regions such as Pearl River Delta region and Yangtze. Their standing philosophy was to spur growth in the society by first, “allowing some to get rich first”. They did this with an assumption that once the other people have gotten rich, the prosperity would eventually move through expansion to the other society levels. The practices in China that were based on the above policies facilitated soaring growth and improvement in the living standard in the urban coast of China while on the other hand, the hinterland and rural areas have been set on comparison. The sector of China has been under dissolution since regional disparities and the gap between the growing wealth grew faster and wider with time. At last, the dissolution of the social security and state sector had been once guaranteed million of the citizens of China. The governing apparatus in the Chinese society became resentful to the endemic corruption which further exasperated the highly anxious population of China at the time. The farmers in rural areas were highly resented by corruption since they were eventually subjected to bureaucratic malfeasance and harassment from local leaders who were rich (Ai, 2008, p. 143). China was undergoing public growth resentment which eventually paired with the demise of the ideological appeal of the party thus leading to the reforms of China’s market. This situation has forced the leadership of the CPC to grapple with a legitimacy crisis that was genuine. The Hu Jintao’s formulated rubric of the, “socialists harmonious society” was formed to address the above issues and build a society that is economically, politically, culturally, and environmentally stable. viii. Conclusion: Hu was the president of the people’s republic of China. As a president, he took a lot of his time and developed a society development rubric called, building a “socialist harmonious society”. According to Hu, a harmonious society refers to a society that is, “democratic and ruled by law, fair and just, trustworthy and fraternal, full of vitality, stable and orderly, and maintains harmony between man and nature.” When the Central Committee of the CCP met in 2005 to discuss on ways of building a socialist society that is harmonious, they declared that the values mentioned by president Hu were not only meant to aim at developing the society politically and economically but also to improve on the society’s environmental and cultural dimensions. The building a, “socialist harmonious society” rubric has been discourse to the development in the whole world (Abdellatif, 2003, p. 374). This because, the main issues that affect regional and general global development are addressed by Hu in the rubric. Therefore, it is recommended that all nations and international agencies should come together and apply Hu’s development rubric for it gives guidance and direction towards achieving a society that is economically, politically, culturally and environmentally stable. References: Abdellatif, A. Mark. Good Governance and Its Relationship to Democracy and Economic Development. May 20-21, 2003: Global Forum III on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity. Seoul: Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea. Ai, G. Hellen. “Building a Harmonious Society and Achieving Individual Harmony.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 13(2): 2008, pp. 143-164. Bank of China International. “Strategic Restructuring, the Road of Stable and Added Value.” www.bociresearcch.com (In Chinese). (Accessed Oct. 1, 2008). Baum, Russell. “Statement of Richard Baum, Director, University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Chinese Studies” In U.S. Congress. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China’s State Control Mechanisms and Methods. 109th Cong., 1st sess., April 14, 2005. pp. 56-65. http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/ 2005hearings/transcripts/05_04_14.pdf. (Accessed Dec. 20, 2005). Bonta, B. Dimbrose. “Conflict Resolution among Peaceful Societies — the Culture of Peacefulness.” In P.K. Chew, ed., The Conflict and Culture Reader. New York: New York University Press. 2001, pp. 207-219. Central Committee, CPC. Communiqué of the Third Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee. October, 14, 2003. (In Chinese). http://www.people.com.cn/ GB/shizheng/1024/2133923.html. (Accessed Aug. 23, 2006) 2003, pp 475 CPC (Communist Party of China). Constitution of Communist Party of China. www.xinhuanet.com. (Accessed Oct. 17, 2008), 2007. Pp. 567 European Commission. White Paper on European Governance. European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/governance/white_paper/index_en.htm. (Accessed Oct. 8, 2008). Gordon, D. “Editorial Indicators of Social Quality.” European Journal of Social Quality 5(1/2): 2007, pp. 1-7. Read More