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Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Tuesday sent an urgent message asking ministries and authorities of central provinces to make all-out efforts to deal with the aftermath of the tropical storm Ketsana, local newspaper the People reported Wednesday.

Dung asked ministries and localities to take urgent measures tofind the missing people due to floods caused by Ketsana, treat the injured, and evacuate residents from the flooded areas to safer places.

Ministries and localities were also urged to ensure a sufficient food supply to residents in the affected areas, said the newspaper.

The tropical storm Ketsana left 26 dead, 12 injured, and five others missing in central provinces of Vietnam, according to the initial estimates cited by the Vietnam News Agency.

Over 531 houses were demolished, more than 12,300 others unroofed and 75,000 flooded, according to a report of the local newspaper the Labor on Wednesday.

In response to the Prime Minister’s message, provincial authorities are cooperating with the joint forces of military, police, coast guard, and health personnel to rescue trapped victims. Urgent evacuation has also been made to those who lost shelters in the storm.

In the central province of Quang Ngai, helicopters were used to rescue 60 residents stranded in the floods.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development decided to give each of the storm-hit provinces 200 kilograms of chemicals totreat water. Affected central provinces are expected to be given financial support.

Following at wo-day summit in Pittsburgh, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, leaders from the Group of 20 (G20) countries on Friday tried to lay groundwork for a sustainable, balanced global economic growth with a joint statement about their coordinated economic policy positions.

　　EXIT STRATEGY

As people around the world are anxiously awaiting a coordinatedG20 exit strategy, G20 leaders ruled out any short-term strategies, saying that they agreed to maintain the current stimulus measures to support economic activity until recovery is fully assured.

The growth of the global economy and the success of coordinated effort to respond to the recent crisis have increased the case for more sustained and systematic international cooperation, said the Leaders’ Statement issued after the summit’s conclusion on Friday afternoon.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that world economic growth will resume this year after the most severe global financial crisis in decades.

Most of the world’s advanced and emerging market economies have adopted stimulus measures to counter the impact of the sweeping financial and economic crisis, according to an analysis by the IMF, which estimates the collective impact on growth to be around a quarter to a half of one point.

“In the short-run, we must continue to implement our stimulus programs to support economic activity until recovery clearly has taken hold,” said the Leaders’ Statement.

Leaders from the G20 countries, which represent 85 percent of the world economy, also agreed to develop a transparent and credible process for withdrawing their extraordinary fiscal, monetary and financial sector support when time is ripe for an exit strategy.

“We task our Finance Ministers, working with input from the IMF and FSB (Financial Stability Board), at their November meeting to continue developing cooperative and coordinated exit strategies recognizing that the scale, timing and sequencing of this process will vary across countries or regions and across the type of policy measures,” said the statement.

“Credible exit strategies should be designed and communicated clearly to anchor expectations and reinforce confidence,” it added.

　　FRAMEWORK FOR GROWTH

The G20 leaders have committed to additional steps to ensure strong, sustainable, and balanced growth, to build a stronger international financial system, to reduce development imbalances, and to modernize architecture for international economic cooperation.

To achieve this goal, the G20 countries will implement responsible fiscal policies, attentive to short-term flexibility considerations and longer-run sustainability requirements.

Meanwhile, all G20 members agreed to address the respective weaknesses of their economies, and bear primary responsibility forthe sound management of the economy.

The G20 members will also set out their medium-term policy frameworks and will work together to assess the collective implications of their national policy frameworks for the level and pattern of global growth, and to identify potential risks to financial stability.

The leaders called on finance ministers and central bank governors to launch the new framework by November by initiating a cooperative process of mutual assessment of policy frameworks and the implications of those frameworks for the pattern and sustainability of global growth.

“We believe that regular consultations, strengthened cooperation on macroeconomic policies, the exchange of experiences on structural policies, and ongoing assessment will promote the adoption of sound policies and secure a healthy global economy,” said the leaders in their joint statement.

G20 leaders vow to strengthen int’l financial regulatory system

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — The Group of 20 (G20) leaders agreed Friday here to strengthen international financial regulatory system to avoid future crisis.

In the Leaders’ Statement released after the summit, the G20 leaders reaffirmed that one of the major roots of the current financial crisis lies in the lack of regulation. Full story

G20 efforts help save world economy from brink of collapse: Obama

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama said here on Friday that the economic recovery efforts taken by the Group of 20 members have saved world economy from the brink of collapse. Full story

G20 vows to promote sustainable employment recovery

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — The Group of 20 (G20) countries agreed on Friday to implement aggressive plans to promote a sustainable recovery of employment, vowing to carry out structural reforms on labor markets.

“As growth returns, every country must act to ensure that employment recovers quickly. We commit to implementing recovery plans that support decent work, help preserve employment, and prioritize job growth,” said a Leaders’ Statement issued after a two-day summit meeting of the world’s major economies in Pittsburgh, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Full story

G20 agrees to strengthen support for emerging and developing countries

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — The Group of 20 (G20) countries agreed here on Friday to strengthen their support for emerging and developing countries, reaffirming their commitments to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The G20 countries share a collective responsibility to “mitigate the social impact of the crisis and to assure that all parts of the globe participate in the recovery,” said a Leaders’ Statement issued after a two-day summit meeting of the world’s major economies in Pittsburgh, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Full story

G20 agrees to shift more IMF voting power to developing countries

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — The Group of 20 (G20) countries agreed here on Friday to increase developing countries’ voting power at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by at least five percent. Full story

G20 leaders agree to continue stimulus programs

PITTSBURGH, the United States, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — Leaders from the Group 20 (G20) countries agreed here on Friday to maintain their measures to support economic activity until recovery is fully assured.

The growth of the global economy and the success of various countries’ coordinated effort to respond to the recent crisis have increased the case for more sustained and systematic international cooperation, said a Leaders’ Statement issued after the conclusion of the two-day third G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Local governments should lay stress on economy restructuring and innovation to guarantee the long-term stable and relatively fast economic growth, said Li Keqiang, Chinese Vice Premier.

Li made the remarks in his recent inspection and research trip to central China’s Jiangxi Province from Sept. 24 to 26.

“The world economy is undergoing profound changes and transition. We should base ourselves on the current realities and be more forward-looking and broad-minded,” He said.

Li added that China should push forward the deepening of reforms and strategic economy restructuring while maintaining the relatively fast economic growth.

China’s economy expanded by 7.9 percent from a year ago in the second quarter this year, faster than the 6.1 percent in the first quarter, which was the worst quarterly growth in a decade, dampened by a slump in exports.

Li urged provinces in the central region to give a full play to their growth potential and advantages, take on the development opportunities of strategic importance, improve the quality of economic growth and achieve remarkable economic progress through reforms, innovation and industrial upgrading.

Central China provinces should endeavor to achieve remarkable economic advancement by 2015, according to a plan passed Wednesday by the State Council, the Cabinet.

The central areas include Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces.

The efforts of a young migrant worker from Fujian Province to become a cook in Beijing ended up creating a spectacle that involved reporters, disease control authorities and the police.

Mr Liao, who declined to give his full name, has the hepatitis B virus. He was applying for a health certificate at the Beijing Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention when reporters followed him on September 10. The certificate is required for all food catering workers.

There was hope for him to get it as a college student in Hangzhou became the first hepatitis B virus carrier in China to be issued the certificate on September 1. The new Law of Food Safety, which came into force on June 1, allowed hepatitis B virus carriers to enter catering.

But when reporters photographed his application process, the Beijing Centers staff became upset and finally called the police. Liao’s application was put off.

“Beijing is Beijing. You cannot compare it to other cities,” Liao quoted the Beijing Centers staff as saying. He was told this after asking why hepatitis B carriers could obtain the certificate in Hangzhou but not Beijing, he said.

Liao was not frustrated. He plans to visit the Centers again after a few weeks. “I have hundreds of thousands of people standing behind me,” he said.

He is a core member of an online community for hepatitis B carriers. The website hbvhbv. com has accrued 370,000 members since it was launched in November 2007. Community members encouraged Liao to apply and showed him favorable laws and regulations. One of them accompanied him to the Beijing Centers.

A non-governmental organization (NGO) provided him with legal support. Beijing Yirenping Center counsels more than 100 people who come from around China every month and helps about 10 percent of them go to the court.

It was built with donations from hepatitis B carriers and foundations in December 2006.

Like Liao, hepatitis B virus carriers are no longer fighting alone for their rights. Many know each other on the Internet. They have clubs in a dozen major cities and have set up several non-governmental organizations in defense of their rights.

They believe that they have been discriminated against in the process of finding a school or looking for jobs. In spite of government regulations in their support, some of the best universities and institutions have closed their doors to hepatitis B virus carriers, and many Chinese and multinational companies prefer non-carrier candidates.

Hepatitis B carriers might be the largest marginalized group in China. China had 100 million chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus, according to a World Health Organization 2002 report, with the United States having 1 million and the world an estimated 350 million. China’s Ministry of Health said in 2006 that the country had 93 million hepatitis B virus carriers.

Stepping into the light

In spite of their large numbers, it is only in recent years that these marginalized people have made their voice heard. Before, they were either silent or neglected.

“Even now many hepatitis B virus carriers prefer to remain silent. They are afraid that they will lose their jobs and have difficulty in finding other jobs when people know that they carry the virus,” said Yu Fangqiang, who is in charge of legal aid projects at the non-governmental Yirenping Center.

Zhang Xianzhu, a 23-year-old college graduate, became the first Chinese to launch a lawsuit on hepatitis B virus discrimination when he took the local government of Wuhu, Anhui Province to court in November 2003. He won the case, but “became so famous that he could not find or maintain a job,” Yu said.

“He is still shifting from one job to another in southern China. He has to leave as soon as people know that he is the one who sued for hepatitis B virus discrimination.”

A greater hero for many hepatitis B virus carriers is an executed murderer. Zhou Yichao, a graduate of Zhejiang University, stabbed to death a government official in the prefecture-level city of Jiaxing, northern Zhejiang Province, in March 2004. A month earlier, he had been denied the chance of working at the local government because he carried the virus.

“The greater majority of hepatitis B carriers whom I know have respect and even gratitude for him. They organize events to remember him on the annual tomb sweeping day. They visit his mother regularly,” Yu said.

“If not for him, discrimination against hepatitis B carriers would have been taken for granted as before. We think that he was going to extremes. But we understand how he felt.”

Months after Zhou’s case, the central government issued a regulation in January 2005 stipulating that hepatitis B carriers can become public servants.

Hepatitis B carriers are allowed to work in jobs other than those prohibited by the Ministry of Health – such as at hospitals and laboratories – according to another regulation published in May 2007. The regulation also said that the privacy of hepatitis B virus carriers should be protected.

They can launch lawsuits if a potential employer discriminates against them, according to the Employment Promotion Law, which came into force on January 1, 2008.

Although they have the protection of laws and regulations, hepatitis B virus carriers still have the feeling that the virus harms their career.

“Many excellent people cannot get into good companies because they carry the virus. They can only stay at small companies and small places,” said Dong, a hepatitis B carrier who accompanied Liao to the Beijing Centers.

Dong, who would not give his full name, said he could not join a major aviation company when he graduated from college in 2007. He is pursuing a master’s degree at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and will finish his graduate studies next year.

“My only good choice was to be a public servant because the government has excluded the hepatitis B virus from pre-employment physical checkups. The companies that may use my skills almost all require information about the virus,” he said.

Legal battles

To get around the requirement about hepatitis B virus information, many carriers resort to cheating in the physical checkup, said Yu at the Yirenping Center. In a typical case, a carrier will pay a healthy person about 2,000 yuan, and have the latter’s blood drawn under his name.

Others seek out the law. “Hepatitis B carriers know that the law is on their side, thanks to the publicity of previous cases,” Yu said. Of those who turned to his organization for help, more than 100 went to court every year.

Multinational companies are more cooperative facing accusations of discrimination, according to Yu. “After all, they don’t have this discrimination in their home country,” he said.

More than 80 percent of the 96 multinational companies that his center surveyed in 2008 requested the hepatitis B virus information of potential employees, Yu said.

Of the approximate 100 hepatitis B virus carriers who went to court with the NGO’s help, more than half reached an agreement with their employers or potential employers in the process of the lawsuit.

“Large companies don’t like the publicity that comes with a discrimination case,” Yu said.

About 90 percent of court decisions favor hepatitis B carriers when Yirenping is involved. However, compensation is nominal: about 4,000 yuan in Beijing and half that in smaller cities.

“It’s not enough to have the law,” Yu said. “We need to tell people that the virus is not as terrifying as they imagine. Otherwise discrimination will always be there.”

Street hugs

To explain the virus, hepatitis B carriers in a dozen cities have organized regular lectures. Dong said that he and his friends in the online community invited doctors and medical professors to give public lectures at least once a month at Beijing universities.

“Those who come to listen are often relatives and friends of hepatitis B carriers,” he said.

Some hepatitis B carriers have taken more radical action to share their problems. Lei Chuang, a student of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, held a banner and walked along the city’s major streets for three hours on a Sunday in August 2007.

His banner said: “The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through sex, blood and during the delivery of babies. It does not transmit through food or water, or at workplaces. I am a hepatitis B virus carrier. Are you worried?”

He wanted to attract local media attention, and had one of his classmates call newspapers and television stations. But no reporters came until the end of his walk.

Even his classmate who accompanied him in the walk quitted halfway as he could not bear the way passers-by stared at them.

In the next two years, he walked another 10 times in Hangzhou and also Beijing. This August he and his friends dressed up as cartoon figures and stood at the gate of Peking University, accusing the institution of discriminating against hepatitis B carriers.

His efforts paid off. He became the first in China to receive a health certificate from the authorities on September 1, although he applied only to “test the enforcement of the law,” he said.

“It is time for hepatitis B virus carriers to act as a group. We have to do something to change our fate,” said the 22-year-old.

The Colombian government reported Tuesday that the death toll of A/H1N1 influenza in the country had risen to 82 and the number of infections registered 1,524, after confirming 17 new deaths last week.

“Last week 17 people died in different parts of the country,” Minister of Social Security and Health Diego Palacio said.

It had been confirmed till last Sunday that a governor and more than four officials were infected with A/H1N1 flu, the same day the National Institute of Health (INS) reported a total of 65 deaths in the country.

The INS said that the largest number of deaths was found in Bogota, capital of Colombia, followed by the western-central provinces of Risaralda and Caldas.

The Colombian Social Security and Health Ministry said the country would get some 400 million dosages of antivirus medicine from the Pan American Health Organization to combat the A/H1N1 flu.

It also urged the people to be precautious about the disease in the following four months of the country’s second rainy season.

Every Monday morning, 52-year-old mother Om Mahmoud al-Rayyes goes to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Gaza to join dozens of mothers to call for the release of their jailed sons in Israeli prisons.

“I haven’t seen my son Mahmoud for seven years. I cry when I hold his shirts or when I look at his pictures together with his friends. Pain and tears kill me when we have breakfast since the beginning of Ramadan as his seat at the dining table is still vacant,” she said.

Mahmoud al-Rayyes, a 28-year-old Palestinian man residing in Gaza, was arrested at an Israeli army roadblock in central Gaza Strip seven years ago. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli military court on charges of using arms against Israel.

Not only mothers, but also wives and children gather every Monday at the ICRC office in Gaza City, holding pictures of the prisoners, and sending letters to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the United Nations, the United States and Europe to help release their beloved from Israeli prisons.

Like Om Mahmoud, most of the families of Palestinian prisoners hope that Israel would accept the conditions of Islamic Hamas movement on freeing captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for some 1,000 prisoners, including 450 sent to heavy sentences.

Shalit was abducted in an armed attack in June 2006 when Hamas and two other armed groups raided an Israeli army base near the borders between southeast Gaza Strip and Israel. Egypt and recently Germany have been mediating between Hamas and Israel to finalize the deal.

Recent reports said there has been a progress in the indirect talks to finalize the prisoners swap between Israel and Shalit’s captors, which is basically Hamas, since German intelligence officials joined the mediation.

According to a senior Hamas official, a German mediator had visited the Gaza Strip around 11 times since June this year. Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal held talks in Cairo with senior Egyptian intelligence officials on Saturday and Sunday on Shalit’s deal and the reconciliation.

Meshaal did not deny that a progress has been made in the indirect talks, mainly after the German mediators joined. However, he said at a press conference in Cairo “We are still at the beginning, and the road to finalize the swap deal is still long.”

Sources in Hamas movement, close to the talks on Shalit’s deal, told Xinhua that if Israel accepts the captors’ conditions, Shalit will be released soon, noting that through difficult negotiations “We expect the deal would be finalized in November.”

“I hope that Israel and Hamas will reach an agreement soon, and I hope that all our imprisoned sons will be among those who will be released as soon as the prisoners swap deal is achieved,” said Karima, the wife of Majdi al-Masri, who has been in Israeli jails for two years.

Al-Masri, 25, is married with three daughters of which five-year-old Zeina is the oldest. Two-year-old Kholood, the youngest, was born two months after her father was arrested during an Israeli army raid on the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

Majdi’s mother, wife and three daughters also came this week tojoin the prisoners’ family gathering at the ICRC. Majdi’s wife andhis mother cried with tears when Zeina said “all fathers bring presents to their children during Ramadan, except my father.”

During the gathering at the ICRC, political figures, leaders and spokespersons for Palestinian factions, and sometimes officials in the government of Islamic Hamas movement come to show solidarity with the detainees’ families.

Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, visited the families of the prisoners at the ICRC. He slammed Israel for keeping more than 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, telling the prisoners’ mothers “your children sacrificed for building up our homeland.”

Minister of Prisoners Affairs Mohamed Faraj al-Ghoul told the prisoners’ families at the ICRC “Pray to Allah that the prisoners swap deal will succeed in order to get your children released,” calling on the ICRC and other organizations to interfere to save the Palestinian prisoners.

A mother, who called herself Om Yousef, said “Even if Shalit’s case is finalized, only 1,000 prisoners will be released, out of 11,000 prisoners. Many mothers will be hurt if they see other prisoners are released, and their sons are still in custody.”

Hundreds of children were absent from schools amid fears of lead poisoning in Shanghang County, east China’s Fujian Province.

A total of 136 students were absent from the Central Primary School of Jiaoyang Township Thursday and 140 others from the local kindergarten, the primary school’s headmaster Zou Chaolin said more students were absent Wednesday.

The county government said that among 72 children who had taken blood tests, four have excessive lead levels in their blood, or more than 100 mg a liter of blood, compared with the normal zero to 100 mg a liter. The other 68 children have 53-100 mg of lead a liter of blood.

Residents in Jiaoyang Township said the excessive levels of lead in blood might be caused by a local battery plant.

The county government has ordered the environmental protection bureau to beef up supervision on the plant.

One person is missing and more than a million residents affected as typhoon Koppu landed in southern China’s Guangdong Province Tuesday, local authorities said.

About 1.06 million people in 69 townships in Jiangmen and Yangjiang cities were feeling the effect of the storm at 6 p.m., said Guangdong Flooding and Drought Relief Headquarters. One person in Zhuhai City is missing.

In Shenzhen City, 169 flights were delayed on Tuesday, stranding nearly 10,000 passengers.

The typhoon, the 15th this year, has brought heavy rains to Guangdong.

In Yangjiang City, where the typhoon downgraded into a strong tropical storm, fallen trees and branches could be seen along the roads.

In Sanya City in the southern island province of Hainan, the typhoon brought rain of more than 167 millimeters.

Shipping services across the southern Qiongzhou Strait, which have been suspended since Monday afternoon, were expected to resume Wednesday.

Local experts have warned of flash flooding, with the possible dangers of mudslides and landslides.

Koppu would bring heavy rain to most parts of southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Hainan and Guangdong during the next two days, China’s central observatory said.

China State Construction Engineering Corp. (CSCES), the country’s largest homebuilder, has won more new construction contracts in the eight months to August this year compared with the same period last year, China Daily reported Tuesday.

In a regulatory filing Monday, the Shanghai-listed homebuilder said it has signed new contracts worth 224.7 billion yuan (32.1 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months, up 20.4 percent from the previous year. In the same period, property sales soared by 84.7 percent to 2.8 billion yuan while the area sold grew by 1.26 times, to 4 million square meters.

The conglomerate purchased another new land of 3.09 million square meters in August, taking its total land reserves to 38.88 million square meters.

The company said it expects to maintain forward momentum as it has won tenders for an expo construction in southwestern Guizhou province and an inter-city railway project in central Hubei province in September, with a value of 1.9 billion yuan and 5.132 billion yuan, respectively.

The homebuilder is also going overseas as it recently signed an agreement with property firm Tishman and casino builder Revel Entertainment to build a casino resort in Atlantic City in the U.S. The project, with an area of 79,000 square meters is likely to be completed in 2011.

The company’s profit for the first half of 2009 was 2.35 billion yuan, representing 85 percent of the whole year profit of 2008.

Farmer Tong Fengkui visited the local bureau of letters and visits to file complaints more than 200 times over the last decade as he saw many problems which could not be solved in his village.

These problems, including misappropriating lands by the government and embezzlement of public funds, came as life in his village in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang Province turned better in recent years.

Tong’s eagerness in filing complaints to the government shows that as farmers become wealthy, they are paying more attention to their own interests and they are active in “preventing their share of the fruit of economic development from being swallowed by a powerful few.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao Wednesday told members of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau that efforts should be made to “earnestly solve problems concerning people’s immediate interests” and “always maintain people’s fundamental interests”.

Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said, “Development is for the people, depends on the people and the fruit of development must be shared by the people.”

He made the remarks when presiding over the 16th group study for the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, whose theme was understanding and practicing modernization since the founding of New China.

He said the Party aimed to let all the people “march toward common prosperity”.

　　ROAD TO AFFLUENCE

Chen Donglin, a research fellow with the Beijing-based Institute of Contemporary China Studies, said China’s perception of “affluence” has changed with the country’s economic development.

The Chinese character for “affluence”, or “fuyu”, is formed by components meaning “having a full stomach” and “having foods and clothes.”

Affluence was only the right of a privileged few before the founding of the New China in 1949.

Chen said, “Chinese people cannot realize a common prosperity without the establishment of the socialist system, which is proved by thousands of years of history (of the feudal and slavery systems) before 1949.”

China had experienced three stages on the road to common prosperity, he said.

— From 1949 to 1965, farmers were encouraged to “become better off through one’s own labor” and the government promoted “collective prosperity”.

— From 1966 to 1976 when the country was ravaged by the Cultural Revolution, “personal affluence”, or building up one’s own family fortunes, was strictly forbidden.

— After China’s reform and opening-up in 1978, the chief architect of the country’s reform Deng Xiaoping called for “allowing and encouraging some people and areas to get rich first,” which was leading to common prosperity and would ultimately realize a moderately prosperous society.

As a result, the rapid development of private businesses had greatly boosted the local economy. They have also served as major contributors to China’s GDP (gross domestic product). The country has more than 6.8 million private businesses, according to the State Administration For Industry and Commerce.

Hu Jintao said in a report to the 17th CPC National Congress in October 2007, that the Party “will create conditions to enable more citizens to have property income, and the Party will protect lawful incomes, regulate excessively high incomes and ban illegal gains.”

Analysts say it shows the Party’s updated policy on “affluence,” with signals suggesting offering more support to the country’s 700 million farmers who were not well-off compared with their urban counterparts, measures including taxation exemption, expanding coverage of medical service and social security.

These policies have been the highlights of China’s reform measures, either implemented or immediately being enforced.

Chen said promoting common prosperity was an “unprecedented task” for China.

“Although the country has achieved rapid economic development, only if it realized common prosperity could China establish its own development mode, and only then could we say the reform has reaped the ultimate success,” he said.

Luckily for farmer Tong from Heilongjiang Province, most of his problems have been redressed by his village officials in a national drive that called for local officials to “thoroughly investigate and deal with problems raised by the public.”

But problems of his kind are still widespread in China. And that is what the CPC is going to deal with as the 1.3 billion population are on the road to affluence, bumping but never so sure.

Editor: Li Xianzhi

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