BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- While charting ambitious goals of economic and
social developments for the 1.3 billion people in the next five years and by
2020, Hu Jintao also stressed the need to enhance Chinese culture as the
country's "soft power" in his keynote speech to the 17th National Congress of
the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Monday.
"Culture has become a more and more important source of national cohesion
and creativity and a factor of growing significance in the competition in
overall national strength," Hu said on behalf of the 16th CPC Central Committee.
We must "enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better
guarantee the people's basic cultural rights and interests," he said.
Some highlights of his proposed methods in this regard include:
-- to step up the development of the press, publishing, radio, film,
television, literature and art, give correct guidance to the public and foster
healthy social trends;
-- to strengthen efforts to develop and manage Internet culture and foster
a good cyber environment;
-- to continue to develop nonprofit cultural programs as the main approach
to ensuring the basic cultural rights and interests of the people, increase
spending on such programs, and build more cultural facilities in urban
communities and rural areas;
-- to vigorously develop the cultural industry, launch major projects to
lead the industry as a whole, speed up the development of cultural industry
bases and clusters of cultural industries with regional features, nurture key
enterprises and strategic investors, create a thriving cultural market and
enhance the industry's international competitiveness;
-- to establish a national system of honors for outstanding cultural
workers.
Hu said that Chinese culture has been an unfailing driving force for the
Chinese nation to keep its unity and make progress from generation to
generation.
"The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be
accompanied by the thriving of Chinese culture," he said.
