IV. New milestones of building a socialist country under the rule of law

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Central Committee of the CPC with Comrade Xi Jinping as general secretary drew up a comprehensive plan for strengthening the rule of law, which charted the course for accelerating the construction of a socialist country under the rule of law. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC put forward the new requirements for building a country under the socialist rule of law. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC held last year was the first meeting that focused on “comprehensively advancing the rule of law” in China. The Decision passed and the speech made by general secretary Xi Jinping at the session scientifically answered a series of important theoretical and practical questions concerning comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China, facilitated the socialist legal construction, and promoted the modernization of governance system and governance ability, ushering a new era in building a socialist country under the rule of law.

—The plenary session expounds the significance of comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China. Firstly, Comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China is the demand for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realizing the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation. Therefore, rule of law should be placed in an important, fundamental and strategic position. Secondly, comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China is the basic method for deepening reform, and perfecting and developing socialist system with Chinese characteristics. Rule of law is indispensible for implementing comprehensive and deep reform in all respects, including economy, politics and social life. Finally, comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China is important for improving the CPC's governance capacity and governance quality. The CPC persists in scientific, democratic ruling and rule by law. The CPC's governing ability is closely related to and reflected by legal construction, legislation and law enforcement level.

—The plenary session explains a series of important theories and practical problems concerning the building of socialist rule of law, and brings the building of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics to a new level. For the first time, the Decision of the plenary session unequivocally puts forward the building of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, illuminates the relationship between leadership of the Party and rule of law in paper, maintains that rule of law is the inevitable requirement for the modernization of national governance system and governance ability, states that observing the law is as important as legislation, law enforcement and judiciary in rule of law, coordinates the relationship between the Party regulations and the national laws, and proposes the setting up of National Constitution Day. These breakthroughs and creative measures, significant in both theoretical and practical sense, reflect that the CPC has a profound understanding of the essence of legal construction.

—The plenary session makes strategic disposition for comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China. The major tasks are to improve a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, in which the Constitution is taken as the core, to strengthen the implementation of the Constitution, to promote administration by law, to speed up the building of a law-abiding government, to safeguard judicial justice, to improve judicial credibility, to promote the public awareness of rule of law, to enhance the building of a law-based society, to improve team building, and to sharpen the CPC's leadership in pushing forward the rule of law. These tasks, which cover different aspects and the basic pattern of the rule of law, should be executed rigorously.

Generally speaking, the deployment and achievements made in the plenary will promote the construction of a country under the rule of law, accelerate the building of law-abiding government and law-based society, facilitate the building a well-off society in an all-around way, and bring about a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Therefore, regarding to rule of law, the elaboration and deployment of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC are the most important reference for us. The book will provide a panoramic explanation of the rule of law, which is an important part of socialist core values, as well as the theories and practices of building socialist rule of law in the following parts based on the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC.