Cultivate and Disseminate the Core Socialist Values* 

February 24, 2014 

We must take cultivating and disseminating the core socialist values as a fundamental project for integrating the people's mindset and reinforcing our social foundations. We should inherit and carry forward the fine traditional Chinese culture and virtues, disseminate the core socialist values and educate the people extensively, guide and encourage the people to act according to them, to respect and follow moral standards, to pursue lofty moral ideals, and to reinforce the ideological and moral foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics. 

Core values, a fundamental factor for the texture and orientation of a culture, are the soul of cultural soft power and a key to building a nation's cultural soft power. In essence, cultural soft power depends on the vitality, cohesion and appeal of the core values of a nation. Therefore, cultivating and disseminating the core values and effectively integrating the people's mindset is an important means of ensuring that the social system operates in a normal manner and that the social order is effectively maintained. It is also a major aspect of a nation's governing system and capacity. 

Facts prove that to successfully build a set of core values with strong appeal is connected with a country's social harmony and stability, as well as its long-term peace and order. 

To cultivate and disseminate the core socialist values we must take traditional Chinese culture as the base. All concrete core values are deeply rooted. So, to renounce such values is tantamount to severing our cultural lifeline. The extensive, profound and outstanding traditional Chinese culture is the foundation for us to stand firm upon in the global mingling and clashing of cultures. 

The long-developed Chinese culture embraces our deepest intellectual pursuits. It is an icon of the unique Chinese nation, and has ensured the lineage, development and growth of the Chinese nation. Traditional Chinese virtues are the essence of Chinese culture, and embody rich ethical and moral resources. Only by etching these values in our minds can we forge ahead, and only by carrying forward what our ancestors have left us can we learn to be more creative. 

With regard to values, perceptions and ethics handed down for generations, we should make the past serve the present, discard the dross and keep the essential, eliminate the false and retain the true, and put forth new ideas. That is to say, we should treat and inherit them with a critical approach, and cultivate and educate the people with the Chinese cultural legacy. 

We need to explain clearly the historical origin, evolution and basic tendency of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture and its uniqueness, perceptions and distinctive features, so as to enhance confidence in Chinese culture and values. 

We should work hard to absorb the philosophical and moral essence of traditional Chinese culture, foster and disseminate our national character with patriotism at the core and at the call of the times, highlighted by reform and innovation, and identify and explicate their essential features of benevolence, people-orientation, integrity, righteousness, concordance and common ground. 

We should properly handle the relationship between inheritance and innovation, with the focus on transforming and developing the fine traditional Chinese culture in a creative way. 

We should make the core values the people's pursuit and conscious actions through education, publicity, cultural edification, habitual development and institutional guarantee. 

A fine example has boundless power. All Party members and officials must take the lead in studying and spreading the core socialist values, influence and encourage other people to follow their exemplary behavior and noble personalities. 

We should spread the socialist values among children and students, ensuring their inclusion in textbooks and lectures so as to let everyone be aware of them. 

Like spring drizzle falling without a sound, we should disseminate the core socialist values in a gentle and lively way by making use of all kinds of cultural forms. We should inform the people by means of fine literary works and artistic images what is the true, the good and the beautiful, what is the false, the evil and the ugly, and what should be praised and encouraged, and what should be opposed and repudiated. 

The core socialist values can hardly be effective unless they are put into practice, for only then may the people understand and observe them. What we advocate must be in line with what the people need in their daily life in a manner as detailed and practical as possible. We must uphold the core socialist values when strengthening rules and regulations in all sectors, formulating codes of conduct for students and other citizens in both urban and rural areas so as to turn the core socialist values into basic guidelines for the people's daily life and work. 

We should create some forms of ceremonies and conduct various memorial and celebration events to disseminate mainstream values and enhance the people's sense of identity and of belonging. 

Efforts should be made to integrate the requirements of the core socialist values into various activities concerning intellectual and cultural progress, so as to attract more people to participate in such activities, upgrade their moral outlook and foster civic virtues in society for family happiness, extending care to others and contributing more to society. We should make use of every opportunity to make this happen, anytime and anywhere. 

We should give full play to our policies concerning the economy, politics, culture and society to better serve the cultivation of the core socialist values. Laws and regulations should act as a driving force for the spread of the core values. Moreover, all social administrative agencies should make it their responsibility to advocate the core socialist values and reflect them in their routine work so that all activities conforming with the core values are encouraged and those running counter to the core values are rebuffed. 

* Main points of the speech at the 13th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee which Xi presided over. 

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)