Making laws to promote civilized behavior and integrating core socialist values into the legal system and social governance is an important measure to modernize China's system and capacity for governance.

The Social Development Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) said that competent government departments should carry out studies on the feasibility and necessity of formulating a national law to promote civilized behavior, since such a law will involve lots of fields and raise public concern. Efforts should be made to clearly define civilized behavior, draw a line between ethical norms and legal regulations, strike a balance between the principles and operability of the drafted clauses, and coordinate them with other existing laws and rules, it added.

The committee also said that it will conduct survey and deliberation to provide a theoretical and practical foundation for the drafting of the law.

So far, 12 provincial-level regions have adopted or revised their regulations on promoting civilized behavior. A total of 189 cities at prefecture level and above have rolled out their own appropriate behavior promotion rules and 63 cities have been working on the formulation of such regulations.

Several NPC deputies have come up with motions on drafting a law to promote civilized behavior over the past few years. They noted that legislation on promoting appropriate behavior is a practical need in advancing law-based cultural-ethical progress and economic and social development, adding that it is necessary to sum up regional legislative experience for the making of a national law.

In its replies, the Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee said that it is of great necessity and feasibility for the country to draft a law on promoting appropriate behaviors with an existing legal and practical foundation.

The Ministry of Justice urged competent departments to carry out studies on the relationship between the proposed law and existing laws, regulations and policies on regulating people's behavior in public places and promoting fine conduct, identify major problems to be tackled, and specify major systems, measures and anticipatory results in the process of implementation.