The National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2016-2020) is the third national policy document on the theme of respecting, protecting and promoting human rights released by the Chinese government. As stipulated in The Action Plan, the Joint Meeting Mechanism of the National Human Rights Action Plan commissioned the China Society for Human Rights Studies and one of the national-level human rights education and training bases, namely the Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science & Law, as the third party to conduct evaluation on the implementation of The Action Plan. The Evaluation Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2016-2020) has been finalized recently by the third party. The full text is now published in English and Chinese on the official website of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (http://www.humanrights.cn/). 

 

China Society for Human Rights Studies

 

Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science & Law

 

September 29th 2021

 

 

Full Text: The Evaluation Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2016-2020).pdf
 

 

China Society for Human Rights Studies

Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science & Law

 

 

(1) Right to work

(2) Right to basic living standards

(3) Right to social security

(4) Right to property

(5) Right to health

(6) Right to education

(7) Cultural rights

(8) Environmental rights

(1) Rights of the person

(2) Rights of the detainees

(3) Right to fair trial

(4) Freedom of religious belief

(5) Right to know and to participate

(6) Rights of expression and supervision

(1) Rights of ethnic minorities

(2) Rights of women

(3) Right of children

(4) Rights of the elderly

(5) Rights of the disabled

 

 

 

In September, 2016, the Chinese government released the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2016-2020)(Hereinafter referred as “The Action Plan”), which was the third national plan with human rights as the theme and laid out the objectives and tasks of respecting, protecting and promoting human rights in  China from 2016 to 2020. 

 

Commissioned by the Joint Meeting Mechanism of the National Human Rights Action Plan, the China Society for Human Rights Studies and the Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science and Law conducted an evaluation of the implementation of The Action Plan. The evaluation trustees formed a working group and an expert group to verify and analyze, article by article, the implementation, execution and completion of the tasks of relevant departments and entities against the various targets and tasks in The Action Plan. The expert group organized human rights experts to visit a number of representative regions in the east, central and western regions to conduct research and study on the implementation of The Action Plan. The Evaluation Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2016-2020) was finalized after listening to the evaluation, feedback, opinions and suggestions of people from all walks of life and the public through a combination of online and offline methods.

 

Generally speaking, from 2016 to 2020, China adhered to the people-centered development concept, earnestly implemented the constitutional principle of "respecting and protecting human rights", and took practical measures to actively promote the implementation of the objectives and tasks of The Action Plan. China strives to solve the most concerned, direct and realistic rights and interests of the people, protecting and improving people's livelihood, focusing on protecting the rights and interests of people with financial difficulties, the poor and the weak, and achieving fairness and justice. The protection of the Chinese people's economic, social and cultural rights has reached a new level; civil and political rights have been more effectively guaranteed; measures to safeguard the rights of ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly and the disabled have been fully implemented; the dissemination of human rights information and human rights education are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people; international exchanges and cooperation in the field of human rights have made remarkable achievements. In particular, China has completed the task of eliminating absolute poverty and built a moderately prosperous society in all respects. China's level of human rights protection has been significantly promoted and the Chinese people's sense of gain, happiness and security has significantly increased. The Action Plan has been fully implemented and 168 objectives and tasks have been completed, many of which have been completed ahead of time or above the goals set in The Action Plan.

 

Meanwhile, as the largest developing country, China still faces the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development in its human rights cause. To satisfy the overall development requirements of the national human rights cause and the expectations of the people, the protection of some rights needs to be promoted persistently due to their long-term nature; there is still room for further strengthening and upgrading the protection and implementation of some other rights. We hope that the Chinese government will do a good job in the implementation of the fourth National Human Rights Action Plan in an all-round way and strive to promote the comprehensive development of the human rights cause in China.

 

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government has continued to deepen reforms, implement the Outline of the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development in the economic, social and cultural fields, implement precise poverty alleviation and poverty eradication, compile the Civil Code, and take a series of major initiatives to promote development and benefit people's livelihoods, thus safeguarding the economic, social and cultural rights of the Chinese people at a higher level. At the same time, there is still room for further improvement in the implementation of the paid annual leave system, protection of the basic rights and interests of workers in flexible employment.

 

 

 

The urban registered unemployment rate is maintained at a low level of below 4.2% in 2016-2020. The employment structure is more optimized, with the employment size of the tertiary sector rising from 43.5% in 2016 to 47.7% in 2020.

 

The Circular on the Implementation of the Employment and Entrepreneurship Promotion Plan for College Graduates was issued and implemented, and the employment level of graduates remained stable against the backdrop of successive years of growth in the number of college graduates.

 

The total number of migrant workers increased from 281.71 million in 2016 to 285.6 million in 2020, an average annual increase of 970,000. The number of workers in the central and western regions who are employed close to home and return to their hometowns to start their own businesses has increased, and the regional employment structure has become more reasonable.

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of 27.2 million unemployed people will be re-employed, and 8.73 million people with employment difficulties will be employed. The "Thousands of Schools, Ten Thousand Jobs" campaign has been implemented to provide precise employment assistance to college and university students, targeting graduates from families with financial difficulties, urban graduates with difficulties in living and graduates from zero-employment families, and helping 227,200 students to find employment.

 

From 2016-2020, 65.64 million new jobs were created in urban areas, an annual average of over 13 million.

 

 

The Reform Program for Building the Industrial Workforce in the New Era, the Action Program for Enhancing Vocational Skills (2019-2021) and the Guidance on Enhancing the Basic Capacity of Public Vocational Skills Training have been formulated.

 

In February 2020, the "Skills Power - National Industrial Workers' Skills Learning Platform" was launched, and as of December 31, 2020, the platform had trained a total of 107.5 million workers, with 13.047 million logged-in users and a total of over 17.75 million training hours. 

 

The "Spring Tide Program", "Study for Dreams Program", vocational skills upgrading for new generation of migrant workers, entrepreneurship training for returning migrant workers, skills training for deep-rooted poverty-stricken areas, and labour training for the poor have been launched for key groups such as rural migrant workers, unemployed college graduates, poor labourers, and workers of enterprises with excess production capacity. 

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of about 100 million person-times of various types of subsidized vocational skills training were conducted, of which over 40 million person-times of training for migrant workers and about 10 million person-times of training for poor labourers.

 

 

Sound mechanisms for wage-setting, reasonable wage increases and payment guarantees have been improved. The minimum wage adjustment mechanism was improved, and a comprehensive mechanism for assessing the impact of the minimum wage was established, and the coordination between the minimum wage adjustment and economic and social development and the regional balance were continuously improved.

 

Thirty provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have formulated 41 local laws and regulations or government rules to promote enterprise collective wage negotiation, and 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have incorporated collective wage negotiation into the local party and government target assessment system. A three-level collective negotiation instructor system at the provincial, municipal and county (District) levels has been established. By the end of September 2019, there were 6538 full-time collective negotiation instructors in China. 22 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Federation of trade unions of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have established collective negotiation evaluation systems and carried out collective negotiation employee satisfaction evaluation in many places.

 

A system of enterprise salary surveys and information release has been established. At present, a three-tier system of enterprise salary surveys at national, provincial and municipal levels has basically taken shape to provide information reference for guiding enterprises to reasonably determine the salary level of their employees.

 

The Opinions of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on Improving the Treatment of Skilled Workers was released, making it clear that the wage distribution system of enterprises in line with the characteristics of skilled workers should be improved and the level of treatment of skilled workers should be comprehensively improved.

 

The Guidelines for Salary Distribution of Skilled Talents have been formulated to guide enterprises to establish multi-level career development trajectories for skilled talents, and improve the salary distribution system reflecting the incentive orientation of skill value.

 

The basic data of human resources and social security in 60 cities show that about 60% of the employees whose employers have implemented the paid annual vacation system and have the conditions can enjoy the paid annual vacation.

 

 

By improving the employment policy system, increasing employment support in different forms and establishing a long-term guarantee mechanism for employment support, we have effectively guaranteed the equal employment rights of specific groups such as women, the disabled, ethnic minorities and drug addicts.

 

The Opinions on Further Strengthening the Mediation and Arbitration of Labour Disputes and Improving the Multi-dimensional Handling Mechanism, The Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of the Mechanism for the Interface between Arbitration and Litigation of Labour Disputes and The Opinions on Strengthening the Work of Legal Aid in Mediation and Arbitration of Labour Disputes have been formulated, and the Rules for Handling Arbitration of Labour Disputes and Rules for the Organization of Arbitration of Labour Disputes have been revised. The legal policy system, which centers on labour disputes mediation and arbitration law and complemented by regulations and policies and local laws and regulations, has been gradually improved.

 

The Regulations on Ensuring the Payment of Migrant Workers' Wages, The Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Tackling the Problem of Arrears of Migrant Workers' Wages, The Three-year Action Plan for Combating Arrears and Ensuring Expenditure (2017-2019), The Assessment Measures for Provincial Governments to Ensure the Payment of Migrant Workers' Wages, The Interim Measures for the Management of the "Blacklist" of Arrears of Migrant Workers' Wages, The Memorandum of cooperation on joint punishment for the Company and its Relevant Personnel of Seriously Arrears of Migrant Workers' Wages and The 2019 Action Plan for Eradicating the Problem of Salary Arrears have been formulated. The State Council and all provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities) have established leading groups to eradicate wage arrears of migrant workers, strengthened the crackdown on illegal acts of wage arrears, further unblocked the channels for migrant workers to report and complain, implemented territorial regulatory responsibilities, strengthened joint punishment for wage arrears and dishonesty, Notice on the Implementation of the "Wage Protection "Campaign to Handle with Disputes over Defaulted Migrant Workers' Wages were formulated, established a long-term mechanism for the settlement of wage disputes of migrant workers, and unblocked the "green channel" for the settlement of wage disputes of migrant workers. From 2016 to 2020, trade unions at all levels cooperated with relevant departments to recover 53.251 billion yuan of wages owed to 5.0986 million migrant workers.

 

The Labour Contract Law and other laws and regulations were fully implemented, regulating the employment and layoffs of enterprises in accordance with the law, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of labour dispatch, and formulating policies to safeguard the rights and interests of workers in new employment patterns.

 

The examination and approval service for enterprises to implement the special working hour system has been optimized.

 

 

In 2020, the death toll caused by industrial accidents of various types was 27,412, down 38.8% compared to 2015; the death rate from industrial accidents was 0.027 per RMB 100 million of GDP, down 58.5% compared to 2015.

 

 

The special health checkup rate for workers in key industries such as coal mines, non-coal mines, metallurgy and building materials during their employment was 97.0%; the training rate for the main person in charge was 97.9% and the training rate for occupational health managerial staff was 98.0%.

 

 

 

In 2020, China’s GDP reached RMB 101.5986 trillion up 93.7% from RMB 41.2119 trillion in 2010; the per-capita disposable income of urban and rural residents reached RMB 32,189, up 144% from RMB 13,192 in 2010, the growth rate basically in step with economic growth. According to the income grouping of the national residents by quintiles, the per-capita disposable income of the low-income group was RMB 7,869, up 50.7% from RMB 5,221 in 2015; the per-capita disposable income of the middle-income group was RMB 26,249 up 35.9% from RMB 19,320 in 2015.

 

 

The strategy of targeted poverty reduction and eradication has been fully implemented, and the target of eradicating extreme poverty has been fully accomplished; 98.99 million rural poor people have all been lifted out of poverty, and 832 poor counties and 128,000 poor villages have all been removed from the list of “poverty county”. Employment to reduce poverty was made a major channel for the poor to increase their income, and the size of the labour force in poverty increased from 12.27 million in 2015 to 32.43 million by 2020. Adhering to the principle of voluntariness, more than 9.6 million poor people have been relocated from their homes to alleviate poverty, and some 35,000 new resettlement communities have been built. Implementing the social security policy, 17.92 million poor people are covered by the low-income social security policy, and 1.44 million poor people are included in the scope of special hardship assistance and support.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, more than 23 million units of various types housing in rundown urban areas were started to rebuild nationwide, helping more than 50 million rundown urban residents to improve their housing conditions.

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of 5.224 million rural dilapidated houses of families with financial difficulties have been completed rebuilding, and 2.424 million low-income households, scattered-support special hardship cases, families with disabilities and other poor groups have been supported at the same time to renovate their dilapidated houses, so that poor people can fully realize housing security.

 

By 2020, 9.13 million eligible migrant workers in stable employment were covered by public rental housing. Since the end of 2019, pilot work to improve the housing security system has been carried out in 13 cities, including Guangzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou, and the policy-based rental housing system has been developed. Till 2020, more than 6 million new urban residents enjoyed the public rental housing.

 

 

Through the project on reinforcing and enhancing drinking water quality in rural areas, 17.1 million poor people's drinking water safety problems, 9.75 million rural people's over-fluoride in drinking water and 1.2 million rural people's bitter and salty water problems have been solved. By 2020, the centralized water supply rate for rural areas reached 88%, and 83% of the rural population have access to tap water, raising the level of water supply security for 270 million rural people.

 

 

The Food Safety Law and its implementing regulations were strictly enforced. Supporting documents such as the Measures for the Administration of Food Production Licensing, the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Salt Quality and Safety, and the Measures for the Administration of Food Safety Supervision and Inspection were formulated, and an operation manual for on-site supervision and inspection of key food products was prepared, and the construction of the food production supervision system was continuously promoted.

 

A clear list of food production supervision and inspection authority at all levels was established, key food supervision and inspection was strengthened, key food quality and safety enhancement actions were carried out, and various food safety issues were seriously investigated and dealt with.

 

The "Guarding the Gate" campaign for imported food was launched.

 

Through promoting dynamic management of food sales risk grading, by 2020, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Anhui and Chongqing had achieved full coverage of risk grading, and 29 provinces had completed the target of 70% coverage. Online training for food production supervisors and enterprise food safety managers, food business supervision training courses and food production inspector training were conducted to improve the food safety management of primary-level supervisors and frontline managers, basically achieving full coverage of food production inspector training in food-related industries.

 

To improve the food-safety credit system and consumer rights protection mechanism, non-food operators engaged in refrigerated and frozen food storage business are required to file with the market supervision department at the county level where they are located; as of 2020, a total of 8,656 third-party cold storage facilities have been filed nationwide. In 2020, special rectification campaign on counterfeit and substandard food products in rural areas has been carried out, and the list of rural food risks and hazards has been further expanded and improved.

 

 

The network of national trunk expressways has been fully completed, and the mileage of expressways nationwide has reached 161,000 km. From 2016 to 2020, about 17,000 km of national expressways and 53,000 km of ordinary national highways have been renovated and constructed in poor areas, and poor counties have basically been covered by highways of Grade II and above, with some poor counties connected to expressways. As of 2020, towns and established villages with the necessary conditions have been connected to tarmac or cement roads, and complete access to bus and postal services.

 

 

 

A national database on universal coverage covering the basic data of 1.39 billion people was built, fully implementing full coverage of social insurance, basically achieving full coverage for statutory persons. Social insurance transfers and renewal mechanism became more convenient.

 

By 2020, the number of social security card holders nationwide reached 1.335 billion, covering 95% of the population. The number of electronic social security card applications reached 367 million.

 

 

A central transfer system for the basic old-age insurance fund for enterprise workers was established from 2018, with the transfer ratio starting at 3% and increasing to 4% in 2020. The provincial pooling for basic old-age insurance for enterprise workers was further standardized, with all provinces launching the implementation of unified provincial pooling and appropriation. By 2020, the number of urban workers' basic old-age insurance and urban and rural residents' basic old-age insurance participants nationwide reached 456 million and 542 million respectively.

 

By the end of April 2020, the tax-deferred commercial old-age insurance pilot had achieved a cumulative premium income of RMB 300 million and 47,600 participants.

 

By 2020, the participation rate of urban and rural residents eligible for coverage reached 90%.

 

 

By 2020, the coverage of medical insurance in urban and rural areas was stabilized at above 95%, covering 1.361 billion people.

 

In October 2020, a critical illness insurance system was established upon the basis of medical insurance for urban and rural residents, covering 1.02 billion people.

 

The mechanism for steady and sustainable financing of medical insurance and for adjusting medical care reimbursement rates has been continuously improved. From 2015 to 2020, the annual per-capita subsidy standard at all levels of finance has increased year by year, from RMB 380 to no less than RMB 550.

 

By 2020, the number of designated medical institutions for cross-province settlement of inpatient expenses was 44,400. A total of 7,248,300 direct settlements were made on the national platform. 12 pilot provinces such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Yangtze River Delta have opened 10,200 connected medical institutions and 11,800 connected designated pharmacies for direct settlement of outpatient expenses, with a total of 3.02 million direct settlements of outpatient expenses across provinces.

 

From January 2020, the maternity insurance fund was integrated into the basic medical insurance fund for accounting purposes.

 

 

At the end of 2020, 217 million people were covered by unemployment insurance, an increase of 44 million compared to the end of 2015. 13.37 million people received unemployment insurance benefits in 2020, an increase of 192% compared to 2015, reaching the maximum since the establishment of the unemployment insurance system. Actively providing re-employment services, a total of 27.2 million unemployed people were re-employed and 8.73 million people with employment difficulties were employed.

 

 

The Interim Measures on the Use and Management of Funds for Prevention of Work-related Injury were implemented. By 2020, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps across the country have fully realized the provincial-level unified pooling of funds for work-related injury insurance, and the efficiency of the use of funds for work-related injury insurance and their ability to contribute to the common good have been enhanced. By 2020, the number of people covered by work-related injury insurance nationwide reached 267.63 million, basically achieving the goal of full coverage of the statutory population by work-related injury insurance.

 

The construction of a rehabilitation service system for work-related injuries has been promoted and given full play to the role of the first batch of regional demonstration platforms for work-related injury rehabilitation in the construction and standardisation of the rehabilitation system.

 

 

By 2020, there were 8.053 million urban and 36.215 million rural subsistence allowance receiver nationwide, and all  families eligible for subsistence allowance were covered.

 

The relief system for the "three have-nots" in urban areas and the "five guarantees" in rural areas have been merged into a relief and support system for people living in dire poverty, and urban and rural areas have been unified in terms of fund raising and support standards. By 2020, there were 311,000 urban residents living in dire poverty nationwide, with an average basic living standard of RMB 11,257.1 per person per year, and 4,465,000 rural residents living in dire poverty, with an average basic living standard of RMB 8,568.8 per person per year.

 

The system of temporary rescue has been fully implemented, and comprehensive pilot projects have been carried out in 300 units nationwide to provide timely help to those in urgent needs, with a total of 13.411 million people receiving temporary rescue in 2020, with an average assistance level of RMB 1,114 per person.

 

The building of service facilities for the protection of minors has been continuously strengthened, and county-level protection facilities for minors were generally built in counties (cities and districts) with suitable conditions, relying on existing social welfare facilities to provide temporary guardianship care and family services for children. From 2016 to 2020, a total of 9.024 million people/time were rescued from vagrants and beggars, including 414,000 people/time for minors.

 

 

The Regulations on Natural Disaster Relief and The National Emergency Plan for Natural Disaster Relief have been amended, and the central government policy on subsidies for living in natural disasters has been improved, with a significant increase in the central subsidy standards for emergency relief, transitional living assistance, restoration and reconstruction of damaged houses and compensation for the families of those killed in disasters. Municipal and county-level natural-disaster relief supplies reserves have been built in disaster-prone areas. In all kinds of serious natural disasters, the national disaster relief emergency response was activated in a timely manner, central natural disaster relief funds were allocated, central relief materials were dispatched, and the affected people were properly resettled.

 

 

The Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly was modified to improve the system of elderly care services and enhance the quality of elderly care services.

 

The Circular on the Implementation of the Policy Interface between the Two Subsidy Systems for Persons with Disabilities was issued to determine the principles and operational methods for the interface between the two subsidy policies at the national level.

 

All children aged 0-6 years old who are raised in children's welfare institutions and orphans in the social diaspora are included in the rehabilitation assistance system for children with disabilities. Implementing the "Fu Cai Yuan Meng - Orphan Schooling Project" and the "Orphan Medical Rehabilitation-Tomorrow Project".

 

By 2020, the total number of elderly institutions and facilities nationwide reached 319,000, the number of various types of elderly-care beds reached 8.238 million, a total of 1,217 children's welfare institutions and 144 mental health welfare institutions for minors nationwide.

 

 

The Charity Law was effectively implemented. Relevant incentive policies and measures were optimised, such as allowing the part of corporate public welfare donations exceeding 12% of total annual profits to be deducted backwards against income tax from one year to be carried forward for pre-tax deduction within three years, simplifying the conditions for charitable organizations to qualify for pre-tax deduction of tax benefits for public welfare donations, improving the review process, and clarifying that donated materials meeting the relevant conditions enjoy tax exemption on imports.

 

 

Thirty-one provinces nationwide have introduced programs to reform their household registration systems, generally abolishing the distinction between agricultural and non-agricultural household registration, and establishing a unified urban and rural household registration system. The residence permit system has been further improved. By 2020, the target of 100 million non-household population settling in cities and towns has been successfully achieved. Localities have been pushed to gradually explore the establishment of a policy of two-way urban-rural migration of household registration.

 

 

 

The Civil Code, adopted on 28 May 2020, further improving the system of property security, including ownership, usufruct and security rights and completing the combing of relevant administrative regulation, local regulation and judicial explanation.

 

Indicator 24: Pressing forward with the amendment of the Land Administration Law and enactment of supporting laws and regulations. Proactive exploration shall be conducted on such systems as expropriation of rural collectively owned land, marketization of collectively owned rural profit-oriented construction land, management of homestead land, and the adjustment and handling of real estate ownership, and studies on legislation be started at the right time.

 

The Land Management Law and the Urban Real Estate Management Law were amended. The land expropriation system was improved, the scope of land expropriation was narrowed, land expropriation procedures were standardised, and the protection mechanism for farmers whose land was expropriated was improved; the market entry system for collectively owned rural profit-oriented construction land was established, and the conditions, requirements, rights and obligations, and management measures for the entry of collectively owned rural profit-oriented construction land into the market were clearly stipulated, so as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of land owners and users; the management system for homestead land was improved, further delegating the authority to approve homestead land, rationalising the layout of homestead land, allowing rural villagers who have settled in cities to withdraw their homestead land voluntarily and for compensation in accordance with the law, and encouraging rural collective economic organizations and their members to revitalise and utilise unused homestead land and unused dwellings.

 

 

By 2020, a total of 2,838 counties (cities and districts) and development zones nationwide had basically completed the comfirmation, registration and certification of contracted land in rural areas, and the area of contracted land nationwide had reached 1.5 billion mu, granting 200 million farming households contracted land management right certificates.

 

From 2015 to the end of 2019, pilot projects were carried out in 33 counties (cities and districts) to reform the land expropriation system with the objectives of "narrowing the scope of land expropriation, standardising land expropriation procedures and improving a reasonable, standardised and diversified protection mechanism for farmers whose land has been expropriated".

 

The State clarified that the second round of land contracting will be extended for another 30 years after its expiry. The land management rights were added to the Property Rights Section of the Civil Code. In 2018, the Law on Rural Land Contracting was amended to provide for a special chapter on the right to contract for land management. The management and services for the transfer of land management rights were strengthened, and by 2020, 1,474 counties (cities and districts) and 22,000 townships nationwide had established service centres for the transfer of rural land management rights, the land-management right of contracted land (farming land) transferred in rural area nationawide reached 532 million mu in 2019.

 

A Model Charter for Rural Collective Economic Organizations (for trial implementation) has been formulated to safeguard farmers' rights to shares in collective assets. By 2020, more than 900 million collective members were confirmed nationwide, more than 530,000 villages had completed reform of the shareholding cooperative system for collective business assets, and 500,000 villages had received registration certificates for rural collective economic organizations.

 

 

In order to uphold the principle of leniency in the criminal law, the threshold of criminalisation for economic crimes such as fraudulent loans, acceptances of bills and financial instruments has been revised, so that irregularities committed by private enterprises due to "high financing threshold" and "difficulty in financing", without the intention of fraud and without causing significant losses to banks, are generally not treated as crimes. By 2020, there were 138 million actual market entities nationwide, an increase of 12.2% compared to the end of 2019. Of these, 43.314 million were enterprises, an increase of 12.3%, and 92.872 million were individual businesses, an increase of 12.4%. The average daily number of new market entities increased from 31,000 before the reform to 68,000, and the average daily number of new enterprises increased from 6,900 before the reform of the commercial system to 22,000.

 

 

In 2017, all cities and counties nationwide were connected to the national information platform, and the reform goal of "four unified" registration institutions, registration books, registration bases and information platforms was fully achieved. By 2020, a total of 183 million new real estate certificates and 136 million real estate registration certificates had been issued nationwide.

 

 

The Interim Measures for Uniform Natural Resources Rights Registration were formulated, a preliminary framework for the natural resources rights registration system was built to promote in an orderly manner the work on natural resources rights registration in key areas. The main work of natural resources titling and registration was completed for 10 pilot areas of the national park system, including the Hainan tropical rainforest, as well as key areas such as the main stream of the Yangtze River (below Yibin) and Taihu Lake. Five forest areas launched the registration of natural resources rights, including the Zhangwei South Canal section of the Haihe River Basin and the midstream section of the Huai River Main Stream.

 

The "Reform program of the Mineral Resources Equity Payment System" and "Opinions of the Ministry of Natural Resources on Certain Matters Relating to the Promotion of Mineral Resources Management Reform (for Trial Implementation)" were issued. The implementation of the reform of the mineral rights grant system was promoted to comprehensively encourage the competitive granting of mineral rights and strictly regulate the granting through agreement.

 

The Measures for the Administration of Carbon Emissions Trading (for Trial Implementation) was adopted in December 2020, which clarifies various definitions regarding the national carbon market and provides comprehensive regulations on the inclusion criteria for key emission units, the setting and allocation of total allowances, trading entities, verification methods, reporting and information disclosure, supervision and penalties for non-compliance.

 

 

The Copyright Law was amended to expand the scope of protected works and improve the provisions on copyright infringement liability. The Patent Law was amended to promote the implementation and application of patents. The Trademark Law was amended to effectively regulate malicious application and stockpile registration, strengthening the protection of trademark owners, safeguarding the interests of consumers, manufacturers and business-owners and building a sound pro-business environment. Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law improved the provisions relating to intellectual property offenses.

 

The establishment of a mechanism for the distribution of proceeds from the conversion of patents by universities and institutes with reciprocal rights and obligations was promoted, and the monitoring of patent licensing and transfer filings were carried out to improve the conversion rate of patents. During the Thirteenth Five-year Plan, 20 IPR Trading and Services Platforms(Centres) were established nationwide to expand the channel for IPR transaction and services.

 

By 2020, 40 IPR protection centres and 22 speedy rights protection centres were completed, and a national guidance centre for overseas IPR dispute response and 10 local sub-centres were established. Over 51 million pieces of domestic trademark data, 34 categories of patent fundamental data were released to public domain. The National IPR Public Service Network was in operation on Internet, primarily realizing “one network solution” to all IPR-related affairs. The updated local patent search and analysis system provides free information service for innovators, start-ups and public use.

 

 

 

The equal access to basic public health services has been continuously promoted, with the per-capita subsidy standard for basic public health services raised from 45 yuan in 2016 to 74 yuan in 2020, and the 12 categories of national basic public health services and 19 service items such as prevention and treatment of endemic diseases merged into basic public health services, with the corresponding funding transferred on an equal per-capita basis. Taking hypertension and diabetes as a starting point, the integration of medical and preventive services for chronic diseases was explored on a pilot basis in seven provinces (cities), including Shanxi, and integrated services such as treatment and prevention were provided. The vaccination rate for school-age children under the National Immunization program was maintained at over 90%, and over 100 million people with hypertension, over 35 million people with type 2 diabetes and over 100 million elderly people aged 65 or above enjoyed health services. Life expectancy per-capita rose to 77.3 years in 2019, achieving the target of a one-year increase in life expectancy per-capita.

 

In 2020, 5 yuan per-capita increase in basic public health service funds were all implemented in rural and urban communities, mainly used for primary-level COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control.

 

From 2016 to 2019, the number of socially run medical institutions grew from 441,000 to 471,000, and the number of consultations grew from 1.76 billion to 1.98 billion person/time; the number of private hospitals grew from 16,000 to 22,000, and the number of consultations grew from 420 million to 570 million person/time, initially forming a pattern of socially run hospitals and forming the pattern of differentiated development between socially run hospitals and public hospitals. 

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the State has arranged a total of RMB 141.5 billion of investment within the central government budget (with over 92% of the investment in the central and western regions), and the construction of more than 5,200 medical and health institutions at county level and below has been effectively supported nationwide.

 

By 2020, there are 36,000 township health centres, 35,000 community health service centres (stations) and 609,000 village health rooms, basically realizing that every township has a public health centre, every street has a community health service institution, and every administrative village has a health room.

 

89.9% of households were able to reach the nearest health service within 15 minutes in 2018. The proportion of households in rural areas in the west that could reach the nearest medical point within 15 minutes increased from 69.1% in 2013 to 82.6% in 2018. The training of general practitioners is provided through a variety of means, including residency training in general practice, training of assistant general practitioners, transfer training in general practice, and free training through contractual orientation. By 2019, there were 2.61 general practitioners for every 10,000 persons. By 2020, the number of practitioners/assistants for every 1,000 persons reached 2.9.

 

 

By 2020, 488 national demonstration areas for chronic disease prevention and control have been completed building, covering 17% county(district) nationwide. The rate of premature deaths from major chronic diseases in 2019 was 16.5%, down 10.8% comparing the year of 2015.

 

The incidence of TB reduced from 70.6/100,000 in 2012 to 55.6/100,000 in 2019.

 

The transmission of HIV through blood transfusions has basically been stopped, mother-to-child transmission and transmission through injecting drugs have been reduced to the lowest level in history, the detection rate has increased significantly, the proportion of antiretroviral treatment and the success rate of treatment have both reached over 90%, and the AIDS epidemic continues to be controlled at a low epidemic level nationwide. Implementing the "Four Free and One Care" policy for AIDS patients and providing them with free anti-HIV treatment drugs. In 2020, a balanced approach to the  prevention of COVID-19 and AIDS was carried out, preventing people infected with HIV from being denied timely access to antiviral drugs due to traffic control and home isolation, and ensuring that treatment is not interrupted.

 

No local primary malaria cases have been reported since 2017, and the national malaria elimination target has been achieved on schedule. 98% or more of counties (cities) nationwide had a leprosy prevalence rate of less than 1/100,000 by the end of 2020, and all schistosomiasis endemic counties have met transmission control, interruption or elimination standards.

 

By 2020, all key endemic counties nationwide achieved the target of control and elimination.

 

In the course of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity for public health emergencies and the prevention and control of sudden acute infectious diseases was further strengthened.

 

 

The National Shortage Drug List Management Measures (for trial implementation) were issued, a national shortage drug list and a key monitoring list of clinically necessary drugs prone to shortage were formulated, and the monitoring network and direct reporting of information at the national, provincial, prefectural/municipal and county levels continued to be improved.

 

In 2019, the Law on Basic Health Care and Health Promotion and the Law on Vaccine Management were enacted, and the Law on Drug Management was amended. The "National Vaccine Inspection Centre" was established. The Guidance on Assignment of Inspectors to Vaccine Manufacturers was issued, providing 100% coverage of safety inspections in the approval,  issuance and distribution process of vaccines. For some vaccines prone to supply disruptions, simultaneous approval, issuance and distribution and other measures are adopted to shorten the time for vaccines to be supplied from the factory. A task force was set up to evaluate the National Regulation Assessment (NRA) and strengthen cooperation and communication with the World Health Organization.

 

A national inspection of the production of blood products was carried out, and supervision and management of the production and distribution of drugs selected through national centralized procurement was strengthened. From 2016 to 2020, a total of 101,000 national drug sampling tests were completed, with an overall pass rate of 97.7%. Illegal practices have been cracked down, the special rectification of traditional Chinese medicine tablets and malpractice of licensed pharmacists continued, and the special inspections of the production and operation of narcotic drugs and Class II psychotropic substances were carried out to prevent them from flowing into illegal channels. A campaign on illegal on-line sale of medicine has been carried out to ensure the order of on-line sale of medicine.

 

 

The Planning and Design Standards for Urban Residential Areas were issued to clarify the planning and construction requirements for residential elderly service facilities and related sites, and to co-ordinate the planning of residential elderly service facilities, sports and fitness facilities and cultural facilities.

 

In 2020, per-capita sports or exercise area reached 2.2 sq m. 37.2% of the population aged 7 years and over take part in regular physical exercise nationwide.

 

 

 

The Outline of the National Medium- and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020) and the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of Education were pushed forward, and the common national language was promoted, with the national penetration rate of the common national language reaching 80.72%, guaranteeing the right to education, especially those of ethnic minorities. By 2020, the average number of years of schooling for the working-age population reached 10.75 years, 0.52 years higher than in 2015.

 

 

Pre-school education program has been fully implemented starting from the county-level nationwide. From 2016 to 2020, the central government has invested a total of more than 70 billion yuan in special funds for pre-school education development in central and western regions, focusing on supporting the expansion of pre-school education, improving protection mechanisms and subsidizing the enrolment of children from economically disadvantaged families. By 2020, there were 291,700 kindergartens nationwide, with 48.1826 million children in school, and the national gross preschool enrolment rate for eligible children reached 85.2%.

 

 

The problem of out-of-school dropouts was historically solved, and more than 200,000 dropout students from families with financial difficulties returned to school. Nationwide, 99.8% of compulsory education schools met the "20 bottom lines" requirements, and 96.8% of county-level units achieved basic balance in compulsory education.

 

During the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan period, the central government has arranged a total of 163.85 billion yuan in subsidies for the renovation of weak schools in rural compulsory education and for the improvement and capacity enhancement of weak links in compulsory education. 38.08 billion yuan of investment from the central budget was arranged to support the construction of compulsory education schools, with a focus on supporting infrastructure construction in counties of special poverty-ridden areas, key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, counties in old revolutionary areas, ethnic autonomous counties, border counties and other areas. From 2016 to 2020, the "Special Post Program" recruited 425,000 teachers, and the rural living allowance policy benefited nearly 1.3 million teachers in more than 80,000 rural schools in central and western China.

 

85.5 percent of children of migrant workers at the compulsory education age were enrolled in public schools or enjoy government purchase of school places. A nationwide unified school registration system for primary and secondary schools has been established, and the entire process of transferring children with their parents across provinces has been carried out online; all children with their parents are included in the average public expenditure for students and the "two exemptions and one subsidy" scope.

 

In 2016, 9.02 million children were left behind in rural areas for the first time survey, including 5.89 million children left behind in compulsory education age. The nutrition improvement plan for rural compulsory education students was implemented, covering all key counties in the country for poverty alleviation and development, benefiting 38 million students, and the problem of stunted growth of rural children was fundamentally improved.

 

 

Documents such as the Plan for Universal Access to High School Education (2017-2020), Guidance on Promoting Reform of the Education Approach in General High Schools in the New Era and Several Opinions on Further Stimulating the Vitality of Primary and Secondary Schools were issued to promote the diversified and distinctive development of high schools.

 

During the Thirteenth Five-year Plan, the central government budget arranged RMB 24.8 billion improving high school conditions and facilities. A central budgetary investment of RMB 12.91 billion was arranged to provide focused support for the construction of general high school infrastructure in counties with relatively low gross enrolment rates in senior high school, such as counties in concentrated areas with special difficulties, counties in old revolutionary areas, ethnic autonomous counties, border counties and other counties with weak educational bases. Students from families with financial difficulties were exempt from tuition and other fees during senior high school. In 2020, the number of senior high schools nationwide reached 24,400, with 41.278 million students enrolled, and the gross enrolment rate in senior high school reached 91.2%.

 

 

In 2020, the twelfth meeting of the CPC Working Group on Education reviewed and adopted the Law on Vocational Education (Revised Draft).

 

The Measures for the Promotion of School-Enterprise Cooperation in Vocational Schools were released, establishing a system of school-enterprise cooperation in vocational schools. 23.8 billion yuan of investment from the central budget was arranged from 2016 to 2020, focusing on supporting the construction of 968 practical training bases for the integration of industry and education. Insisting on both education and training, vocational colleges were promoted to carry out comprehensive vocational training. Vocational colleges and universities trained an average of 23.76 million people of all types annually, roughly the same scale as the number of students enrolled. Continuing efforts have been made to create national-level model counties for rural vocational and adult education; as of 2019, 261 model counties (cities and districts) have been built. Vocational education is provided for members of the two rural committees, new agricultural operators and leaders of rural social service organizations, and other groups, with a view to nurturing new types of professional farmers and practical rural talents.

 

Starting from the autumn semester of 2020, all students of opera performance and secondary vocational schools in ethnic areas were included in the scope of the tuition fee exemption policy.

 

In 2016, the Notice on Promoting Vocational Training Packages was published. Two batches of vocational training packages were developed in 2017 and 2018, including 25 occupations from the Occupational Catalogue. A third batch of 26 vocational training packages is being developed. The training packages clarify the training content and training methods, standardize the training process, are highly relevant and practical, and have a catalytic effect on standardizing and improving the quality of training, and improving the quality of workers and their ability to find employment and start a business.

 

Indicator 40: Boosting higher education. A program shall be implemented to enhance the innovation capacity of institutions of higher learning. So shall a program for rejuvenation of higher education of central and western regions, and key institutions of higher learning shall be made to enlarge their enrollments in central and western China, and rural areas.

 

The total number of students enrolled in higher education was 41.83 million, and the gross enrolment rate in higher education reached 54.4%.

 

The first round of "double first-class" construction has been carried out, and the "Everest Plan" for scientific research, the "Double Ten Thousand" plan for undergraduates and the "Strong Foundation Plan" for universities have been implemented.  8,031 national-level first-class undergraduate programs and 5,118 first-class courses have been selected.

 

Under the plan to revitalize higher education in central and western China, 106 universities under the Ministry of Education and high-level universities in the east have provided support to 85 universities in central and western China, achieving full coverage in 12 western provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. A number of universities in central and western China have made a breakthrough in the number of leading talents such as academicians of the "two Academies", “Changjiang Scholars”, “Outstanding Young Talents” and “Thousand Talents Program”. By 2020, 2,082 doctoral students and 552 master's degree students were enrolled in universities through separate enrollment programs.

 

 

A learning achievement mutual recognition alliance consisting of 32 ministries, industries, universities, enterprises and other institutions was formed. A credit bank information platform capable of supporting hundreds of millions of users was developed. A learning achievement certification service system covering 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and 23 industries, and spanning both urban and rural areas, has been established. Actively promoting the construction of a national credit bank for vocational education, it has opened 84,447,720 accounts for social members and 1+X-certificate(1 school certificate plus several professional skill certificates) training and assessment personnel, stored 106,700 1+X-certificate learning outcomes, and established 4,463 credit bank accounts for pilot institutions and training and assessment organizations and other organizations.

 

“Lifelong Learning Week for All” was launched. In 2016, the Opinions on Further Promoting the Development of Community Education was issued to integrate various educational resources and promote lifelong learning for all.

 

The National Open University has joined hands with five local open universities and relevant industries, colleges and training institutions to launch a pilot scheme for the certification, accumulation and conversion of learning outcomes in continuing education.

 

 

725 counties in 22 central and western provinces in concentrated areas hit hard by poverty have achieved full coverage of the life subsidy policy for teachers, benefiting some 1.3 million teachers working in more than 80,000 rural schools. In 2020, 2,056 counties in non-concentrated areas hit hard by poverty across the country have implemented the rural teacher life subsidy policy.

 

Coordinating teacher resources, strengthening teacher deployment, adopting a combination of student-teacher ratio and class-teacher ratio, implementing additional staffing, exploring mobile staffing, establishing a staffing turnover pool and other forms of supplementing teachers, and actively implementing unified standards for faculty and staff of elementary and high school in both urban and rural areas.

 

The "National Training program" has been implemented. Through the Mid-West program and the National Training program for Kindergarten Teachers have been implemented to provide professional training for primary, high school and kindergarten teachers in the Mid-West rural regions by means of top-up replacement, sending teachers to the countryside, online training, short-term intensified training, expert guidance and school-based training. From 2016 to 2020, a total of RMB 10.2 billion has been invested by the central financial transfer funds to train teachers and headmasters in the central and western regions, with a total of 8,226,000 people/time trained.

 

The exchange and rotation of headmasters and teachers in compulsory education schools within the county (district) area has gradually become normalized. Efforts were made to promote the "county (district) management and school employment" management reform of the compulsory education teaching force, and a total of 49 "county (district) management and school employment" management reform model districts were announced in two batches.

 

 

The full coverage of the financial aid system consisting of scholarships and national student loans, tuition fee loan repayment and other means has been improved. The central government has arranged a total of RMB 225.8 billion in subsidies for student financial aid from 2016 to 2020.

 

Mapping out the five categories of special hardship students, such as those from families with financial difficulties and students with disabilities, and issuing the Guidelines on the identification of students in families with financial difficulties. In the autumn semester of 2019, 1.249 million new students from economically disadvantaged families enrolled in colleges and universities through the "green channel". The special program for students from rural and poverty-ridden areas at key universities continued to be implemented, enrolling a total of nearly 520,000 students.

 

 

 

The Law on Public Libraries, the Law on the Provision of Public Cultural Services and the Law on the Promotion of the Movie Industry were formulated, and the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics was amended. The revised draft regulations on the protection and management of underwater cultural relics completed legislative review; the draft law on the promotion of cultural industries (draft for review) was submitted to the State Council; the Copyright Law was amended in 2020.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the central government arranged RMB 108.125 billion focusing on the construction of public cultural service system, supporting the implementation of the National Basic Public Cultural Services Guideline Standards (2015-2020) and local implementation standards for basic public cultural services. By 2020, there were 3,212 public libraries, 5,788 museums, 3,321 cultural centres, 32,825 township integrated cultural stations and 575,384 village-level cultural service centres, initially forming a network of public cultural facilities covering both urban and rural areas. Among them, 22 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in central and western China and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have built a total of 351,510 village-level comprehensive cultural centres, and a total of 1,847 counties (autonomous regions and municipalities) have built a general/branch library system for cultural centres and 1,690 counties (autonomous regions and municipalities) have built a general/branch library system for libraries, realizing the common sharing of public cultural resources within the county.

 

Radio and television were upgraded from village to household access, and the national combined population coverage of radio and television programs increased from 98.17% and 98.77% in 2015 to 99.38% and 99.59% in 2020 respectively.

 

From 2016 to 2020, the central government arranged RMB 1.58 billion per year to select and train cultural workers for border and impoverished areas, border ethnic-minority areas and former revolutionary areas.

 

From 2016 to 2020, the central government arranged subsidies totaling RMB 2.944 billion to purchase basic cultural service equipment for more than 113,000 village cultural activity rooms in impoverished areas, and equipped mobile stage vehicles for 916 county-level cultural centres in impoverished areas and 850 primary-level state-owned arts and cultural troupes in central and western regions.

 

The Thirteenth Five-Year Plan Cultural Tourism Enhancement Project has been implemented, with a total investment of over RMB 6 billion from the central budget to support the construction of production and broadcasting capacity of county-level radio and television broadcasters in impoverished areas, the second phase of radio and television broadcasting station infrastructure, the second phase of the East Wind Project for ethnic-minority press and publishing, and other press, publishing, broadcasting and film infrastructure. Since 2016, subsidies have been provided for the configuration of broadcasting equipment in 32,000 administrative villages in impoverished areas. Since 2018, support has been given to 442 deeply poverty-ridden counties to build emergency broadcasting platforms, improving transmission coverage networks and arranging emergency broadcasting terminals.

 

A national public culture cloud platform was built and local cultural clouds were promoted. The "Digital Library Promotion Project" was promoted, with services reaching 2,760 county-level libraries. The Public Digital Culture Project was implemented, and a total of 1,274 TB of digital resources were built for sharing nationwide.

 

In 2019, the "Qunxing Award" competition was launched, and 12,500 performances were held around the country, reaching an audience of 12.83 million people. The activities of local opera in villages have become increasingly institutionalized, normalized and popularized, supporting the distribution of about 78,000 opera-based performances to 13,000 towns and villages each year. In many places, modern digital technology is used to effectively match the cultural needs of citizens and provide them with "tailor-made" cultural services.

 

The Opinions on Further Promoting the Government's Efforts to Purchase Public Cultural Services from Social Forces were issued. Pilot projects on the social operation of public cultural facilities were carried out. 2020 saw the holding of a national procurement conference for public cultural and tourism products on the cloud and regional procurement conferences for public cultural and tourism products in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, the Guangdong, Hongkong and Macau Greater Bay Area and the Chengdu-Chongqing region.

 

Libraries, cultural museums (stations) and art galleries managed by cultural administrative agencies at all levels have been opened to the public for free. Since 2016, urban community cultural centres (street cultural stations) have been officially included in the scope of free opening subsidies. A total of 5,788 museums were recorded nationwide, with a free access ratio of 89.1%.

 

 

The Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of National Strategic Emerging Industries was released. The central government's cultural industry development special fund "Integrated Development of Cultural Creativity and Design Services and Related Industries" supports new cultural industries such as animation, games, online culture, digital equipment and digital art display, and supports the work of cultural heritage units in developing cultural and creative products.

 

Administrative approval matters were significantly reduced, intermediary services were comprehensively cleaned up and standardized, the "Internet + Government" was promoted and market access services were optimized. The scope of approval of the Internet Culture Operation License and other matters was adjusted, the conditions for approval were clarified and the market exit mechanism was further improved.

 

 

The Regulations on the Protection of Famous Historical and Cultural Cities, Towns and Villages were amended, and the Model Charter for Non-State Owned Museums and the Opinions on Further Promoting the Development of Non-State Owned Museums were issued. The inclusion of non-state museums in the national museum quality evaluation system was supported to participate in the national first-, second- and third-tier museum grading assessment and operational assessment. Collection filing was carried out to regulate the management of the collections of non-state museums, and training courses for curators of non-state museums were held.

 

From 2016 to 2020, RMB 1.053 billion of investment from the central budget was arranged to subsidise the construction of 140 national projects for the protection and utilization of intangible cultural heritage facilities. The intangible cultural heritage recording project was promoted, and records were carried out for 1,044 representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage. It has launched the implementation of the training and research program for the inheritors of China's intangible cultural heritage, supporting 121 participating institutions in the research and training program, holding more than 850 research and training sessions and training 33,000 participants, which, together with extended training in various regions, covered a total of more than 100,000 inheritors.

 

The China Traditional Craft Revitalization Program was implemented. Enterprises, universities and relevant units with strong design capabilities have set up 18 workstations in places where traditional craft projects are concentrated, forming a virtuous cycle of training, research and development and income generation.

 

The National Plan for the Protection of Ancient Books for the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan was published. Six batches of 13,026 national precious antiquities and 203 national key antiquities protection units were announced. The national census of ancient books completed over 2.7 million Chinese books. The publication of the Chinese Reproduction of Precious Books (continued version) was completed, including a total of 583 titles from the Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and ethnic minority antiquities. A total of 87 titles and 598 volumes were published in the Series of Basic Texts of Chinese Studies and 31 titles and 29 volumes in the Series of Historical Tales of Precious Chinese Texts.

 

 

The Nationwide Reading Project was comprehensively implemented and the institutional design was improved. The Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of Nationwide Reading was published and the Opinions on Promoting Nationwide Reading was issued. It has also implemented key publication plans and major publishing projects, and organized the selection and recommendation activities for the China Publishing Government Award and the China Good Book Award. It has also strengthened reading services, promoted the construction of infrastructure for nationwide reading, including public libraries, rural bookstores, community bookstores and physical bookstores, and launched a nationwide reading promotion campaign entitled "Books in China". The overall national reading rate rose from 79.9% in 2016 to 81.3%in 2020.

 

 

The universal telecommunications services, network speed enhancement and fee reduction actions were promoted continuously. In 2020, the family fixed broadband penetration rate and mobile broadband user penetration rate were 96% and 108% respectively, compared with 2015, the average network speed improved 7 times, the fee for fixed broadband and mobile internet down more than 95%. The proportion of administrative villages and poor villages connected to optical fibre and 4G rose to more than 98% nationwide. The world's largest fibre-optic network and 4G networks were built, with the proportion of 100 megabit broadband users, 4G users and fiber-optic users reaching 89.4%, 81% and 94% respectively. 5G commercialization was officially launched, with over 718,000 5G base stations completed and over 200 million 5G terminal connections. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the wide coverage and high capacity network infrastructure ensured smooth network access during the concentrated traffic outbreak.

 

Internet content construction project were implemented.  Major projects such as the Digital Publishing Excellence Selection Program and the National Audio Book Excellence Publishing Project were organized to support the digitalization of traditional publishing resources. Promoting activities for outstanding original works on the internet were carried out. Through the exemplary effect of outstanding works, online literature was guided to adhere to the orientation and continuous innovation, and continuously launch outstanding original works that are organically unified in terms of ideology, artistry and readability.

 

 

 

The Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, the Law on Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment and the Law on Marine Environmental Protection have been amended, and the Law on Prevention and Control of Soil Pollution, the Law on Nuclear Safety and the Law on Biological Safety have been enacted. Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law amended and improved the crime of polluting the environment, added crimes related to environmental pollution such as the crime of damaging nature reserves, and increased the punishment for direct and indirect pollution of the environment.

 

The application of new and clean energy in the water transport industry has been enhanced. By 2020, more than 7,500 shore power berths were built nationwide, with 75% coverage of shore power facilities for containers, cruisers, passenger roll-on/roll-off, passenger transport above 3,000 tons and specialized berths above 50,000 tons, and more than 290 inland LNG-powered vessels were built.

 

In 2020, the procuratorates nationwide filed more than 80,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection, up 20.9% comparing with 2019.

 

 

In 2020, the ratio of days with good air quality in cities above the prefecture level nationwide was 87%, the average density of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in such cities that have not yet met the required standards dropped by 28.8% compared to 2015, and the total emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitric oxides dropped by 22.5% and 19.7% respectively compared to 2015.

 

 

A total of 2,804 county-level nationwide completed pollution prevention and control in water-head areas, improving the level of environmental safety of drinking water involving 770 million residents. In 2020, the proportion of good water bodies (Grade I-III) in 1,940 national surface water assessment sections was 83.4%, the proportion of bodies of water at Grade V was 0.6%, and total chemical oxygen demand amount and total emission of ammonia nitrogen dropped by 13.8% and 15.0% respectively compared to 2015.

 

By 2020, the proportion of eliminating black and odorous bodies of water in cities at prefecture level and above (excluding zhou and meng) has reached 98.2%. All industrial parks at or above the provincial level have built centralized sewage treatment facilities.

 

Supervision was provided to prefecture-level administrative regions where there were problems of groundwater overdrawal and where the rate of groundwater level decline was large by means of meetings and others. Special rectification actions were carried out for the management of water extraction nationwide to regulate groundwater extraction and use in accordance with the law and promote the reasonable development and use of groundwater resources. Full use was made of the water transfer from the South-North Water Transfer East-China Line Project to replace groundwater extraction in urban areas in the receiving areas.

 

 

The Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan was implemented. More than 200 pilot programs for the application of soil-pollution control and remedy technology have been completed. The construction of six pilot areas of soil-pollution prevention and control has achieved remarkable results. The goals of safe utilization of about 90% of the polluted farmland and more than 90% of the polluted land have been achieved.

 

 

A special program for hazardous waste pollution control was carried out to enhance the capacity of hazardous waste environmental supervision, utilization and disposal and environmental risk prevention. The safe disposal of medical waste nationwide was guaranteed during the COVID-19 pandemic. A full-caliber survey of enterprises in key industries involving heavy metals was carried out, and the implementation of heavy metal emission reduction projects was promoted, with key industries and key heavy metal pollutants falling by 10%. Operating nuclear power units have maintained good safety performance, with no incidents or accidents of International Nuclear Event Scale 2 or above, and the quality of the surrounding radiation environment has always been at a normal level. 100% of radioactive sources and radiation devices were included in the licensing management, 100% of used radioactive materials were safely stored, no major or above radiation accidents occurred, and the annual incidence of radiation accidents with radioactive materials was kept below 1 per 10,000 units.

 

Capacity building for environmental and health risk assessment of toxic and hazardous chemical substances needs to be further improved.

 

 

The Measures for the Control of Sea Reclamation and the Circular of the State Council on Strengthening the Protection of Coastal Wetlands and Strictly Controlling Sea Reclamation were formulated. Local annual planning targets for sea reclamation were abolished and the authority to approve new sea reclamation for major national projects was all transferred to the State Council. The scale of sea use for new land reclamation projects was controlled to the maximum extent possible, and ecological protection and restoration were strengthened at the same time, with restoration taking place while construction was underway. A comprehensive management campaign for the Bohai Sea have been launched, implemented the "Blue Bay" remediation campaign, and strengthened the protection and restoration of the coastal zone.

 

The Measures for the Management of Coastline Protection and Utilization were adopted, establishing a control system for the retention rate of the natural shoreline and decomposing the control targets to the coastal provinces. Preliminary statistics show that the national natural shoreline retention rate is in line with the 35% control target.

 

126,885 tons of solid waste, 332,287 cu m of rubbish and 426 illegal farms on coastal beaches have been cleaned up; the investigation and rectification of outfalls into the sea has been carried out for the retrospective rectification of 18,886 outfalls into the sea in the Bohai Sea area; the Grade-V level bodies of water in 195 rivers into the sea included in the assessment nationwide were basically eliminated; the average proportion of good (level 1 and 2) water quality in near-shore waters nationwide in 2020 was 77.4%, exceeding the target value of about 70%. 77.4%, exceeding the target of about 70% in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan by 7.4%, with an overall trend of improvement; 25.3 km of coastline and 168 km of rivers were rehabilitated; 134.36 million tails of fish were reproduced and released.

 

Several Opinions on Establishing a Long-term Mechanism for Monitoring and Early-Warning of the Carrying Capacity of the Resources and Environment was issued to improve the level of monitoring and early-warning by adhering to land and sea integration for different types of resource and environmental overload.

 

The National Plan for Sustainable Agricultural Development (2015-2030) has been implemented, efforts to protect the ecology of fisheries have been increased, and fishing intensity has been strictly controlled.

 

 

During the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan period, energy consumption per unit of GDP fell by a cumulative 13.2%. Water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP fell by 23.7% in 2019 compared to 2015. Non-fossil energy resources already accounted for 15.3% of primary energy consumption in 2019. Between 2016 and 2020, cumulative carbon dioxide emission per unit of GDP decreased by 18.8%.

 

 

The assessment and adjustment of delimiting the “red line” for ecological conservation nationwide has been basically completed.

 

The Opinions on the Establishment of a Territorial Spatial Planning System and Supervision of Implementation, Negative Market Access List (2019 Version) and Measures for the Preparation and Implementation of the Negative List of Industries that are not Allowed in Key Eco-Function Zones have been issued, and the "Three Fixed" program has been formulated.

 

A total of 545 million mu of forestation has been completed, with the forest coverage increasing to 23.04% and the forest stock exceeding 17.5 billion cu m, maintaining "double growth" for 30 consecutive years. A special campaign was launched to protect and restore mangrove forests, adding more than 3 million mu of wetlands, with the wetland protection rate reaching over 50%. The number of nature reserves nationwide increased by more than 700 and their area by more than 25 million hectares, reaching a total of nearly 10,000 sites. A total of 180 million mu of sandy and rock-deserted land was treated, and a new 306,000 sq km of comprehensive soil erosion control was added. The number of sandstorms and dust storms has been significantly reduced, and the number of sandstorms and dust storms in the north has been reduced by nearly 30% compared to the 12th Five-Year Plan period. A total of 194 national forest cities have been built.

 

The Program for Further Strengthening the Prevention and Control of Invasive Alien Species and the Master Plan for the National Major Project for the Protection and Restoration of Important Ecosystems (2021-2035) have been prepared to make overall plans for the prevention and control of invasive alien species.

 

 

The networking of environmental protection reports was promoted, 2.627 million environmental pollution issues were accepted and handled through the networking platform, with a 100% completion rate on schedule.

 

The Regulations on the Work of Central Ecological Environmental Protection Inspectors and the Guidance on the Pilot Reform of the Vertical Management System for Monitoring, Supervision and Law Enforcement of Sub-Provincial Environmental Protection Agencies were issued to improve the institutional mechanism for environmental monitoring and regulate the work of ecological environmental protection inspectors. In July 2019, the second round of inspections was launched, and by 2020, nine provinces (municipalities), four enterprises directly under central government and two departments were inspected in two batches. More than 208,000 reports from the public were received and referred by the inspectors, and more than 176,000 ecological and environmental problems around the public were promoted to solution. Since 2018, a warning film on the ecological environment of the Yangtze River Economic Zone has been produced for three consecutive years. As of 2020, the 484 problems disclosed in the warning film have been rectified and 309 completed.

 

The Pilot Program for Setting up Environmental Supervision and Administrative Law Enforcement Agencies by River Basin and the Pilot Program for Setting up Cross-Regional Environmental Protection Agencies were issued, and the Leading Group for Air Pollution Prevention and Control in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Surrounding Regions was established. In conjunction with institutional reform,  the Yangtze River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Haihe River, Pearl River, Songliao River and Taihu Lake Basin Ecological and Environmental Supervision Administration were set up, and  adding the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Surrounding Areas Atmospheric Environment Administration to the Department of Atmospheric Environment of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to achieve unified planning, unified standards, unified EIA, unified monitoring and unified enforcement of ecological environmental protection in regional basins.

 

The research on legislation on environmental credit evaluation was carried out to standardize the basis for evaluation, evaluation criteria, grading and application of results. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment's Action Plan for Special Treatment of Outstanding Issues of Credit Deficiency was issued, the special inspections of the quality of environmental impact assessment documents was carried out, a star rating system for third-party monitoring agencies and other treatment work was established. The technical specifications such as the Environmental Credit Information Sharing Catalogue was formulated, building environmental credit data management systems and other systems, establishing a sub-portal for environmental credit sharing, and upgrading information sharing and exchange with the national credit information sharing platform. Hebei, Henan and Fujian were guided to apply environmental credit evaluation results to green credit, listing and financing, enterprise tax rebates, honorary title evaluation, scientific research project applications and other areas.

 

The Reform Plan for the Ecological and Environmental Damage Compensation System was issued, the Opinions on Some Specific Issues on Promoting the Reform of the Ecological and Environmental Damage Compensation System was introduced, 6 technical standards for ecological and environmental damage appraisal and assessment were issued, and a system of ecological and environmental damage compensation with clear responsibilities, smooth channels, technical specifications, strong safeguards, compensation in place and effective restoration was initially constructed, providing a new legal framework for the comprehensive protection of public environmental rights and interests. By 2020, more than 4,300 compensation cases had been handled nationwide, involving a compensation amount of over RMB 7.8 billion. The milestone targets have been fully achieved.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government continued to increase its efforts to protect people’s civil and political rights, advanced law-based governance and judicial impartiality, and effectively safeguard people's religious beliefs, freedom of information, participation, expression and supervision. The building of socialist democracy and the rule of law has been carried out in an orderly manner, and the position of the people as masters of their own has been further consolidated and enhanced. In terms of the protection of civil and political rights, the protection of citizens' personal freedom in accordance with the law, the improvement of the protection of lawyers' rights to practice law, the improvement of the speedy processing mechanism for minor criminal cases and the speedy adjudication procedure for criminal cases, the improvement of the legal system for religious affairs, the improvement of the level of information and centralization of government affairs, the promotion of the disclosure of information on law enforcement and justice, and the protection of the right to information and democratic participation of employees in enterprises and institutions, have seen marked progress. At the same time, there is still room for further improvement in the full implementation of the principle of adjudication of evidence.

 

 

 

In 2019, the Decision on the Abolition of the Legal Provisions and System of Internment Education was adopted, whereby internment education measures are no longer applied to prostitution. Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law amended the institutionalization of minors under the legal age of non-criminal punishment to specialized correctional education. The Community Corrections Law came into effect on 1 July 2020. As of 2020, more than 1.2 million community correction subjects were listed throughout the year, with a reoffending rate of less than 0.2% during the correction period, and the vast majority of community correction subjects returned to society normally after correction.

 

 

The Ministry of Public Security has promulgated a special document to clarify the requirements for archiving of the entire law-enforcement process, fully equipping police with various types of law enforcement recording equipment to comprehensively record all aspects of law enforcement and case handling, including the registration of reported cases, on-site law enforcement, the use and management of premises, the investigation and collection of evidence in cases, the management of property involved in cases and the issuance of legal documents, to create a chain of archiving the entire law-enforcement process. The relevant system was further improved to monitor the practice of coercive administrative measures involving rights of the person.

 

 

The Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Strict Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in the Handling of Criminal Cases and the Regulations on the Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in the Handling of Criminal Cases by the People's Courts (for Trial Implementation) were formulated. 

 

The Opinions on Certain Issues Concerning the Verification of the Legality of Interrogation before the End of Investigation of Major Cases was issued. 

 

The Technical Specification for the Implementation of Synchronous Video and Audio Recording of the Interrogation of Suspects of Official Offenses by People's Procuratorates was issued, and the Rules of Criminal Procedure for People's Procuratorates were revised. Public security organs at all levels nationwide have now generally implemented video and audio recording of the entire interrogation process in major crime cases.

 

 

The Rules of Criminal Procedure of the People's Procuratorate have been amended to stipulate that "the hearing of the defence shall be recorded or transcribed, and the written opinions of the defence shall be attached to the file" and that "in handling cases for examination and prosecution, the defence or the on-duty lawyer, the victims and their legal representatives shall be heard, and the written opinion shall be attached to the file. If written opinions are presented, they shall be attached to the file. If a defense lawyer makes multiple submissions during the arrest or prosecution stage, the submissions shall be recorded""If a defense lawyer makes a written submission that the suspect does not constitute a crime, is not socially dangerous, is unsuitable for detention or the police allegedly has committed a crime during investigation, the procurator shall review it and state in the relevant working documents whether it is adopted and the reasons therefore".

 

 

The building of an information-sharing platform between the procuratorate and other judicial organs was strengthened, and the channels of supervision sources were made more open. A number of procuratorates across the country have formulated working details or implementation rules for the supervision of the implementation of residential surveillance at designated places. Roving procuratorial supervision has been introduced, and various forms of correction have been proposed in accordance with the law in cases where the law has been violated.

 

 

The Ministry of Public Security has promoted the reform of the systems of acceptance and hearing of case and established a sound system of source control with clear deadlines, system connection and inspection and return visits as the main elements.

 

Appraisal of law enforcement effectiveness has been made an important part of the performance appraisal, and unreasonable case-handling assessment indicators and various unnecessary rankings have been notified. The assessment and evaluation of key aspects of law enforcement, law enforcement capability, law enforcement safety and social evaluation have been strengthened.

 

Strictly implementing the system of lifelong responsibility for the quality of cases and accountability for the responsibility of mistakes in law-enforcement, the investigation of law enforcement quality is not affected by the transfer, departure or retirement of case officers.

 

Public security organs at all levels have strictly implemented the Ministry of Public Security's "four requirements" (after being brought to the public security organs, all suspects shall be brought directly into the case area, all suspects shall be checked first, all suspects shall be guarded, and all suspects shall be under video surveillance and recording). Law enforcement case management centres nationwide have generally achieved "zero accidents" in law enforcement safety.

 

The public security organs generally applied the unified provincial law enforcement case handling information system. The IT application in law enforcement case-handling was deepened, and automatic warning and process control functions were generally strengthened, so that problems such as overdue coercive measures and unprocedural collection of evidence could be detected and corrected in a timely manner.

 

 

The Supervision Law was promulgated, the Measures on the Interface between the State Supervision Commission and the Supreme People's Procuratorate in Handling Cases of Functional Offenses were implemented, and the Provisions on Certain Issues Concerning the Investigation of Judicial Staff-related Functional Offenses by People's Procuratorates were issued, stepping up efforts to investigate and punish functional offenses. 1,421 cases of judicial staff-related functional offenses were investigated by procuratorates nationwide in 2020.

 

 

 

In 2017, comments on the Detention Centre Law (Draft for Public Consultation) were publicly solicited from the society, and the Ministry of Public Security submitted to the State Council the Opinions on the Treatment of the Public's Suggestions for Amendments to the Detention Centre Law (Draft for Public Consultation), and the Detention Centre Law is now in the legislative review process.

 

 

The Rules of Criminal Procedure for People's Procuratorates have been amended to improve the procedure for reviewing the necessity of criminal custody. In cases such as those suffering from mental illness or acute infectious diseases, those with illnesses listed in the "Scope of Serious Diseases for Medical Treatment on Parole", those whose lives may be in danger while in custody or who are unable to take care of themselves, and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, the authorities in charge of the case shall be promptly notified to review them. 34,324 cases of review of the necessity of criminal custody were accepted during the investigation and trial stages in 2020. After review, 24,198 proposals were made to the relevant units to change compulsory measures or release the detainee.

 

 

The Regulations on the Prevention and Correction of Overdue Custody and Prolonged Detention of Suspects without Concluding the Case in the Criminal Enforcement Departments of the People's Procuratorates (for Trial Implementation) were strictly enforced. The procuratorates have been working on a regular basis to clean up and correct cases of prolonged detention, effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of detainees. 367 persons who had been detained for more than five years in the investigation and trial process were verified on a case-by-case basis in 2019, and 189 persons have been corrected in accordance with the law.

 

 

Roving procuratorate has been set up for the supervision activities in places of custody, a telephone and mailbox for reporting on the activities of supervision and law enforcement in places of custody, and has followed up and supervised the key cases found. Since the strict implementation of “one reply for one petition letter and visit” system, 2,293 complaints and representations have been received from detainees and their close relatives, of which 2,238 have been replied, ensuring that detainees receive appropriate relief in accordance with the law.

 

Measures were taken to combine special activities with daily inspections, and to combine stationed inspections with roving inspections. Violations of the law in prisons and detention centres and other supervisory activities were supervised and corrected, with a correction rate of 98.6%.

 

The detention centre has strengthened the publicity, study and training on the supervision and regulation system, and has adopted field supervision and inspection, stationed assistance and three-tier online video inspection to supervise the implementation of the system. A system of appointments for detainees to meet with the resident prosecutors was introduced, and mailbox to procuratorate was set up for detainees to facilitate complaints, reports and accusations.

 

 

Promoting the building of compulsory medical clinics and cooperation with social medical institutions has improved the standard of medical treatment. Rehabilitation of persons under compulsory medical treatment was carried out in strict accordance with the law. The procuratorate supervised the delivery and execution activities of the courts and public security organs and the admission, medical treatment, supervision and discharge of compulsory medical institutions in accordance with the law, and proposed corrections to the relevant units where violations were found in accordance with the law. 1,724 cases of illegal situations in the execution of compulsory medical treatment were supervised and corrected from 2016 to 2020.

 

 

The diagnostic assessment of drug addicts was improved, and the daily behavioral performance of drug addicts was directly linked to the early termination or extension of the terms of compulsory isolation from drug addiction. From 2016 to 2020, a total of 1.327 million drug addicts were ordered by law to undergo compulsory isolation from drug addiction and 448,129 were released early from compulsory isolation. Specialised medical institutions have been set up in compulsory isolation and drug rehabilitation centres. Around the education and rehabilitation of drug addicts, social professionals were invited to assist in the psychological correction of drug addicts.

 

The compulsory isolation from drug addiction centres have launched an open door campaign to the community. Different initiatives were taken such as informing drug addicts of their rights in a variety of ways and increasing the number of video meetings and online appointments for visitation meetings. Specialized compulsory isolation from drug addiction treatment facilities or special brigades were set up for women and minors to ensure that minor drug addicts completed the nine-year compulsory education program on the premises.

 

An integrated drug rehabilitation treatment mode consisting of medical treatment, psychological correction, help and assistance, and employment support has been adopted to provide vocational skills training and employment support for drug addicts.

 

 

 

The highest standards for the application of the death penalty were strictly observed, and maximum leniency was shown for those with statutory or discretionary mitigating circumstances such as surrender and significant merit; judicial standards of adjudication were unified, and guidelines were formulated to refine the standards for the application of the law and rules of procedure in death penalty cases.

 

Several Provisions on Safeguarding the Lawful Rights and Interests of Parties in the Death Penalty Checking, Verification and Execution Procedures were formulated.

 

The supervision cases for death penalty checking and verification have been handled in strict accordance with the law. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court have established a joint meeting mechanism to strengthen guidance on the handling of the supervision cases for death penalty checking and verification, compile and distribute typical cases, and hold at least one nationwide training course on supervision for death penalty checking and verification work every year.

 

 

A system has been established to prevent leader s and insiders from interfering in cases by recording, informing and holding them accountable, a special database and direct reporting system for information on interfering in cases by internal and external personnel, a monthly report and a "zero report" system for interfering in cases, and a protection and incentive mechanism for case officers to record irregularities in interfering in cases also established.

 

The Opinions on Implementing the Judicial Accountability System and Perfecting the Trial Supervision and Management Mechanism (for trial implementation), the Implementation Opinions on Furthering the Comprehensive Implementation of the Judicial Accountability System, and the Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Comprehensive Supporting Reform of the Judicial Accountability System were issued, making it clear that judges are responsible for the quality of the cases they handle for life within the scope of their duties.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the Supreme People's Court issued 129 judicial interpretations and 89 guiding cases. The Supreme People's Procuratorate issued 18 batches of a total of 70 guiding cases. In order to implement the Decision of the Central Committee of the China Communist Party on Several Major Issues in Comprehensively Promoting the Rule of Law and the Organization Law of the People's Procuratorates of the People's Republic of China, the Regulations of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Case Guidance Work were revised in 2019.

 

 

The Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Trial-centred Criminal Procedure System and the Implementation Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Reform of the Trial-centred Criminal Procedure System were issued. To promote the substantiation of court trials, mechanisms such as the appearance of investigators, experts and witnesses to testify in court were improved. The Shanghai and Guizhou High Courts formulated guidelines on the standard of evidence for common crimes to improve the quality of handling criminal cases.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the people's courts of all levels acquitted 5,479 defendants in accordance with the law. The procuratorates of all levels have carried out a special clean-up campaign of "pending cases" in criminal proceedings involving private enterprises. 2,870 cases were identified in 2019 and 2,423 cases have been supervised and concluded, and a new round of "pending cases" clean-up campaign is currently being carried out.

 

The Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Trial-Centred Criminal Procedure System, the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Strict Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in Handling Criminal Cases, and the revision of the Rules of Criminal Procedure of the People's Procuratorates were issued to clarify the scope of the exclusion of illegal evidence, verification of the legality of interrogation at the end of investigation in major cases, and relief for handling the legality of evidence taken in the first instance.

 

 

The Provisions on the Effective Protection of Lawyers' Rights in Litigation in accordance with the Law were strictly implemented, and lawyers' rights to practice such as the right to know, the right to review files and the right to appear in court were safeguarded in accordance with the law. The Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Lawyer System, the Notice on Establishing and Improving the Rapid Coordinated Disposal Mechanism for Safeguarding Lawyers' Practice Rights, the Notice on Safeguarding Lawyers' Litigation Rights and Regulating Lawyers' Participation in Court Activities in accordance with the Law, and the Opinions on Providing Lawyers with One-Stop Litigation Services were issued, improving the mechanism for safeguarding lawyers' practice, facilitating lawyers' participation in litigation and the mechanism for relief of practice rights.

 

Special inspections were carried out to strengthen the protection of lawyers' rights to practice in investigation, review and arrest, review and prosecution, litigation supervision, case management, complaints and appeals, and other aspects of prosecution.

 

The Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of the People's Courts - Outline of the Fourth Five-Year Reform of the People's Courts (2014-2018) was implemented, strengthening the mechanism for judicial protection of human rights and explicitly prohibiting discriminatory security checks on lawyers.

 

 

The Measures for Launching Pilot Work on Full Coverage of Lawyers' Defence in Criminal Cases was formulated. A duty lawyer system was improved to support duty lawyers in providing a variety of legal assistance to criminal suspects and defendants, and it was made clear that the authorities handling the cases should facilitate the duty lawyers in performing their duties. Since 2018, the total number of legal aid cases defended by lawyers carrying out the expanded pilot reached more than 590,000, and the number of cases in which duty lawyers provided legal assistance reached more than 480,000.

 

 

The pilot practice of leniency to those who confess their crimes and submit to punishment was launched in 2016, and as of September 2017, 251 pilot courts had concluded 69,000 such cases involving 78,000 people, accounting for 42.7% of all criminal cases in the same period. 2018 saw the incorporation of the practice of leniency to those who confess their crimes and submit to punishment and expedited procedures into the Criminal Procedure Law. The Guidance on the Application of the Practice of Leniency to those who Confess their Crimes and Submit to Punishment was issued in 2019. In 2020, procuratorates nationwide applied the leniency practice to 1,550,451 people to conclude cases, accounting for 86.8% of the number of cases concluded in the same period for review and prosecution, an increase of 37.5% year-on-year.

 

 

In 2017, the Guidance on Sentencing for Common Crimes (II) (for trial implementation) was issued, adding sentencing norms relating to eight common crimes, including dangerous driving offenses. The Opinions on Certain Issues Relating to the Regulation of Sentencing Procedures was issued to ensure that sentencing is open and impartial.

 

 

The Supreme People's Court amended the Rules of the People's Court in 2016 to explicitly require criminal defendants or appellants in custody to appear in court for trial wearing formal or casual attire and not wearing clothing that bear the logo of their organs of custody. 

 

 

The Criminal Procedure Law was amended to clarify the scope of application, specific procedures, trial period and procedural transformation of the fast-track trial procedure. The Rules of Criminal Procedure of the People's Procuratorates were amended to provide detailed provisions on how the fast-track trial procedure is to be applied. 224,996 cases, or 25.6% of the cases tried under the leniency system to those who confess their crimes and submit to punishment were subject to the fast-track trial procedure in 2020.

 

 

The Opinions on Regulating the Work of Judicial Assistance to Petition Letters and Visits in Relation to Lawsuits(for Trial Implementation) and the Opinions on Strengthening and Regulating the Work of Judicial Assistance in the People's Courts were issued, and judicial assistance committees were established to promote the interface between judicial assistance and social assistance and legal aid. 205,600 cases of judicial assistance were handled by courts nationwide from 2016 to 2020, of which 37,852 cases were handled in 2020, with 44,350 people receiving assistance and a total of RMB 910 million put into the assistance.

 

 

 

The Regulations on Religious Affairs were amended in 2017 and came into effect on 1 February 2018. The corresponding supporting measures have been improved and the conduct of the government in managing religious affairs in accordance with the law has been promoted.

 

 

The Regulations of the Chinese Christian Churches were revised and the Code of Conduct for Chinese Christian Pastors and other rules and regulations were formulated.

 

Religious texts were translated and published in a variety of languages, with 1.76 million copies of the Qur'an and the Bukhari Hadith in Chinese, Uighur, Kazakh and Kirgiz alone. The Islamic community deepened its work on the interpretation of the scriptures and prepared and published model sermons such as the New Collection of Wolz Speeches. The Islamic Society's website and WeChat account continued to grow in influence.

 

The Buddhist community edited and published publications such as The Voice of Dharma, conducted sutra exchanges and various Dharma activities, and held 69 preceptorship pujas. A new campus of the China Buddhist Academy, a sermon exchange base of the China Buddhist Association and a research base for the study of humanistic Buddhist thought were built.  Buddhist cultural and artistic exhibitions were organized and  training in the conservation of ancient texts was conducted.

 

The Islamic community in China raised over 100 million yuan to carry out charitable activities such as helping the needy, donating to schools, and serving the elderly. The National Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China and the China Christian Council donated more than 25 million yuan in donations. The Chinese Buddhist community participated in poverty alleviation and carried out a number of social welfare charities.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, 12 religious institutes were approved in accordance with the law nationwide, bringing the total number to 95, including 44 Buddhist, 11 Taoist, 10 Islamic, 9 Catholic and 21 Christian, with more than 20,000 full-time students in religious colleges. A total of more than 50,000 religious professionals were trained.

 

Xinjiang has now built 10 Islamic colleges and universities, including the Xinjiang Islamic Scripture College and the Xinjiang Islamic Scripture School, and has expanded the scale of enrolment and started to enroll in postgraduate courses, training a new generation of religious professionals of nearly 1,000 people every year.

 

There are Buddhist associations in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibet’s seven other localities. A total of eight Tibetan language Buddhist colleges are planned to be built across the country, with 1,950 students enrolled. Seven have already been put into operation, with a total investment of RMB 920 million. Tibetan Buddhism has established a three-tier system of academic ranks, with 273 students being awarded the senior rank of "Tuoranpa".

 

The Taoist community has carried out research on contemporary Taoist doctrinal thinking, compiled and codified the Chinese Continuing Taoist Collection project, organized Xuanmen lecture activities, etc., trained a number of outstanding young and middle-aged Taoist talents, explored the construction of special talent training bases, and conducted rotational training for existing religious professionals to improve their overall quality.

 

The Christian community raised the level of its theological institutions and organized numerous training courses for in-service religious professionals, including a training course for bilingual preachers from ethnic minority churches.

 

 

The legitimate rights of religious communities were safeguarded in accordance with the law, the fake Taoist priests were cleaned up and cracked down, and such acts as enrichment in the name of Buddhism were punished in accordance with the law.

 

 

The Measures for the Administration of Islamic Hajj Affairs was implemented to support the annual Hajj pilgrimage for Chinese Muslims organized by the Islamic Association of China, and providing support and assistance in the areas of document processing, medical examination and inoculation, transportation, entry and exit, epidemic prevention and control, and medical services for Hajj pilgrims.

 

 

The World Buddhist Forum, the International Taoist Forum and the International Symposium on Middle Way Thought in Islam were held, and hosting a number of meetings of international religious organizations such as the World Council of Churches. The Three-Self Patriotic Movement of China (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC) received 233 visiting groups from abroad and sent out 72 visiting groups abroad. Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and Bishops Conference Of Catholic Church in China sent members to participate in international conferences such as the "World Conference of Bishops" and the "Joint Conference of Asian Bishops", and organized delegations to Germany, Italy, Korea and the United States.

 

 

 

The Pilot program for the Preparation of Departmental Lists of Powers and Responsibilities under the State Council was implemented, and launching pilot work on the preparation of lists of powers and responsibilities in seven departments. A column on the list of government powers and responsibilities was opened on the Chinese government website, providing comprehensive coverage of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

 

 

The requirements for the full implementation of a public disclosure system for administrative law enforcement in the Outline for the Implementation of the Rule of Law Government (2015-2020) has been implemented, with pilot work being carried out in 32 localities and departments in 2017 and full implementation nationwide starting in 2019.

 

The national government services platform has been built, and it connects 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and 46 ministries and administrations under the State Council. It has provided 3.6 million items of service and more than 1,000 high-frequency services to be provided through "one network". During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the "health code" was mutually recognized across provinces, with a total of 50 billion visits. Innovative applications of citizen-friendly services were continuously offered in various regions, with a number of services realized through "no meeting for approval", "one-stop processing", "one-pass processing" and "one-day completion ".

 

The Ministry of Emergency Management's Emergency Response Workbook for Particularly Major Disasters (Press and Publicity Protection Sub-book) was formulated, as well as the Preliminary Plan for Press Releases on Particularly Major Disasters. The system-wide information resources were coordinated and a rapid reporting mechanism was established.

 

 

Four major public platforms for trial processes, court activities, adjudication documents and execution information have been fully completed and in operation. By 2020, about 10 million court hearings were broadcasted live on the China Open Court website, with about 34 billion views; more than 100 million documents were made public on the China Judgment Documents website, with browsers covering more than 210 countries and regions.

 

The Regulations on the Disclosure of Case Information of People's Procuratorates (for Trial Implementation) have been implemented, and by 2020, the People's Procuratorate's Case Information Disclosure Website had extracted procedural information on more than 13.75 million cases, released information on more than 1.03 million important cases, and accepted more than 500,000 online appointments for defence and representation. The national portal coverage rate of the four levels of procuratorates exceeded 95.2%, and the total number of new media accounts exceeded 11,000.

 

The Regulations on Public Security Organs' Law Enforcement Disclosure were revised to strictly enforce the requirement that the basis and process of law enforcement be open to the whole society. As of August 2020, 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) had established a unified public platform for law enforcement, and 22 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) had achieved online disclosure of administrative penalty decision instruments.

 

The Opinions on Further Deepening the Disclosure of Prison Affairs has been implemented, innovating the use of new media and new means to disclose to the public, 22 items of the results of sentence reduction, parole and provisional release from prison, and 10 additional items of graded treatment, assessment, rewards and punishments for close relatives of offenders were made public to society.

 

 

The provisions of the Legislative Law on making draft laws and their amendments available to the public for comments and the Code of Practice on the Publication of Draft Laws to the Public for Comments have been implemented. Since 2018, more than 90 draft laws have been made available to the public for comments, with more than 930,000 members of the public participating and more than 2.6 million comments and suggestions made.

 

The CPPCC organized CPPCC members, democratic parties, the Federation of Industry and Commerce, people without party affiliation, people's groups and social organizations to put forward proposals for the formulation and amendment of more than 30 laws and regulations, including the National Anthem Law, the Supervision Law and the Regulations on the Protection of Minors on the Internet.

 

The draft Civil Code (including the draft General Provisions of the Civil Code and the draft sub-particles) has been publicly consulted on the website of the National People's Congress of China for 14 times, with a total of 425,762 people making 102,834 comments.

 

 

The People's JurorsLaw was enacted and the Measures for the Selection of People's Jurors and the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the People's Jurors Law of the People's Republic of China were issued. A pilot reform of the people's juror system was implemented in 50 courts, and the total number of people's jurors in the pilot courts reached 13,740, 9,220 more than before the reform, with people's jurors participating in 77.4% of first instance ordinary procedural cases. By 2020, the number of newly elected people's jurors nationwide exceeded 240,000, bringing the number of people's jurors to over 330,000 nationwide.

 

 

The Regulations of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the Work of Specially-invited Procurators were formulated, specifying the conditions and procedures for the appointment of specially-invited procurators, and requiring that specially-invited procurators be provided with guarantees for the performance of their duties, such as notification of their work, invitations to attend meetings and organization of training.

 

 

The Measures for the Administration of the Selection and Appointment of People's Supervisors and the Provisions on the Acceptance of Supervision by People's Supervisors in the Case Handling Activities of People's Procuratorates were formulated to clarify 10 types of situations in which people's supervisors can exercise supervision in accordance with the law. In 2020, the national procuratorates invited 49,990 people's supervisors to supervise the activities of procuratorates in handling cases on 27,796 occasions.

 

 

The Regulations on Hearing of People's Procuratorates in Reviewing Cases were formulated. As of 2020, 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have achieved full coverage of procuratorial hearings at all three levels in the past three years; 6,719 public hearings on petition letters and visits were conducted, with 96.2% of cases in which the parties agreed with the procuratorates' opinions after the public hearings, and 61.6% of cases in which the parties clearly indicated that they would withdraw their complaints and petitions.

 

The Opinions on the Comprehensive Implementation of Lawyers' Participation in the Petition Letters and Visits were issued to guide the establishment of a mechanism for lawyers' participation in the petition letters and visits in all regions.

 

The People's Court mediation platform was fully applied, with 33,000 mediation organizations and 165,000 mediators stationed on the platform. Since 2018, the number of successful pre-litigation mediation civil cases has increased year-on-year to 568,000, 1,455,000 and 4,240,000 respectively, including an increase of 191% in 2020 comparing with previous year.

 

 

By 2020, urban communities have generally formulated citizens' codes of conduct or self-governance charters, village regulations and folk conventions and villagers' self-governance charters have achieved full coverage.

 

 

The central government has set up projects to support the participation of social organizations in social services, and as of 2020, the projects have allocated a total of about RMB 1.54 billion, driving matching funds of about 1.084 billion RMB, establishing 3,428 projects and directly benefiting more than 13 million people. According to incomplete statistics, from 2018 to 2020, more than 900,000 social organizations nationwide have participated in the fight against poverty, with RMB 124.518 billion invested in various types of funding and 90,124 projects implemented. The number of social work professional positions has increased by 143% compared to the end of 2015, the number of social work service organizations has increased by 179% and social work industry associations have increased by 153%.

 

The Regulations on Voluntary Service were formulated, the Measures for Issuing Voluntary Service Records and Certificates (for trial implementation) were issued, the Opinions on Supporting and Developing Voluntary Service Organizations were issued, and the National Standard for Basic Norms for Voluntary Service Organizations was under study and compilation. By 2020, there were more than 14,000 marked voluntary service organizations nationwide.

 

By 2020, 728 national trade associations and chambers of commerce and 67,491 local trade associations and chambers of commerce have basically completed the separation reform, with completion rates of 92% and 96% respectively.

 

More than 400 central and local supporting laws, regulations and normative documents have been issued in the charity sector. By the end of September 2020, 8,076 charity organizations (1,961 with public fund-raising qualifications) had been registered and recognized nationwide.

 

The dual registration and management system was reformed, and direct registration of four types of social organizations was promoted. The Guidance on Supporting the Cultivation and Development of Social Organizations through Government Buying Services was issued to promote various types of social organizations to actively undertake government transfer of functions and services buying.

 

 

The Organic Law on Urban Residents' Committees and the Organic Law on Villagers' Committees were amended to change the term of office of neighborhood committees and village committees from three years to five years. Nationwide, the renewal of village (neighborhood) committees has achieved a unified term, unified deployment, and unified guidance and unified implementation, and urban and rural residents have elected nearly 2.8 million members of village (neighborhood) committees in accordance with the law. Flexible and diverse deliberative and consultative activities were generally carried out in various places in the form of village (residents) councils, village (residents) councils and village (residents) hearings. The system of village (neighbourhood) people's meetings and village (neighbourhood) people's representative meetings has been gradually improved, and the channels for urban and rural residents to participate in democratic decision-making have been further broadened. The village regulations and folk conventions and the citizens' code of conduct have achieved full coverage, and urban and rural residents have become more disciplined in their self-restraint. Village (neighbourhood) affairs supervisory committees have been fully established, village (neighbourhood) affairs openness has continued to deepen, with 95% of villages achieving openness in village affairs and urban communities generally promoting openness in neighbourhood affairs; democratic appraisal and economic responsibility audits have been widely carried out, with approximately 1.7 million village officials reporting on their duties and integrity each year, and over 230,000 village officials undergoing economic responsibility audits; villagers have democratically appraised village officials nearly 2.09 million times.

 

 

As of September 2019, 4.193 million enterprises and institutions with established trade unions nationwide had established a system of employee’s congress, covering 217 million employees; 4.071 million enterprises and institutions with established trade unions had established a system of open factory affairs, covering 211 million employees.

 

 

 

In 2020, the mobile phone penetration rate is 93.5 units per 100 people and the number of websites is 4.43 million. The scale of Internet users grew from 688 million at the end of 2015 to 989 million at the end of 2020, and the Internet penetration rate increased from 50.3% to 70.4%. By 2020, the proportion of poor villages connected to fibre optics increased from less than 70% before the universal telecommunications service pilot to 98%, and the proportion of poor villages in deeply impoverished areas connected to broadband increased from 25% to 98%. Adequate platform protection for citizens' freedom of expression on the Internet was provided.

 

The Regulations on the Administration of Internet News and Information Services and the Regulations on the Ecological Governance of Network Information Content were formulated to promote the healthy and orderly development of Internet news and information services, building good network ecology and create a clear cyberspace.

 

A system of reporting on non-payment of wages and a feedback system for internet public opinion information on cases involving non-payment of wages has been established in the trade union system to keep abreast of hidden dangers and hints of non-payment of wages and to promote proper settlement of non-payment cases. From 2016 to 2020, trade unions at all levels cooperated with relevant departments to recover a total of RMB 53.251 billion in back-paid wages for 5.0986 million migrant workers.

 

 

The Outline for the Implementation of the Rule of Law Government (2015-2020) has been strictly implemented and the mechanism of social supervision and public opinion supervision have been improved. A registration system for complaint and reporting was generally established, and informants’ letterboxes, hotlines and other supervision channels were set up.In 2020, the online government service platform of the Beijing Municipal Government received nearly 300,000 letters from the public and solved nearly 260,000 of them. The Shenzhen government's online government service platform received 55,332 messages from the public and solved 45,024 of them.

 

 

The Provisions on the Articulation and Co-operation of Law-related Letters and Visits in accordance with the Law and the Opinions on Effectively Solving Prominent Problems of Law-related Letters and Visits have been formulated, and strictly implementing the Notice on Further Standardizing the Finalization of Letters and Visits, and the Notice on Correcting Errors and Defects in Law Enforcement through the Handling of Letters and Visits, so as to effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the petitioners and uphold the authority of the law.

 

The National Information System for Letters and Visits was established, and a mobile phone APP and WeChat Letters and Visits function were opened. The National Information System for Letters and Visits has been connected to 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and 42 ministries and commissions of the central state organs, with access to more than 130,000 functional departments and townships (streets) at all levels nationwide. An open, transparent, fast, efficient and easy-to-monitor online petition platform has been established and improved, making it more convenient for the public to quickly reflect information, actively contribute ideas and make complaints and requests, and achieving "all-weather, zero-distance" communication between the people and the Party and the government. Since 2020, a large number of petition issues related to epidemics have been resolved in a timely and local manner, and special efforts have been deployed to focus on repeated petitions and resolve the backlog of petition cases. A large number of backlog cases of letters and petitions were effectively resolved and solved.

 

 

The Administrative Reconsideration Law was amended in September 2017. The Civil Service Law was amended and the Law on Administrative Sanctions for Public Officials was enacted, giving public officials the authority to appoint and dismiss authorities and units to suspend the performance of their duties.

 

 

The Regulations on the Administration of Internet News and Information Services was formulated to regulate the supervision of news and public opinion.

 

The Civil Code established provisions to safeguard the supervision of the press and media and the supervision of public opinion. The China Journalists Association revised the Measures for Receiving Complaints on the Protection of Rights of the China Journalists Association and has received a total of more than 60 calls, letters and visits on the protection of rights since 2016, with a 100% completion rate. 2019 saw the launch of a group insurance scheme for Chinese journalists in the field abroad, donating life insurance to a total of 101 journalists from news organizations. 2020 saw the launch of an epidemic insurance scheme for frontline journalists, donating life insurance to nearly 4,000 journalists and 1,216 foreign correspondents. The China Journalists Assistance Program was implemented, providing a total of RMB 14.97 million in assistance to 314 journalists who were injured, sick or killed on duty nationwide.

 

Indicator 107: Improving the system of constitutional supervision by the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee, and the mechanism of procedures for the interpretation of the Constitution. The legislative recording and review system and capability building shall be improved, and all normative documents shall be brought into the scope of such recording and review. All normative documents that violate the Constitution or laws shall be abrogated or corrected. Systems shall be improved by which the people’s congresses discuss and decide on major issues, and governments at all levels report to the people’s congresses at the same level before making major policy decisions.

 

The 2018 constitutional amendment renamed the Legal Committee of the NPC as the Constitutional and Legal Committee. The Decision on the Duties of the Constitutional and Legal Committee of the National People's Congress was adopted, clarifying the duties of the Constitutional and Legal Committee to "promote the implementation of the Constitution, carry out constitutional interpretation, promote constitutional review, strengthen constitutional oversight and cooperate with constitutional publicity". It has also improved the constitutional review system and established a sound system for prior review and consultation on constitutional issues.

 

The Measures for Reviewing the Filing of Regulations and Judicial Interpretations were formulated; supervision regulations were included in the scope of filing and review by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the normative documents of local courts and procuratorates were included in the scope of filing and review by the National People's Congress at the same level; the channels for citizens and organizations to submit review proposals were broadened, and 7,689 review proposals were reviewed one by one.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the democratic parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce put forward nearly 1,800 proposals and submitted more than 20,000 pieces of information on social opinion. The CPPCC held 10 thematic standing committee meetings on political issues and 77 fortnightly consultation talks. Sixty-four inspections and researches were conducted on supervisory issues, more than 220,000 letters were received from the public, and more than 970 visits were received from CPPCC members at all levels, people of united front and the public. A total of 10 tele-consultation meetings have been held since 2018.

 

 

Several Opinions on Deepening Audit Supervision of State-owned Enterprises and State-owned Capital, Provisions on the Outgoing Audit of Natural Resources Assets of Leading Officials (for Trial Implementation) and Provisions on the Economic Responsibility Audit of Major Leading Officials of the Party and Government and Major Leaders of State-owned Enterprises and Institutions were issued. The audit management system was reformed and the Central Audit Commission was formed.

 

From 2016-2020, more than 500,000 units were audited nationwide, contributing to more than RMB 2.2 trillion in revenue savings and loss recovery, and promoting the establishment of more than 37,000 sound regulations and systems.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government has taken a series of effective initiatives to guarantee the rights of specific groups in favorable manner, raising the level of protection of the rights of ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Taking all factors into account, major progress has been achieved in the elimination of absolute poverty in ethnic minority areas, effectively preventing and legally combating crimes of trafficking in women and children, fully completing the elderly care system, improving the social welfare system and assistance system for the elderly, and providing rehabilitation services for persons with disabilities. At the same time, further improvements are needed in the implementation of a leave system for male workers to accompany their wives during childbirth with pay, the development of childcare institutions for children aged 0-3, and the development of social organizations for the elderly.

 

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, more than 50 autonomous regulations and more than 240 individual regulations were enacted and amended in 155 ethnic-minority autonomous areas across the country, providing legal support for safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of ethnic minority citizens in accordance with the law. 55 ethnic minorities all have their own NPC deputies and CPPCC members. Among the deputies to the Thirteenth National People's Congress, 438 are ethnic minority delegates, accounting for 14.7%; among the members of the Thirteenth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, 244 are ethnic minority members, accounting for 11.3%; the standing committees of the people's congresses of the 155 ethnic-minority autonomous regions all have citizens of the ethnic groups practicing regional autonomy as their chairmen or deputy chairmen; the chairmen, governors, county governors or banner governors of the governments of the ethnic-minority autonomous regions are all headed by citizens of the ethnic groups practicing regional autonomy.

 

The building of a civil service team of ethnic minorities was strengthened. The Law on Regional National Autonomy and the Civil Service Law were further implemented.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the central government arranged 30.4 billion yuan of special poverty alleviation funds (in the direction of ethnic minority development expenditure) to strongly support the reform and development of ethnic-minority areas.

 

By 2020, the total road network in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai reached 1,239,800 km, with 38,000 km of motorways open to traffic, 149,000 km of secondary and higher roads and a further optimised road network grade structure. In 2019, the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai had 100% direct access to postal services in their established villages. 100% coverage of courier outlets in the established villages of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Ningxia and Guizhou townships in the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai. By July 2020, the proportion of administrative villages in the five autonomous regions connected to fibre optics and 4G exceeded 98%, autonomous counties were fully connected to fibre optics and 4G networks, and all autonomous prefectures were built as "optical network cities". The last group of people without access to electricity has been effectively resolved.

 

Between 2016 and 2020, the regional GDP of the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai increased from 7.3911 trillion yuan to 10.4492 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 6.6%, 0.8 percentage points higher than that of the whole country during the same period; the per-capita regional GDP increased from 38,000 yuan to 52,000 yuan. In 2020, the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai strived to overcome the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve a regional GDP of RMB 10.4 trillion, up 3.2% year-on-year, 0.9 percentage points higher than that of the whole country. Between 2016 and 2020, the poverty population in the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai reduced by a total of 15.6 million, and all 28 less populous ethnic groups were able to lift themselves out of poverty as a whole; all 420 poverty-stricken counties in ethnic autonomous places have been lifted out of poverty.

 

 

Between 2016 and 2020, the per-capita disposable income of rural residents in the five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai increased from RMB 18,000 to RMB 24,534, with an average annual growth rate of 8.0%, 0.2 percentage points higher than the national average. By 2020, the gap between the average urban and rural minimum living standards and the national average standard had narrowed in all five autonomous regions and the three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai. Among them, the urban minimum living standard in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Tibet is higher than the national average, and the rural minimum living standard in Inner Mongolia is higher than the national average. All indicators of medical and health care were equal to or better than the national average.

 

 

Educational equity has been further implemented. from 2016 to 2020, a total of about 150,000 students graduated from universities directly under the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, including about 90,000 ethnic minority graduates. A total of more than 790 billion RMB has been invested nationwide, with a focus on poor areas such as ethnic-minority regions; 260 million sq m of new school buildings and 250 million sq m of sports grounds have been renovated and expanded nationwide; more than RMB 110 billion worth of facilities and equipment have been purchased; school conditions in rural compulsory education schools have improved significantly; urban-rural, regional and inter-school gaps have been further narrowed; and 2,767 counties nationwide have passed the National Supervisory Assessment of Balanced Development of Compulsory Education, accounting for 95.32% of the total.

 

A series of documents were issued, including the Opinions of the State Council of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of the Teacher Corps in the New Era, and the Rural Teacher Support program (2015-2020). The Special Rural Teacher Posting program was implemented, recruiting 950,000 teachers, covering more than 1,000 counties in central and western China and more than 30,000 rural schools, and fully allocating teachers to boarding schools in rural towns. Publicly-funded education for teacher-training students has been promoted, and the training of "multi-discipline" teachers for rural schools has been strengthened, attracting about 45,000 college graduates to teach in rural schools each year.

 

 

In 2019, the first phase of the China’s Language Resources Protection Project was successfully completed. A research centre for the protection of Chinese minority languages was set up, and 20 volumes of the Chinese Endangered Languages Journal were edited and published for minority languages.

 

An online translation network for ethnic languages has been built and successfully developed three major systems for intelligent translation, speech recognition and synthesis, and image recognition in seven ethnic languages, including Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh, Korean, Yi and Zhuang, as well as more than 50 ethnic language applications with independent intellectual property rights, such as seven ethnic language mobile phone input methods, Ethnic language-Chinese Dialog and Speech Transcription.

 

The right to legally use minority spoken and written languages is effectively guaranteed in the areas of administration and justice, press and publication, culture and education.

 

 

The first national industry standard for the work on minority antiquities, the Classification of Minority Written Antiquities (GB/T 36748-2018) was formulated, providing an important basis for the standardization of the protection, rescue and census of minority antiquities. Work was launched on the compilation and publication of the Atlas of China’s Minority Cultural Relics and the General Catalogue of China’s Minority Antiquities, a volume on 17 ethnic groups. Five autonomous regions and three multi-ethnic provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai listed 1,940 villages in the fourth and fifth batches of traditional Chinese villages and implemented listing and protection, creating a total of 11 famous Chinese historical and cultural towns, 27 famous Chinese historical and cultural villages, more than 170 historical and cultural districts, more than 4,400 historical buildings and 932 "China’s Minority Characteristic Villages". The traditional culture of ethnic minorities has been protected and inherited.

 

The National Ethnic Minority Cultural and Art Performances, the National Ethnic Minority Traditional Sports Meet, and the National Ethnic Minority Literature and Creative Writing Junma Awards were regularly organized to promote the development of ethnic minority cultural and sports undertakings and support the development of cultural industries in ethnic-minority areas.

 

The Guidance on Further Strengthening the Work of Traditional Minority Sports and Several Opinions on Strengthening the Work of Ethnic Minority Medicine in the New Era have been formulated, and the cause of traditional minority sports and ethnic medicine is developing rapidly.

 

 

The revision of the Urban Work Regulations concerning Ethnic Minorities was initiated and open to public comments, the process of amending the law has not yet been completed.

 

The voluntary services such as the national language training, policy promotion and legal awareness education have been provided for ethnic minority migrant workers and businessmen continuously, benefiting more than 100,000 ethnic minority people.

 

 

 

Women delegates to the Thirteenth NPC accounted for 24.9% of the total delegates, an increase of 1.5 percentage points over the previous term. Women members of the Thirteenth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference accounted for 20.4% of the total number of members, an increase of 2.6 percentage points over the previous term. In 2019, the proportion of female officials in the leading teams of provincial, municipal and county governments was 9.7%, 7.5% and 9.2% respectively, with the proportion at the provincial level remaining the same as in 2018 and the proportion at the municipal and county levels increasing by 1.4 and 2.3 percentage points respectively. The proportion of officials at the provincial and municipal levels of government work teams with women was 51.2% and 53.4% respectively, an increase of 0.6 and 1.4 percentage points over 2018.

 

The proportion of women among the heads of villagers’ committees in 2019 is 11.9%, 0.4 percentage points higher than in 2015; the proportion of women among members of urban residents’ committees is 50.9%, 1.7 percentage points higher than in 2015.

 

 

A Circular on Further Regulation of Recruitment Practices to Promote Women's Employment was issued, specifying the six types of gender discrimination in employment that must not be practiced.

 

The proportion of female employed persons in society as a whole was 43.2% in 2019, up 0.3 percentage points from 2015. The number of female employees in urban units reached 66.842 million, 1.57 million more than in 2015.

 

The percentage of enterprises implementing the Special Provisions on Labour Protection for Female Employees was 69.6%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points over 2018, which needs to be further strengthened.

 

 

Universal access to the national free pre-pregnancy eugenic health screening program, providing free screening for 8.67 million couples planning to become pregnant in 2020, with an average coverage rate of 96.4% of the target population; 99.9 % of maternal institutional deliveries; and 92.7% of systematic maternal management. The maternal mortality rate fell from 20.1 per 100,000 in 2015 to 16.9 per 100,000 in 2020. Cervical and breast cancer screening for rural women has covered all poor counties nationwide. The screening rate for common diseases among women has increased significantly, reaching 86.6% in 2020, 25 percentage points higher than in 2015.

 

 

The leave for male workers to accompany and attend to puerperal wives with pay (paid paternity leave) is provided for in the family planning regulations and related documents of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) nationwide.

 

Guidelines on Promoting the Development of Care Services for Infants and Toddlers under the Age of 3 were issued to provide essential care services for families or infants and toddlers with care difficulties.

 

The Civil Code makes it clear that the debts of a husband and wife are to be signed jointly, so that one of the spouses will not be "indebted", and improves the system of compensation for domestic work and financial assistance for divorce. The Application of the Interpretation on the Marriage and Family Part of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (I) was issued to provide guidance on the proper adjudication of marriage and family disputes and to protect women's property rights and interests in accordance with the law.

 

 

More than 60 judicial interpretations, regulations and policy documents have been issued to implement the Anti-Domestic Violence Law, and a mandatory reporting system for cases of assault against minors has been established. As of 2019, courts at all levels nationwide have issued a total of 5,749 personal safety protection orders; public security organs have participated in mediating and resolving more than 8.25 million family conflicts and disputes, effectively preventing and stopping more than 6.17 million acts of domestic violence. The Opinions on Strengthening Regular Anti-Domestic Violence Work was issued, and women's federations at all levels have carried out more than 270,000 law-promotion activities against domestic violence, involving nearly 50 million women.

 

 

Implemented the China Action Plan against Human Trafficking (2013-2020). An inter-ministerial joint meeting system has been established to combat human trafficking, led by the Ministry of Public Security with the participation of 32 ministries and commissions. China has also signed agreements with Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos to strengthen cooperation in combating human trafficking, and has established eight liaison offices for law enforcement cooperation in combating human trafficking. From 2016 to 2020, courts at all levels nationwide concluded 3,245 cases of trafficking in women and children, and 452 cases of buying trafficked women and children.

 

 

The Civil Code explicitly includes sexual harassment in its scope of regulation, stipulating that where sexual harassment is committed against another person's will by means of words, texts, images or physical acts, the victim has the right to request the perpetrator to bear civil liability in accordance with the law. The Guidance Manual on Promoting Gender Equality in the Workplace and the Guidance Manual on Eliminating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace have been formulated, and the establishment of sound institutional mechanisms related to gender equality by employers has been further promoted.

 

 

 

The newly amended Law on the Protection of Minors was adopted in 2020.

 

 

The Civil Code stipulates that guardianship shall be revoked, that temporary guardianship measures shall be arranged during the revocation of guardianship, and that after the revocation of guardianship, a guardian shall be appointed in accordance with the principle of what is most favourable to the person under guardianship, in accordance with the law. A "three-in-one" network of school, family and society for the protection of minors has been established.

 

 

A system of services to prevent and treat birth defects has been improved. Some 6 million families receive free pre-pregnancy eugenics screening every year, with an annual coverage rate of over 80% of the target population. The prenatal serology for Down's syndrome, genetic metabolic disease and hearing impairment screening rates reached 81.1%, 97% and 86.5% respectively.

 

The assistance program for congenital structural malformations and genetic metabolic diseases has been carried out, helping 41,000 children with birth defects. In 2020, the national infant mortality rate and the under-five mortality rate was 5.4 per 1,000 and 7.5 per 1,000 respectively, down 33.3 percent and 29.9 percent respectively from 2015. By 2020, the vaccination rate under the national immunization program remained above 90% on a township (township) basis, and the rate of hepatitis B virus surface antigen positivity among people under 5 years of age has been reduced to 0.32%.

 

The Regulations on the Management of Food Safety and Nutrition and Health in Schools were issued. The nutrition-enhancement program for students receiving compulsory education in rural areas was carried out, covering all national-level poverty-stricken counties and providing nutritional meal subsidies for almost 38 million students. Expanding the coverage of nutrition-enhancement program for children in poverty-stricken areas, achieving full coverage in all 832 national-level poverty-stricken counties and benefiting a total of 11.2 million infants and children aged 6-24 months. In 2019, the average anaemia and growth retardation rates for infants and toddlers aged 6-24 months in areas continuously monitored by the program decreased by 50.5% and 68.3% respectively compared to 2012, and the program has effectively improved the nutritional status of children in poverty-stricken areas, effectively improving the nutritional status of children in poverty-stricken areas.

 

The Opinions on Strengthening School Sports for the Overall Development of Students' Physical and Mental Health, the Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Nearsightedness among Children and Youth, and the Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving School Sports in the New Era were issued. Collective sports such as football, basketball and volleyball were vigorously promoted, basic sports such as athletics, swimming and gymnastics and special sports such as ice and snow sports were actively promoted, advantageous sports such as table tennis, badminton and martial arts were widely carried out, and the construction of school sports policies and systems was strengthened.

 

The Guideline for Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools and the Guidelines for Moral Education in Primary and Secondary Schools has been formulated, strengthening the mental health guidance for minors by incorporating mental health education into the content of moral education work.

 

 

The Civil Code affirms and protects the validity of civil legal acts performed independently by minors with restricted civil capacity for pure gain or civil legal acts that are appropriate to their intellectual or mental health status. The Civil Code provides for the protection of the interests of the foetus, such as inheritance and acceptance of gifts, the subrogation system, and the fact that a will shall reserve the necessary share of the inheritance for an heir who lacks working capacity and has no means of subsistence, providing a legal basis for the protection of the rights and interests of children.

 

 

The Three-Year Action Plan to Accelerate the Construction of Safety Precautions in Primary and Secondary Schools and Kindergartens nationwide was further implemented. The "peak duty" and "school guard" mechanisms around primary and secondary schools were further improved. In response to the lack of security forces at primary and secondary schools in remote rural areas and urban-rural areas, village officials, school staff and students' parents were mobilized to form school protection teams to maintain law and order at school gates. The theme of "National Primary and Secondary School Students' Safety Education Day" was launched. The number of school-related criminal cases nationwide fell for eight consecutive years.

 

From 2016-2020, a total of 153,000 applications for school bus driving qualifications were examined and approved nationwide, and 132,000 special school buses obtained valid school bus placards nationwide, with a 100% inspection rate, eliminating potential school bus hazards from the source.

 

The Guidance Opinions on Prevention and Control of Bullying and Violence among Primary and Secondary School Students, the Program for Strengthening Comprehensive Control of Bullying among Primary and Secondary School Students, and the Circular on Strictly Prohibiting the Entry of Dangerous Goods such as Control Knives into Schools were issued, and the departmental responsibilities and handling procedures for preventing and stopping violence in schools premises were clarified, and the relevant education and disciplinary systems, coordination mechanisms and preventive measures were further improved. The Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency was implemented, security management around schools was tightened, regular patrols for prevention and control were strengthened, and school-related bullying cases were detected and dealt with promptly at the first sign of trouble. Students who are violent are reprimanded, and education and correction are continuously improved in cases of violence against students suspected of committing offenses. The police regularly helped schools to carry out anti-bullying, anti-violence and other rule of law publicity and education to enhance safety knowledge and awareness of the rule of law.

 

 

The Eighth National Congress of the China Young Pioneers was held, with 415 pioneers from across the country attending, including representatives of pioneers from 56 nationalities, disabled pioneers and pioneers who are children of returned overseas Chinese. The demands of children and youth for growth were widely listened to and promptly reflected, and children and youth were guided to understand and participate in the political life of the country in an orderly manner.

 

The motivational role of the Pioneer Corps posts is fully exploited to exercise and cultivate the awareness of democratic participation and independent practical ability of the pioneers. Based on the existing posts of the Pioneer Brigade Committee, Squadron Committee and Junior Captains, the school is the main venue for the creation of a variety of Pioneer service posts according to the characteristics of different age groups. Every school year, the brigade committee, squadron committee, captain were re-elected for the purpose of regular rotation of service positions, creating more opportunities for "everyone can serve, everyone are growing", letting pioneer leaders independently practice ability, guiding the pioneers in charge of their own organization, independent construction of positions, independent activities under the guidance of counselors.

 

 

By 2020, more than 320,000 "children's homes" have been built, providing children with a safe space for play and education.

 

The construction of grass-roots children's work teams has been strengthened. By 2020, there were 56,000 township (street) children's supervisors and more than 675,000 village (community) children's directors nationwide, achieving full coverage. A Guide to the Work of Children's Supervisors (guidance version) and a Guide to the Work of Children's Directors (guidance version) has been compiled to strengthen training for children's supervisors and children's directors, with an effort to enhance their ability to handle matters related to minors and provide care services.

 

 

The children's protection and service system was further improved. By 2020, there were a total of 1,217 children's welfare institutions nationwide. Children's welfare institutions have expanded their centralized foster care from orphans to de facto unsupported children, and are actively expanding their outreach services to groups such as children with disabilities, children affected by AIDS, and children of people serving prison sentences and forced drug rehabilitation.

 

From 2019 onwards, the central financial subsidies for orphans in the east, middle and west of the country were raised to RMB 300, 450 and 600 per person per month respectively, an increase of 50%. By 2020, there were a total of 194,000 orphans nationwide, of which 60,000 were raised in institutions, accounting for 30.9% of the total number of orphans nationwide. The Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of De facto Unsupported Children was issued. By 2020, 253,000 de facto unsupported children had been brought under the scope of protection, at an average protection subsidy is RMB 1,140 per person per month. The orphan protection system was further improved.

 

The Opinions on Strengthening the Care and Protection of Children Left Behind in Rural Areas and Opinions on Further Improving the Care and Service System for Children Left Behind in Rural Areas and Children in Difficult Situations were issued to build a care and service system for children left behind in rural areas and children in difficult situations. By 2020, there were 6.436 million children left behind in rural areas nationwide, down 28.6% from 2016.

 

 

The Anti-Domestic Violence Law, Amendment (IX) to the Criminal Law and Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law were passed to intensify the punishment for crimes of child abuse, abduction and trafficking, and the institutional protection of children's personal rights and interests was further improved. The Opinions on Establishing a Compulsory Reporting System for Cases of Assault on Minors (for Trial Implementation) was issued, stipulating nine categories of compulsory reporting situations, including sexual assault, abuse, bullying, abandonment and abduction and trafficking. A system for family tracing and adoption of children rescued from abduction and a fast-track mechanism for locating missing children has been established, and penalties for the purchase of abducted and sold women and children have been increased. Acts such as manipulating minors to engage in vagrancy and begging and manipulating and coercing deaf and mute youths to engage in theft were combated. The crime of child abduction and trafficking has been effectively curbed. The "Internet + anti-trafficking" campaign is working increasingly well, and in May 2016, the Ministry of Public Security completed an emergency release platform for information on missing children, recovering 4,707 children, with a recovery rate of 98%. 

 

The Opinions on the Establishment of a System for Access to Information on Sexual Assault Offenses and Crimes for Teaching Staff was issued. A national database of information on sexual assault offenses has been established and improved, with a total of more than 410,000 cases of sexual assault offenses entered. The Ministry of Public Security, in collaboration with a number of departments, has actively promoted the pilot "one-stop evidence collection" program for sexual assault cases against minors, establishing more than 300 "one-stop evidence collection" points nationwide.

 

The effective implementation of Regulations on the Prohibition of Child Labour increased enforcement of labour security supervision, enhanced supervision and inspection of employers, and increased investigation and punishment of illegal use of child labour by employers in accordance with the law.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the non-arrest rates for juvenile suspects were 31.7%, 33.6%, 34.1%, 34.4% and 39.1% respectively, and the application rates for conditional non-prosecution were 8.0%, 10.1%, 12.2%, 12.5% and 20.9% respectively.

 

At the end of 2020, the National People's Congress amended the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency to establish a coordination mechanism at the national level on the interface between judicial and administrative protection of children.

 

In 2019, the Law on Community Corrections were passed, with a special chapter on community-based corrections for minors, and in 2020, the Measures for the Implementation of the Law on Community Corrections were implemented to further refine the work on community-based corrections for minors.

 

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of RMB 18.6 billion of investment from the central budget has been arranged for the construction of the elderly service system; 5 billion RMB has been arranged to support 203 regions in promoting pilot reform of home and community-based elderly services. By 2020, the total number of elderly care institutions and facilities nationwide reached 319,000, and community elderly care services basically covered urban communities and more than half of rural communities.

 

 

The Guidance on Establishing an Improved Health Service System for the Elderly was issued. Health promotion actions for the elderly have been carried out, psychological care programs for the elderly have been implemented, and the supply of basic public health services for the elderly has been strengthened. As of 2019, the number of people aged 65 and above under health management nationwide exceeded 100 million. The Civil Code further clarified the system of legal guardianship for adults and the system of intended guardianship for adults.

 

 

People's governments at all levels have comprehensively established and improved policies on preferential treatment for the elderly, and the elderly have enjoyed preferential and convenient services in areas such as health care and transport. Full provincial coverage of the subsidy system for elderly people in financial difficulties, such as the elderly and the disabled, has been achieved.

 

By the end of 2020, the number of urban and rural residents covered by basic pension insurance exceeded 542 million, including 68.7 million formerly from families with financial difficulties, low-income recipients and people in special hardship. Since the implementation of the policy of paying basic pension insurance premiums on behalf of urban and rural residents in 2017, a total of RMB 12.9 billion has been paid on behalf of 119 million people in difficulty, basically realizing that the poor population is fully insured. There are 160.68 million elderly people receiving monthly basic pension insurance benefits for urban and rural residents, including 30.14 million poor elderly people.

 

 

Public cultural facilities of all kinds at all levels have basically been opened to the elderly free of charge, and as of 2019, there were 3,196 public libraries and 44,073 cultural institutions across the country, which generally offer services that are easy for the elderly to participate in.

 

The Planning and Design Standards for Urban Residential Areas, the Planning Standards for Urban Elderly Facilities, the Fire Prevention Code for Building Design, and the Architectural Design Standards for Elderly Care Facilities were issued. The age-appropriate renovation of public cultural facilities was further promoted, and the construction of public cultural facilities for the elderly, such as cultural stations and schools for the elderly, was strengthened, with the proportion of towns (streets) with schools for the elderly reaching 50%.

 

 

By 2020, there were more than 70,000 universities (schools and learning stations) for the elderly at all levels, 29 provincial-level open universities for the elderly have been built, and the membership of the Third Age University Alliance of Universities has included 221 institutions. Learning stations for elderly education have been set up 46,698 villages (communities) nationwide. There are about 550,000 grassroots associations for the elderly and more than 16 million senior volunteers registered nationwide.

 

 

 

Full coverage of the policy on two subsidies for persons with disabilities was achieved nationwide. The Circular on Further Improving the Basic Livelihood Security for the Financially-challenged was issued, clarifying that people with severe disabilities, serious illnesses and other special difficulties in low-income families are included in the subsistence allowance with reference to single-person households upon their application. The Opinions on Reforming and Improving the Social Assistance System was issued to establish a tiered, categorised and urban-rural co-ordinate social assistance system with Chinese characteristics, and to guarantee the basic livelihood of persons with severe disabilities from financially-challenged families.

 

The Notice on the Inclusion of Some New Medical Rehabilitation Items in the Scope of Payment for Basic Medical Insurance was issued. All 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) nationwide have formulated local policies to add 20 medical rehabilitation items in the scope of payment of basic medical insurance on the basis of the original 9 items.

 

The Opinions on the Establishment of a Rehabilitation Assistance System for Disabled Children and the Implementation Measures for the Tomorrow Plan for the Medical Rehabilitation of Orphans were issued to establish and implement a nationwide rehabilitation assistance system for children with disabilities. Since 2018, rehabilitation assistance has been provided to 677,000 children with disabilities and medical rehabilitation services have been provided to orphaned children. All children aged 0-6 years old raised by children's welfare institutions and orphans in the social diasporas have been included in the rehabilitation assistance system for disabled children.

 

By 2020, 12 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), including Beijing, have developed a provincial-level subsidy system for the adaptation of basic assistive devices for the disabled, and 13 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), including Hebei, have piloted the construction of a subsidy system for the adaptation of basic assistive devices for the disabled in some municipalities or districts.

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of 5.224 million rural dilapidated houses for families with financial difficulties have been completed renovation, and 2.424 million financially-challenged households, scattered-support special hardship cases and poor disabled households have been supported to renovate their dilapidated houses.

 

 

The Regulations on Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Disabled was formulated. The Implementation Plan for the Action on Precise Rehabilitation Services for the Disabled and the Catalogue of Basic Rehabilitation Services for the Disabled (2019 Edition) were issued to provide basic rehabilitation services for disabled children and licensed persons with disabilities. From 2016 to 2020, a total of 43.3 million people/time of basic rehabilitation services were provided for the disabled.

 

The Standards for Community-based Rehabilitation Work for the Disabled were released. By 2020, a total of 2,726 counties (cities and districts) across the country have provided community-based rehabilitation services for the disabled.

 

In June 2019, the University of Rehabilitation (Preparatory) was officially inaugurated. From 2016 to 2020, a real-name training program for rehabilitation professionals in the National Disabled Persons' Federation system was organized, training a total of over 18,000 rehabilitation professionals at national level.

 

 

The Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Community-based Rehabilitation Services for Mental Disorders were issued. Funds-raising through multiple channels was carried out to support new construction, relocation and expansion projects of local psychiatric hospitals.

 

 

The Regulations on Education for the Disabled was amended to clarify the principles of education for the disabled with a focus on integrated (inclusive) education. The Special Education Enhancement Plan (2014-2016) and the Second Special Education Enhancement Plan (2017-2020) were implemented. 12 years of free education for disabled students from economically disadvantaged families, and 15 years of free education for disabled students in some provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have been achieved. 57,500 disabled students were enrolled in general higher education institutions from 2016 to 2020.

 

 

The Circular on Preferential VAT Policies for Promoting the Employment of the Disabled was issued, providing a VAT rebate in accordance with the number of the disabled employees by tax authorities to eligible employers who centrally place the disabled. The General program on Improving the Employment Guarantee Fund System for the Disabled to Better Promote the Employment of the Disabled was issued, and by 2020, flexible employment (including community and home-based employment) for the disabled had reached 2.388 million. The Guidance on Solidly Ensuring the Basic Livelihood of the Disabled in the Context of the Normalization of Covid-19 Pandemic Prevention and Control was issued, supporting various types of enterprises that place the disabled in employment, and increasing support for the resumption of production and stable employment of the disabled.

 

A team of more than 50,000 grassroots instructors for the employment of the disabled has been established. From 2016 to 2020, federations of the disabled at all levels served a total of nearly 80,000 disabled graduates, with an employment rate of more than 60%. From 2016 to 2020, a total of more than 1.42 million people with disabilities who are registered as unemployed were visited, and more than 16,000 job fairs of various types were held, helping almost 200,000 employed. From 2016 to 2020, the scale of employment for the disabled remained stable, with 1.808 million people with disabilities newly employed in urban and rural areas. Vocational skills training have been provided for 3.736 million persons with disabilities in urban and rural areas.

 

 

19,660 intelligent book listening machines were equipped for 404 public libraries to provide free circulation lending services to blind readers. Business training was conducted for 1,436 public libraries in 26 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and prefectures and counties, including Tibet, Xinjiang and Ningxia, and for 3,989 chairpersons of blind associations in 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and prefectures and counties. The inclusion of cultural services for the disabled in the construction of “Farmhouse Libraries” was promoted. By the end of 2020, public libraries at the provincial, municipal and county levels have built 1,258 Braille and audio-visual reading rooms for the blind, with 28,000 seats, a collection of over 1 million Braille books and 1,266,000 discs of audio-visual literature.

 

From 2016 to 2020, a total of 5,016 titles of Braille books were published in 14,904,000 prints; a total of 3,519 titles with 9,939 hours of audio books, 599 titles with 3,503 hours of multimedia audio books and 53 titles with 910 hours of DAISY audio books were published; a total of 1,158 titles with 1,490,000 copies of 16,968,800 prints of large print books were published. A total of 610 barrier-free film and television productions were produced; 46 titles of books on disability topics were supported for translation and publication.

 

A List of Words Commonly Used in National Common Sign Language and a National Common Braille Scheme were released, language and writing norms such as the Chinese Finger Alphabet Scheme were revised, a sign language and Braille corpus was built and sign language information collection was carried out.

 

 

Twenty provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) nationwide issued measures for the implementation of the Regulations on the Construction of Barrier-Free Environment, and a total of 674 regulations, government orders and normative documents on barrier-free environment and management were enacted by provinces, prefectures (municipalities) and counties nationwide. Comprehensive standards and norms were issued, such as the Barrier-Free Design Code and the Code for the Construction, Acceptance and Maintenance of Barrier-Free Facilities. In national and industry standards such as the Uniform Design Standards for Civil Buildings, the Residential Design Code and the Park Design Code, the requirements for the construction of barrier-free facilities were further clarified. Support for lift retrofitting and barrier-free environment construction in towns and cities. Accessibility retrofitting project for poor and severely disabled households nationwide benefited 650,000 people.

 

The Guidance on Enhancing the Capacity Building of Website Accessibility Services, the Guidance on Supporting Information Consumption of Persons with Visual, Hearing and Speech Disabilities, the Guidance on Promoting Information Accessibility, and the Special Action Plan for Internet Application Ageing and Accessibility Modification have been issued. Since 2016, a total of more than 800 government units have completed the construction of public service platforms for information accessibility, and more than 32,000 government affairs and public service websites have achieved accessibility. The basic telecommunication enterprises has been promoted to offer appropriate discounts to the disabled for using mobile phones and broadband network services, encouraging domestic e-commerce enterprises to help the disabled in employment, and providing a variety of online jobs for the disabled, including cloud customer service; and guiding the issuance of a number of national standards for information accessibility, including the Technical Requirements and Evaluation Methods for Barrier-free Access to Information Technology Internet Content.

 

The Regulations on the Application for and Use of Motor Vehicle Driving Licences were amended, and the Notice on the Effective Implementation of Work Related to Driving Cars by Persons with Visual Impairment in One Eye and Persons with Disabilities of the Upper Limbs was issued, enabling persons with hearing disabilities who wear hearing aids, persons with visual impairment in one eye, persons with loss of one hand and persons with disabilities of the lower limbs to drive cars. The accessibility of driving for the disabled was promoted.

 

 

The Opinions on Strengthening Public Legal Services for the Disabled in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan were published. From 2016 to 2020, legal aid agencies nationwide provided 270,000 persons with disabilities with legal aid and 1,075,000 persons with legal advice. The Supreme People's Court published 10 typical cases on the protection of the rights and interests of the disabled, exerting the role of judicial decisions as a model for society. The Opinions on Effectively Safeguarding the Lawful Rights and Interests of the Disabled in Trial and Judgement Enforcement was issued. In 2019, procuratorial organs at all levels nationwide prosecuted 5,928 persons for crimes against the rights and interests of the disabled. All 345 cities above prefectural level nationwide opened 12385 service hotlines for the disabled. An information system for letters and petitions from the disabled was established, and the opening of the information system for letters and petitions from the disabled to counties was promoted to achieve full online flow of letter and petition matters.

 

 

 

There are a total of seven indicators under human rights education and research. From 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government has taken major initiatives such as strengthening human rights education and adding new human rights research platforms to effectively raise society's awareness of respecting and protecting human rights. At the same time, the spread of human rights knowledge in society needs to be further improved.

 

 

Human rights knowledge has been incorporated into the study content of CPC committees (CPC groups), included in the curriculum of party schools, officials’ colleges and administrative colleges, and listed as a compulsory course for the induction and training of judges, prosecutors, police officers and other public officials. From January 2016 to December 2020, the Information Office of the State Council and eight national human rights education and training bases have held 220 nationwide training courses on human rights knowledge, targeting more than 31,000 people. The judicial organs have invited human rights experts to give lectures in their professional training nearly 200 times.

 

 

Education on human rights for primary and secondary school students was strengthened by incorporating human rights into the curriculum, including a special chapter on respecting and safeguarding human rights in junior and senior secondary school textbooks.

 

In 2016, teaching materials and reading materials on human rights for primary and secondary schools, such as the Teaching Manual on the Protection of Children's Rights (Secondary School Edition), the Teaching Manual on the Protection of Children's Rights (Primary School Edition), the Story of Nan Nan and Kai Kai (Secondary School Edition) and the Story of Nan Nan and Kai Kai (Primary School Edition), were published, and training for primary and secondary school teachers on human rights.

 

 

Supporting universities to develop and offer courses related to human rights education, a total of more than 60 universities nationwide offer special human rights courses. Southwestern University of Political Science and Law and other universities actively promote the sharing of high-quality human rights curriculum resources by relying on online platforms. Recruiting masters and doctoral students in human rights law studies.  Experts and scholars in universities are supported to carry out research on human rights theory with Chinese characteristics in many ways. More than 40 major special projects for human rights research have been set up.

 

 

From 2016-2020, several training sessions on human rights knowledge for personnel of large enterprises were organized. The China Textile Industry Federation, in cooperation with the Myanmar Chamber of Chinese Enterprises and other organizations, organized a number of human rights education and training sessions for managers in Myanmar, Cambodia and other countries. The China Chamber of Commerce of Minerals, Metals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters organized a series of training sessions to systematically learn about the International Code of Responsible Business Conduct and to master key topics on business and human rights and key points on supply chain compliance management.

 

 

In 2020, the Research Centre for Science, Technology and Human Rights of Beijing University of Technology, the Institute of Human Rights Law of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the Human Rights Research Centre of Jilin University, the Human Rights Research Centre of Northwest University of Political Science and Law, the Human Rights Research Centre of Central South University and the Human Rights Research Institute of Southeast University were selected as the third batch of national bases for human rights education and training. There are now 14 national human rights education and training bases in China. The National Human Rights Education and Training Bases are included in the management sequence of the Ministry of Education's Key Research Bases for Humanities and Social Sciences, and are given major project support.

 

 

Relevant universities and think tanks are given the task to carry out a feasibility study on the need and feasibility of establishing a national human rights institution in line with China's reality, with regard to the choice of model, scope of responsibilities and implementation steps for a human rights institution.

 

 

The central and local news media have been actively reporting on human rights affairs, and the China Society for Human Rights Studies and the China Human Rights Network have been vigorously promoting and popularizing knowledge of human rights, with the concept of safeguarding human rights in accordance with the law gaining popularity. The quality of human rights publications, such asHuman Rights, Human Rights Research, China Human Rights Review and Disability Rights Research, as well as human rights books and translations, has continued to improve.

 

 

From 2016 to 2020, the Chinese government has conscientiously implemented the international human rights treaties it has acceded to, actively carried out international human rights exchanges and cooperation, and promoted the healthy development of the international human rights cause. At the same time, the preparatory work for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights needs to be further strengthened.

 

 

In December 2019, the Third Compliance Report on China's Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

 

 

In 2019, work on the seventh compliance report for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was initiated but has not yet been submitted for consideration.

 

Indicator 156: China shall complete the 14th-17th combined report on implementing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and submit it to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for consideration.

 

In January 2017, the Consolidated Report on China's Implementation of the 14th to 17th Periods of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). In August 2018, China started a dialogue with the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination on the review of compliance.

 

 

In March 2020, the Ninth Compliance Report on China's Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

 

Indicator 158: China shall complete the fifth report on implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and submit it to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child for consideration.

 

In 2019, work on the combined fifth and sixth reports of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (including the relevant parts of the two Optional Protocols) was initiated, but has not yet been submitted for consideration.

 

 

In August 2018, the Second and Third Combined Report on China's Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. From September to December 2020, response materials were prepared and submitted based on the list of questions raised by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the compliance report.

 

 

China comprehensively promoted the rule of law and built a socialist state under the rule of law. A number of important laws and decisions on relevant legal issues were introduced one after another to further strengthen work in related areas and create conditions for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

 

 

Participating in important multilateral human rights meetings such as the 31st to 45th sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council and the 71st to 75th sessions of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, China advocates the promotion of human rights through peace, development, cooperation and fairness, opposes the politicization of human rights issues and the adoption of double standards, and promotes more just, fair, reasonable and inclusive international human rights governance. The Human Rights Council has repeatedly adopted resolutions such as "Contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights" and "Promoting win-win cooperation in the field of human rights" proposed by China.

 

 

China successfully passed the third round of country-specific human rights reviews by the UN Human Rights Council, and the progress of China's human rights cause was affirmed by more than 120 countries. 284 recommendations from various countries were accepted, accounting for 82% of the total number of recommendations.

 

 

China responded promptly to the letters sent by the special mechanisms of the Human Rights Council and received the visits of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on extreme poverty and human rights and the independent expert on the rights of the elderly to China. Actively participating in the work of the working group on the right to development, the social forum, the forum on industry and commerce and human rights under the Human Rights Council, recommending Chinese experts to compete for the special mechanism, Ms. Li Yuefen became the independent expert on foreign debt and human rights of the United Nations on May 1, 2020.

 

 

China maintains constructive contacts with the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights and its office. Since 2018, China has donated US $800,000 to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights every year.

 

 

Since September 2016, nearly 20 human rights dialogues have been held with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and human rights technical cooperation has been carried out with Australia. More than 10 human rights consultations and exchanges were held with Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, the African Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

 

 

In 2016, China hosted the 16th Asia Europe Informal Human Rights Seminar and Steering Committee Meeting. In 2016, an international seminar was held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development. In 2017 and 2019, two "South South Human Rights Forums" were held. The "2018 Beijing Human Rights Forum" was held, four China-EU Human Rights Seminars were held, and four China-US Judicial and Human Rights Seminars were held.

 

 

Since 2016, China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Commerce issued a series of policies requiring Chinese enterprises investing overseas observe social responsibility, including advocating the "belt & road" participation enterprises following principles of the United Nations’ Global Compact, China's textile, mining, overseas contracting projects, telecommunications and other industries have also successively launched industry standards and citations to guide overseas investment enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities and carry out responsible investment.

 

 

In 2018, the China Association for the Promotion of International Exchanges of Non-governmental Organizations received the delegation of the Tunisian League for Human Rights to visit China, held work seminars, special seminars, field visits and human rights exchanges. Relevant organizations such as the China Disabled Persons' Federation and the All China Women's Federation have actively carried out human rights exchanges and cooperation in multilateral activities such as the BRICs Civil Society Forum, the G20 Civil Society Meeting and the Asia-Europe People's Forum.

 

Representatives of Chinese social organizations such as China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, China Association for International Exchanges, China Association for the Promotion of International Exchanges of Non-governmental Organizations, Beijing Youth Legal Aid and Research Center and Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers Legal Aid and Research Center attended and spoke at the meetings of the United Nations Human Rights Council for many times, held several thematic side meetings, and actively promoted China's human rights concept and progressive practice.