Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, October 28th – On the afternoon of October 28th, the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee held its 17th collective study session, on building China into a cultural superpower. When presiding over the study session, CCP Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed the need to anchor the strategic goal of becoming a cultural superpower by 2035, uphold Marxism as the fundamental guiding ideology, take China’s profound and rich civilization as the root, respond to trends in information technology, and continuously develop socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for a new era, a culture with ideological leadership, spiritual cohesion, values-based appeal, and international influence, constantly reinforcing the people’s spiritual strength, and firmly building a cultural foundation for superpower construction and national rejuvenation.

Comrade Wang Bo, a Vice President and Professor at Peking University, presented an explanation of this issue and put forward suggestions for work. Politburo comrades listened attentively to the presentation and engaged in discussion.

Xi Jinping delivered an important speech after listening to the presentation and discussion. He pointed out that, since the 18th Party Congress, we have insisted on placing cultural construction in a prominent position in governing the country, made a series of major deployments, developed thought on socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for a new era, promoted cultural construction to achieve historic achievements while rectifying at the roots, maintaining integrity, and making innovations, and taken solid steps in socialist cultural superpower construction.

Xi Jinping stressed the need to unswervingly follow the cultural development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must adhere to the leadership of the Party, enhance governance capabilities in the field of culture under the conditions of informatization, and firmly build the Party’s governing base and mass base in terms of ideology, spirit, and culture. We must adhere to the fundamental system with Marxism in the guiding position in the field of ideology, fully implement the thought on socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for a new era, and develop a national, scientific, and popular socialist culture that is oriented towards modernization, the world, and the future. And we must adhere to the guidance of socialist core values, continuously build the Chinese spirit, Chinese values, and Chinese strength, and develop and strengthen mainstream values, mainstream public opinion, and mainstream culture.

Xi Jinping pointed out that we must strive to stimulate the cultural innovation and creative vitality of the entire nation. We must adhere to a people-centered creative orientation, adhere to putting social benefits first and uniting social benefits and economic benefits, take stimulating innovation and creating vitality as the central element in deepening the reform of cultural institutions and mechanisms, and accelerate the improvement of cultural management institutions and production and operation mechanisms. With the focus on improving the ability to create original cultural works, we must improve mechanisms for the service, guidance, and organization of literary and artistic creation, foster the creation of a new set of classics for the times that will take deep root with the people, and build new heights of Chinese culture. We must actively create a good cultural ecosystem, fully promote academic democracy and literary and artistic democracy, and support writers, artists, experts, and scholars in being rooted in life and dedicated to creation, thereby promoting the sustained outpouring of cultural innovation and creativity. And we must explore effective mechanisms for the integration of culture and technology, achieve the digital empowerment and informatization-based transformation of cultural construction, and transform cultural resource advantages into cultural development advantages.

Xi Jinping stressed that cultural construction must always focus on and be rooted in the people. We must focus on meeting the numerous and diverse, multi-level, and multi-faceted spiritual and cultural needs of the people, boost the ability to supply cultural services and products, and strengthen the people’s sense of cultural gain and happiness. We must emphasize the role of culture in cultivating mind and sentiment, and nourish a high-spirited and motivated temperament among the entire nation. And we must respect the underlying principles of talent development, improve mechanisms for the selection, training, use, and incentivization of talent suited to the characteristics of cultural fields, and create a good policy environment that recognizes, values, and loves talent, so as to build a high-standard cultural talent team that is large in scale, rationally structured, and is keen on innovation.

Xi Jinping pointed out the need to continue and extend the Chinese cultural inheritance in the course of creative transformation and innovation-based development. We must celebrate the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation, and protect, carry forward, and develop the treasures of Chinese civilization that have been passed down through good times and bad. We must deeply explore and elucidate the spiritual connotations of China’s excellent traditional culture, use Marxism to activate the excellent elements of traditional Chinese culture and give them new contemporary connotations, and develop socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for a new era. We must uphold reverence for history and love of culture, adhere to the principles of prioritizing protection, rational utilization, and minimal intervention, and promote systematic protection and unified supervision of the cultural heritage. And we must improve the institutional mechanisms for protecting and passing on the cultural heritage, and accelerate the improvement of the regulatory system.

Xi Jinping stressed the need to continuously enhance the country’s cultural soft power and the influence of Chinese culture. We must advance the restructuring of the international communication landscape, innovate in carrying out online external propaganda, and build a multi-channel and three-dimensional external communication landscape. We must more proactively advocate China’s positions, disseminate Chinese culture, and present China’s image. We must widely carry out diverse forms of international cultural exchanges and cooperation. And we must learn more proactively from all the excellent achievements of human civilization, and create a host of cultural achievements that blend ancient and modern, and gather together and connect China and the rest of the world.

Finally, Xi Jinping stressed that cultural superpower construction was a joint task for the whole Party and society. We must strengthen the Party Central Committee’s centralized and unified leadership over ideological, cultural, and propaganda work, and improve leadership and management mechanisms for cultural construction. Party committees and governments at all levels must effectively strengthen organizational leadership, do a good job of staffing, talent development, and resource investment, and mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of all parties, gathering together a powerful force for cultural superpower construction.