The report Jiang Zemin delivered at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Friday was titled "Build a well-off society in an all-round way and create a new situation in building socialism with Chinese characteristics."
In the Chinese version, the original one, the equivalent of "a well-off society” is "a xiaokang society.” Scholars agree there is not an exact English equivalent to xiaokang and that xiaokang is less affluent than "well-off” but better off than freedom from want.
Xiaokang literally means "Small Well-Being.” The term has a long history. In the Book of Songs, a collection of ancient songs that is believed to come into being 2,000 years ago, xiaokang was first mentioned as a social state in which people led a fairly comfortable life.
The Book of Rites, another ancient classic, contains a systematic description of xiaokang, visualizing it as a social mode that comes next to Great Harmony (Da Tong), or a perfect society.
After China adopted reform and open policies, the late leader Deng Xiaoping used xiaokang, a household term, to describe Chinese-style modernization and referred to it as a goal to be attained by the nation by the end of the 20th century.
The xiaokang goal has since inspired the Chinese people with great enthusiasm in their march toward modernization.
When he met with Ohira Masayoshi, the late prime minister of Japan, on December 6, 1979, Deng Xiaoping used xiaokang to describe Chinese-style modernization. He said, “The Four Modernizations we are striving for are Chinese-style modernization. Our concept of Four Modernizations is not like your concept of modernization. Our concept is (the life) of a 'xiaokang family'." "By the end of this century, even if we have achieved certain goals in our modernization drive, our per-capita GDP will remain quite low," Deng said. "To reach the level found in more prosperous countries of the Third World, say a per-capita GDP of US$1,000, we still need to make great efforts. China by then is still in a state of xiaokang. "In 1984, Deng further elaborated on his concept of xiaokang, saying "xiaokang means that, by the end of this century, our per-capita GDP reaches US$800." By the end of the 20th century, the Chinese people had on the whole reached a xiaokang standard of living.
Xiaokang remains the goal of China's modernization drive but it denotes a life of greater affluence than it is today.
(Eastday.com November 11, 2002)
