I. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Chinese government will continue to give priority to the protection of the people's rights to subsistence and development. It will take proactive measures to ensure and improve the people's livelihood, spare no efforts to solve the problems of immediate concern to the people, and improve the level of protection of economic, social and cultural rights, so as to ensure that the benefits of development are shared by all members of society.

(1) Right to work

Efforts will be made to implement a more active employment policy, improve the wage system, fully carry out the labor contract system, improve working conditions, strengthen labor safety and protect the people's right to work.

- Implementing the "employment priority" strategy. From 2012 to 2015, the urban workforce will be increased by nine million on annual average, and the registered urban unemployment rate will be kept under 5%. Efforts will be made to ensure equal employment opportunities for urban and rural residents, and promote the orderly outflow of rural labor force and local transfer and employment of rural labor force.

- Improving the wage system. A normal wage increase mechanism will be set up and the minimum wage level will be raised steadily. The minimum wage will increase by over 13% annually, and the minimum wage level in most regions will reach over 40% of the average wage of local urban employees. Efforts will be made to establish and improve the collective wage consultation mechanism and wage payment security mechanism in enterprises, and to ensure that migrant workers and urban employees receive equal pay for equal work.

- Amending the Labor Contract Law and comprehensively introducing the labor contract system. By 2015, the labor contract signing rate of enterprises will reach 90%.

- Improving working conditions. Efforts will be made to accelerate the construction of the system of labor standards, define management according to standard labor quotas and implement the paid vacation system.

- Implementing a safety production strategy, strengthening monitoring for workplace safety and preventing major accidents. By 2015, the completion rate of construction of enterprise emergency platforms at national, provincial (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) and city levels and for enterprises of high-risk industries will be 100%; and that in the major counties, 80%. By 2013, Grade III safety standards or above will be applied for non-coal mines and factories producing dangerous chemicals and fireworks as well as enterprises above a certain scale in the eight industrial and commercial trades of metallurgy, non-ferrous metals, building materials, machine-building, light industry, textiles, tobacco and commerce. By 2015, enterprises below a certain scale in the eight trades, including the metallurgical industry, as well as transportation and communications, construction and other industries, will reach the required safety standards. The death toll caused by various types of industrial accidents and the number of major accidents will fall markedly. Safety production information will be publicized, and complaints mailboxes and "12350" safe production report hotlines set up and standardized.

- Implementing the Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases. The occupational health indicators prescribed in the National Occupational Disease Control Program (2009-2015) will be continuously implemented.

- Launching multiform vocational training to rural and urban workers. Efforts will be made to guarantee every new employee access to corresponding vocational training opportunities, ensuring that technical workers can take part in at least one skill-upgrading training program. The localities are encouraged to establish practical training bases. By 2015, the total number of skilled workers will reach 125 million, of which 34 million will be highly-skilled workers.

- Improving the labor security supervision and law-enforcing system and the labor dispute settlement mechanism. China will strengthen supervision over and law-enforcement for labor security. It will give full play to the role of labor dispute mediation and arbitration, and the closing rate of labor dispute arbitration will reach 90%.

(2) Right to basic living standards

China will maintain steady and rapid economic development, adjust the income distribution pattern, implement poverty alleviation projects, improve the basic housing security system, protect farmers' rights and interests related to land according to law and improve the level of citizens' basic rights of life.

- The increase of rural and urban residents' income will keep pace with economic growth. From 2011 to 2015, the average annual growth rate of China's GDP is expected to be 7%, and the annual growth rate of the per-capita disposal income of urban residents and per-capita net income of rural residents will be over 7%. The income distribution pattern will be adjusted, the share of personal income in the distribution of national income will be increased, so will that of work remuneration in primary distribution; the proportion of middle-income earners will be expanded and the income of middle- and low-income earners will be increased.

- Implementing the Outline of Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China' s Rural Areas (2011-2020). The state will gradually raise the standards for poverty alleviation. Key poverty reduction projects will be launched for 24,000 villages, where most of the villagers are hit hard by poverty. The government will also conduct training programs in practical skills for the impoverished laborers in rural areas. It will organize migration for people in areas with harsh living conditions on condition that they can do it out of their free will. It will continue to carry out poverty reduction pilot projects in border, endemic-disease-stricken and post-disaster reconstruction areas, and other poverty-stricken areas. It will continue to support such areas with science and technology, and send technicians there to help local people start businesses for the purpose of poverty reduction. Great efforts will be made to develop forestry in poor mountain areas, striving to increase the forest coverage by 1.5 percentage points over that at the end of 2010 and ensure that each impoverished household starts one income-generating project.

- Formulating basic housing security regulations, and improving the construction, distribution, management and exit system of indemnificatory housing. Efforts will be made to speed up the construction of low-rent housing, public rental housing, affordable housing and other types of indemnificatory house, and promote the rebuilding of shanty areas in cities. In so doing, China aims to basically solve the housing problem of low- and lower-middle-income urban families, lessen the housing difficulties of new employees and improve the living conditions of migrant workers. By 2015, the coverage of indemnificatory housing across the country will reach 20%. China will speed up the transformation of shanty areas in forest, reclamation and coal-mining regions. It will renovate dilapidated housing for 815,300 families in forest areas during the 12th Five-Year Plan period.

- Helping impoverished farmer households solve housing safety problems. Efforts will be made to bring into play the guiding role of government financial subsidies in establishing a long-term mechanism for rural dilapidated house transformation. The government plans to help five million impoverished farmer households upgrade their dilapidated houses from 2012 to 2015.

- Implementing the Regulations on the Expropriation of and Compensation for Buildings on State-owned Land, enacting and improving policies and regulations related to housing expropriation to effectively protect the legitimate rights of the owners.

- Doing a good job in land right confirmation, registration and certification so as to effectively protect the farmers' rights to operate their contracted land, to use homesteads and to get income from distribution of collective gains. The state will formulate regulations concerning compensation from the expropriation of rural collective land.

(3) Right to social security

China will improve the various forms of social insurance, and promote the equal coverage of the social relief system in both rural and urban areas to improve the social security level.

- Enacting and amending the supporting rules and regulations of the Social Insurance Law. The state will revise the Regulations on Unemployment Insurance, enact regulations on basic medical insurance and regulations on national security fund, and regulations on maternity insurance and rules regarding the registration, application and payment of social insurance, etc.

- Improving the pension system. By 2015, the number of urban workers and residents underwriting the basic old-age insurance policies will reach 357 million, and the eventual aim is to achieve full coverage of the new rural old-age insurance system and urban employees' pension insurance system. Migrant workers who have established stable labor relations with enterprises will be covered in the basic old-age and medical insurance schemes for urban employees. The state will guarantee the transfer of basic pension accounts for urban workers, and gradually promote the effectual bridging of the rural and urban old-age insurance systems. Efforts will be made to comprehensively implement unified planning in old-age insurance for urban employees and achieve national unified planning for basic old-age pensions. China will endeavor to improve the normal adjustment mechanism for basic pensions to steadily raise the basic pensions for enterprise retirees.

- Improving the basic medical insurance system to make medical insurance basically cover both rural and urban residents in 2015. The total number of people subscribing policies of medical insurance for urban employees, medical insurance for urban residents and new rural cooperative medical insurance will be increased by 60 million as compared with 2010, and the number of people subscribing urban and rural basic medical insurance policies will reach 1.32 billion. Financial grants to those taking policies of urban residents' basic medical insurance and new rural cooperative medical insurance will be raised. The medical treatment cost of inpatients covered by urban employees' medical insurance, urban residents' medical insurance and new rural cooperative medical insurance will all be around 75%. Urban residents' medical insurance and new rural cooperative medical insurance will cover all areas where unified planning in this regard is made, and their coverage of the outpatient expenses will be raised to over 50%. By 2015, the government grant to each person subscribing urban residents' medical insurance and new rural cooperative medical insurance each year will be raised to over 360 yuan, while the coverage of the new rural cooperative medical insurance will be stabilized above 95%.

- Amending regulations and supporting rules on unemployment insurance and further improving the unemployment insurance system. The level of unified planning for unemployment insurance funds will be elevated. By 2015, the number of subscribers to unemployment insurance will reach 160 million.

-- Improving the work-related injury insurance system covering prevention, compensation and rehabilitation. Work-related injury insurance will be put first under unified planning at the municipal level, and gradually unified planning at the provincial level. Proactive and steady efforts will be made in the prevention and rehabilitation of work-related injuries. By 2015, the subscribers to work-related injury insurance will reach 210 million.

-- Improving the maternity insurance system and by 2015 women subscribing maternity insurance will reach 150 million.

-- Increasing subsistence allowances and level of social relief for rural and urban residents. Work will be done to improve the subsistence allowance determining mechanism and dynamic adjustment mechanism and ensure that the average annual growth rate of the subsistence allowances reach 10%. And the subsistence allowances provided to rural residents enjoying the "Five Guarantees" (food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses) will equal the average living standard of fellow villagers. Recipients of basic living allowances in both urban and rural areas will be classified, and more assistance will be granted to the aged, disabled, minors and seriously ill. By 2015, the urban and rural residents entitled to the subsistence allowances will make up around 6% of the total population, covering everyone in need. Steps will be taken to gradually lower or cancel the minimum payment line for medical treatment, and popularize the one-stop settlement model. The Measures for Assisting and Managing Urban Vagrants and Beggars with No Means of Livelihood will be revised, and a temporary aid system will be established all over the country.

(4) Right to health

China will establish initially a basic medical and health system that covers the entire nation, and improve the medical insurance system, public health service system and medical care system to protect the citizens' right to health.

-- Formulating a law on mental health, and making studies for the enactment of a law on basic medical and health care.

-- Continuously increasing the average life expectancy so that it will reach 74.5 years by 2015.

-- Strengthening the construction of primary-level medical and health care institutions and training bases for general practitioners. By 2015, China intends to train 150,000 general practitioners through job-transfer training, on-the-job training and standardized training.

-- Promoting equality in the right to basic health services. Efforts will be made to ensure that the per-capita spending for public health services is no less than 25 yuan around the country, and see to it that it will be raised to over 40 yuan by 2015. The state will also provide such free services as establishing health records, and providing health education and vaccination. The state will encourage blood donation without compensation and secure blood safety, and make sure that emergency medical services are permanently available.

-- Bringing infectious diseases under effective control. China will intensify efforts in prevention and control of major infectious diseases such as AIDS and cholera, and effectively control new infections and mortality caused by AIDS, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis. The rate of direct reporting on incidences of infectious diseases by medical and health institutions at/above the county level will be 100%. Endeavors will also be made to strengthen the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases among passengers on public transportation vehicles such as trains. The mechanism of joint prevention and control of major epidemics at land and sea ports will be established and medical media monitoring and pathogen detection will be strengthened at the ports.

-- Greater efforts will be made to prevent and treat chronic diseases. China will popularize knowledge in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, striving to achieve an awareness rate of 50% among core members in this regard. China will improve early detection, intervention and management of major chronic diseases and high-risk people, making sure that the awareness rate of blood pressure and blood sugar level by people of 35 years old and above reach 75% and 50%, respectively, and the management rate of hypertension and diabetes be no less than 40%. China will institute early detection and treatment of major cancers in 30% of areas with high incidences of cancer across the country.

-- Ensuring the safety of drinking water. China will promote the construction of a monitoring network for the safety of drinking water, and make its coverage extend to all cities divided into districts and over 90% of counties by 2015. The rural population with access to centralized water supply will be raised to 80%. Efforts will be made to make safe drinking water accessible to an additional 60 million rural people every year.

-- The Food Safety Law will be implemented, food safety monitoring system and food safety regulations and standards will be improved, and the responsibility will be determined for safe production of food. Stricter supervision will be enforced over all links of food processing and production, and the basic supervisory systems, such as the production licensing system, supervision and inspection system, recall system and label management system for food, food additives and food-related production, will be improved, so will the emergency plan for food safety accidents, the accident investigation and handling system and rapid response and handling system. China will bridge mechanisms between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice to severely punish criminal acts harming food safety.

-- Comprehensively implementing measures for prevention and control of endemic diseases, and basically eliminating such hazards. China will strive to eliminate iodine deficiency diseases in over 90% of the counties (cities and districts) in Hainan, Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang, and make sure that iodine deficiency diseases are eliminated in 95% of the counties (cities and districts) in other provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government). In areas with a high incidence of endemic fluorosis caused by coal burning, comprehensive preventive measures focusing on modifying and improving stoves will be adopted over 95% of the households. China will basically complete projects to provide safe drinking water and improve water quality in areas afflicted by endemic fluorosis and arseniasis which have been proved to be caused mainly by unsafe drinking water. Efforts will be made to bring under effective control fluorosis caused by tea drinking. Over 90% of the villages that are afflicted by Kaschin-Beck disease will have the disease eliminated, and over 90% of the counties where Keshan disease remains an endemic will have it eliminated.

-- Making studies for enactment of a law on traditional Chinese medicine and management methods of the standards of the medicinal materials. China will raise the national standards for drugs, improve the drug inspection and control system, strengthen drug safety monitoring and early warning, improve the drug safety emergency-response mechanism, fix in advance responsibility for the safe production and use of drugs, and ensure the quality and safety of basic drugs.

-- Forming a national fitness public service network covering all urban and rural residents and carrying out the National Fitness Program (2011-2015). Sports venues of various kinds will add up to over 1.2 million, with per-capita sports area being above 1.5 sq m. To achieve this goal, venues with sports facilities will be built in all cities, counties (districts), neighborhoods (townships) and communities (administrative villages). National fitness centers will be built in over 50% of the country's cities and counties (districts); convenient and practical fitness equipment will be installed in over 50% of neighborhoods (townships) and communities (administrative villages). Fitness stations will be established in over 50% of rural communities.

(5) Right to education

By implementing the Outline of the State Medium- and Long-term Program on Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), China will promote the balanced development of compulsory education throughout the country, develop pre-school education and vocational education, make senior high school education universal, improve the quality of higher education, achieve fairness in education, and raise the overall educational level of all Chinese citizens.

-- Consolidating the achievements in nine-year compulsory education. The net enrollment rate in elementary schools will remain at above 99%, gross enrollment rate in junior high schools will reach 99%, and the number of students graduating from compulsory education will reach 93% of the total enrollment. In addition, China will guarantee equal right to education for children of migrant workers, mainly relying on full-time public schools in cities they migrate to.

-- Allocating educational resources in balanced manner. China will promote standardized construction of schools of nine-year compulsory education and step up efforts in the renovation of school buildings in poor conditions; encourage exchanges of teachers between different schools within an area to narrow the gap among schools; allocate more educational resources to central and western regions, rural areas, remote and border areas, ethnic-minority areas, as well as urban schools in poor conditions; and accelerate the construction of boarding schools in rural areas to meet the needs of rural children.

-- Proactively developing pre-school education. The goal is to have 65% of the children who will be starting school in three years enrolled in kindergartens, and 85% of the children who will be starting school in one year enrolled in kindergartens. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), the central government will appropriate 50 billion yuan for pre-school education development in rural areas of central and western China. Local governments at different levels will carry out the Pre-school Education Three-Year Action Plan and gradually build and improve pre-school education networks in urban and rural areas.

-- Quickening steps in making senior high school education universal. China will improve the conditions of senior high schools, and enhance their teaching level and quality. By 2015, the gross enrollment rate of senior high schools will reach 87%. Moreover, more support will be given to senior high schools in poor areas of central and western China.

-- Making great efforts to develop vocational education. Secondary vocational education will have more or less the same enrollment as regular senior high schools. Support will be given to academic subjects that meet the needs of industry and enterprises. Teaching staff with theoretical knowledge, ability to teach, and practical experience and skills will be trained. The tuition fees for secondary vocational schooling will be gradually abolished.

-- Boosting higher education. China will improve educational quality and innovation ability of institutions of higher learning in line with the requirements of its socio-economic development and national strategy. It will carry out a higher education rejuvenation program for central and western China. The areas of central and western China that are short of higher education resources will be given priority in the allocation of such resources. Institutions of higher learning in eastern China will enlarge their enrollments in central and western China, and strengthen pair-up support by institutions of higher learning in eastern regions to those in western China.

-- Further improving the policy system of assistance to poor students. China will improve the national allowance program for poor senior high school students and the dynamic adjustment mechanism of state scholarships to ensure that students do not drop out of school because of poverty.

(6) Cultural rights

The Outline of the National Plan for Cultural Reform and Development of the 12th Five-Year Plan Period will be implemented. Effective measures will be taken to accelerate the construction of public cultural facilities, promote the development of cultural undertakings, enrich the people's cultural life and guarantee the citizens' cultural rights.

-- Strengthening legislation on culture and conducting research to formulate the Public Library Law, Museum Regulations, and other related laws and regulations, revising the Copyright Law, Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics and similar laws, and drawing up regulations and rules complementary to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law.

-- Improving public cultural facilities and cultural service networks. China will increase and improve public cultural facilities like culture centers, museums, libraries, art galleries, science and technology museums, memorial halls, workers' centers, and youth and children's palaces, and open them to the public free of charge. Radio and TV broadcasts will be available in all villages with no more than 20 households each and where electricity is available, covering 99% of China's population. The cultural information resource sharing project will reach 530 TB in digital resources, shared by 50% of all households. Mobile cinemas in rural areas will reach 50,000, showing one digital movie every month in every administrative village. Migrant workers will be brought into the urban public cultural service system; and enterprises and communities are guided to actively hold cultural activities geared towards migrant workers.

-- Promoting culture coverage and popularization of science and technology. By 2015, each Chinese citizen will have, on average, 5.8 books and 3.1 periodicals every year; every 1,000 people will have 100 daily newspapers; every 10,000 people will share 1.3 publication outlets, and the number of people who read books or periodicals will reach 80% of the total population. China will also accelerate the construction of farmers' libraries, and urban and rural newspaper reading boards. China will enact the Law on Science and Technology Progress and the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology, formulate standards on citizens' scientific knowledge, promote the building of venues for popularizing science knowledge and launch the construction of the National Demonstration Base for Science Popularization.

-- Accelerating Internet construction. By 2015 over 45% of China's population will have access to the Internet. The fixed broadband ports will exceed 370 million. The Internet connection speed for urban households will reach 20 Mb/s, and that for rural households, 4 Mb/s. Fiber optic Internet connection will cover 200 million households. In addition, China will build wireless broadband cities, and gradually spread Internet connections and usage throughout the rural areas.

(7) Environmental rights

China will strengthen its environmental protection work to guarantee the public's environmental rights, focusing on serious environmental pollution affecting the people's life, like heavy metal pollution, drinking water pollution, and air, soil and marine contamination.

-- Amending the Law on Environmental Protection, preserving and improving the living environment and ecosystem, and preventing and controlling environmental pollution and other hazards.

-- Effectively preventing and controlling heavy metal pollution by improving the prevention and control system, emergency response system, and environment and health risk assessment system as regards heavy metal pollution.

-- Strengthening water pollution prevention and reversal efforts. China will improve the water quality and environment in trans-provincial areas, tackle seriously contaminated urban water systems and tributary rivers, slow the eutrophication of major lakes, further increase the rate of water functional zones that reach the required hygiene standards, and gradually restore the water ecosystem in certain water areas. China will also enhance protection of unpolluted lakes, and continuously reduce the total emission of major pollutants that contaminate the water. An underground water monitoring and control system will be established; the underground water pollution will be measured; underground water pollution sources will be initially controlled; and experiments to reverse underground water pollution will be launched.

-- Improving air quality. By 2015, the country's chemical oxygen demand amount will be controlled at 23.476 million tons, and the total emissions of sulfur dioxide, ammonia nitrogen and nitric oxides will be controlled at 20.864 million tons, 2.38 million tons and 20.462 million tons, respectively. China will endeavor to reduce the concentration of inhalable particulate matter in the air in key regions year by year. By 2015, all cities at prefecture level and above will monitor particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers.

-- Pushing forward ecosystem construction. By 2015, China's land nature reserves will take up 15% of its total land area so that 90% of the key species under national protection and typical ecosystem types will be preserved. China's forest coverage will reach 21.66%. Ten million ha of desertified land and 200,000 sq km of land suffering from soil erosion will be treated. In urban and rural built-up areas, the vegetation-coverage rates will reach 39% and 25%, respectively.

- Strengthening marine ecosystem protection, pushing forward the construction of marine conservation areas, and tightening supervision for the environmental effects of marine projects and waste discharge into the sea.

-- Intensifying prevention and control of radioactive waste pollution. China will push forward the decommissioning of obsolete nuclear facilities, and the prevention and treatment of radioactive waste. Civil radioactive-irradiation facilities will be decommissioned, and the waste will be reclaimed. The country will strengthen its ability to store, treat and dispose of radioactive waste, and basically eliminate the danger of contamination by low- and intermediate-level radioactive residue waste left over from history. The treatment of pollution by uranium mines and mines associated with radioactivity will be accelerated, and uranium mining and refining facilities that fall short of safety requirements will be shut down. At the same time, a long-term monitoring mechanism will be established for decommissioned uranium mining and refining facilities.

-- Enforcing strict monitoring and control over dangerous chemicals. China will phase out chemicals that are highly poisonous, hard to degrade or highly hazardous to the environment, and strictly restrict the production and use of chemicals involving severe environmental risks.

-- Improving environmental monitoring and supervision mechanisms, establishing a trans-regional and inter-departmental cooperative mechanism for the enforcement of environmental laws, and improving the accountability system for major environmental and pollution accidents.