Party defines national rejuvenation as a state in which the PRC is "prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful." The PRC's strategy entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness the internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a "leading position." CCP leaders frequently refer to building the PRC's "comprehensive" national power in this manner. The PRC's strategy entails a long-term planning process to attain national rejuvenation that sets objectives, priorities, and milestones across virtually every aspect of governance and policy area including economics, political affairs, the rule of law, public order, national security, diplomacy, and defense as well as social affairs, education, science and technology, culture, the environment, and other matters. CCP officials have discussed achieving the unification of PRC and Taiwan as an element of national rejuvenation.
The PRC pursues its efforts to generate greater national power from the basis of defending and advancing its sovereignty, security, and development interests. Consequently, the PRC's national ambitions and statecraft rest on the foundation of the CCP-dominated political ideology of enhancing the path, theory, system, and culture of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." The objective of this Party-led strategy is perhaps best stated in what the Party calls its "basic line," a single sentence in the CCP's constitution that serves as the mission of the Party and as the cornerstone for its policymaking. Last amended at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, it states:
"The basic line of the Communist Party of China in the primary stage of socialism is to lead all the people of China together in a self-reliant and pioneering effort, making economic development the central task, upholding the Four Cardinal Principles, and remaining committed to reform and opening up, so as to see China becomes a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful."
The 20th Party Congress also incorporated new developments since 2017 in "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," after the term was adopted into the CCP's constitution. Unanimously agreed upon by Party delegates to the 19th Party Congress, the inclusion of Xi Jinping's namesake ideology into the CCP constitution was hailed as a "guide to action for the entire Party and all the Chinese people to strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."
External Conditions. Among the external elements of the PRC's national strategy are its deliberate efforts to create a "favorable" international environment that is conducive to the PRC's rise and national rejuvenation. In the 20th Party Congress Political Work Report, the CCP expanded on its calls to prepare for an increasingly turbulent international climate and prioritized securing and safeguarding its overseas interests. The Party stressed the need for strengthening the PRC's capacity to secure its overseas interests, including improving its control over grain, energy and other resources, and key industrial and supply chains. The report also stressed the CCP's need to prevent digital penetration, sabotage, subversion, and separatism activities from external actors. With regard to national security, the CCP reported it had "enhanced" the PRC's security on all fronts and "withstood political, economic, ideological, and natural risks, challenges, and trials." However, in 2021 and into 2022, PRC leadership contended with the ongoing effects of the
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
