Xiaokang society (Simplified Chinese: 小康社会; Traditional Chinese: 小康社會; pinyin: xiǎokāng shèhuì; literally "Society of small peace/comfort/health") is a society of modest means, or a middle-class society. The term which was first used in the Classic of Rites was first written over 2000 years ago in comparison to datung (大同). It is notable since the term has widely been used in People's Republic of China starting around 2002 and its recent use has been associated with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao as a goal for China to reach by the year 2020. Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiÇŽntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiÇŽnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard... The examples and perspective in this article do not represent a worldwide view. ... Classic of Rites The Classic of Rites (禮記 Lǐ Jì, or Liki) was one of the Five Classics of Confucianism; it described social forms, ancient rites, and court ceremonies. ... Hú Jǐntāo (born December 21, 1942) is the fourth and current President of the Peoples Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. ... Wen Jiabao (Simplified Chinese: 温家宝; Traditional Chinese: 溫家寶; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Wen Chia-pao) (born September 1942) is the Premier of the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China. ... 2020 (MMXX) is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Vision

The vision of a xiaokang society is one in which most people are moderately well off and middle class, and in which economic prosperity is sufficient to move most of the Chinese population into comfortable means, but in which economic advancement is not the sole focus of society. Explicitly incorporated into the concept of a xiaokang society is the idea that economic growth needs to be balanced with sometimes conflicting goals of social equality and environmental protection. The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. ...

The current usage of the term also invokes ancient Chinese thought in support of modern Chinese Marxism. In ancient Chinese writing a xiaokang society was the predecessor to the great unity. There is a rough correspondence between this progression and the progression in Chinese Marxism between a market socialist society and world communism. Chinese philosophy has a history of several thousand years. ... Maoism or Mao Tse-tung Thought (Chinese: 毛泽东思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng SÄ«xiÇŽng), is a variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). ... The Great unity (大同, py. ...

The revival of the concept of a xiaokang society was in part a criticism of Chinese social trends in the 1990s under Jiang Zemin, in which many in China felt was focusing too much on the newly rich and not enough on China's rural poor. Furthermore there has been a fear in some circles that Chinese society has become too materialistic placing material wealth above all other social needs. Jiāng Zémín (born August 17, 1926) was the core of the third generation of Communist Party of China leaders, serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the Peoples Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and...

In contrast to previous concepts such as the spiritual civilization and the campaigns against bourgeois liberalization in the 1980s, the concept of the xiaokang society does not involve heroic self-sacrifice and does not place the material and the spiritual in opposition. The vision of a xiaokang society sees the need for economic growth to provide prosperity, but it sees the need for this prosperity to be broadly distributed. Bourgeois liberalism was a term of disparagement used by Peoples Republic of China rulers of the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to a perceived political and cultural threat -- in political terms as parliamentary democracy and in cultural terms as western popular culture. ...

In addition, the concept of a xiaokang society is the first time in which the Communist Party of China has used a classical Chinese concept to legitimize its vision for the future of China. Communist Party of China flag The Communist Party of China (Simplified Chinese: 中国共产党; Traditional Chinese: 中國共産黨; pinyin: ) is the ruling party of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of Zhou Dynasty Chinese, making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ...