Farmer Tong Fengkui visited the local bureau of letters and visits to file complaints more than 200 times over the last decade as he saw many problems which could not be solved in his village.

These problems, including misappropriating lands by the government and embezzlement of public funds, came as life in his village in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province turned better in recent years.

Tong's eagerness in filing complaints to the government shows that as farmers become wealthy, they are paying more attention to their own interests and they are active in "preventing their share of the fruit of economic development from being swallowed by a powerful few."

Chinese President Hu Jintao Wednesday told members of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau that efforts should be made to "earnestly solve problems concerning people's immediate interests" and "always maintain people's fundamental interests".

Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said, "Development is for the people, depends on the people and the fruit of development must be shared by the people."

He made the remarks when presiding over the 16th group study for the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, whose theme was understanding and practicing modernization since the founding of New China.

He said the Party aimed to let all the people "march toward common prosperity".

ROAD TO AFFLUENCE

Chen Donglin, a research fellow with the Beijing-based Institute of Contemporary China Studies, said China's perception of "affluence" has changed with the country's economic development.

The Chinese character for "affluence", or "fuyu", is formed by components meaning "having a full stomach" and "having foods and clothes."

Affluence was only the right of a privileged few before the founding of the New China in 1949.

Chen said, "Chinese people cannot realize a common prosperity without the establishment of the socialist system, which is proved by thousands of years of history (of the feudal and slavery systems) before 1949."

China had experienced three stages on the road to common prosperity, he said.

-- From 1949 to 1965, farmers were encouraged to "become better off through one's own labor" and the government promoted "collective prosperity".

-- From 1966 to 1976 when the country was ravaged by the Cultural Revolution, "personal affluence", or building up one's own family fortunes, was strictly forbidden.

-- After China's reform and opening-up in 1978, the chief architect of the country's reform Deng Xiaoping called for "allowing and encouraging some people and areas to get rich first," which was leading to common prosperity and would ultimately realize a moderately prosperous society.

As a result, the rapid development of private businesses had greatly boosted the local economy. They have also served as major contributors to China's GDP (gross domestic product). The country has more than 6.8 million private businesses, according to the State Administration For Industry and Commerce.

Hu Jintao said in a report to the 17th CPC National Congress in October 2007, that the Party "will create conditions to enable more citizens to have property income, and the Party will protect lawful incomes, regulate excessively high incomes and ban illegal gains."

Analysts say it shows the Party's updated policy on "affluence," with signals suggesting offering more support to the country's 700 million farmers who were not well-off compared with their urban counterparts, measures including taxation exemption, expanding coverage of medical service and social security.

These policies have been the highlights of China's reform measures, either implemented or immediately being enforced.

Chen said promoting common prosperity was an "unprecedented task" for China.

"Although the country has achieved rapid economic development, only if it realized common prosperity could China establish its own development mode, and only then could we say the reform has reaped the ultimate success," he said.

Luckily for farmer Tong from Heilongjiang Province, most of his problems have been redressed by his village officials in a national drive that called for local officials to "thoroughly investigate and deal with problems raised by the public."

But problems of his kind are still widespread in China. And that is what the CPC is going to deal with as the 1.3 billion population are on the road to affluence, bumping but never so sure.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2009)