ABSTRACT
Ever since the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress, in September 2004, raised the concept of building a ‘harmonious society’ as a top priority for the Chinese government, this idea has become the common objective for those intent on designing an attractive future for the Chinese people (Hu 2006). In February 2006, Mr Hu Jintao, President of China, ‘urged building a social justice guarantee system based on “equal rights, equal opportunities, fair rules and fair distribution”’ (Hu 2006). This programme has even more recently been reinforced by the adoption of a Resolution on Major Issues Regarding the Building of a Harmonious Socialist Society by the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on 11 October 2006 (Wang 2006b: 1).
