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The fourth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be held from October 28 to 31 in Beijing, according to a decision made at a CPC Central Committee Political Bureau meeting on Thursday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting on Thursday, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Members of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau discussed important issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China's system and capacity for governance, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

They were briefed about the opinions solicited from in and outside the CPC about a document on the CPC Central Committee's decision concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China's system and capacity for governance.

They decided that the document will be revised based on the discussion at Thursday's meeting and submitted to the fourth plenary session.

Zhang Xixian, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, told the Global Times that the plenary session scheduled at the end of this month would have milestone significance.

The plenary session will be held in a same month of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, so it could be a historic political event that would summarize how the current system of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been established in the past 70 years, and also laid the foundation for the further improvement of this political system, Zhang noted.

Step by step 

The first plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in October 2017 confirmed the members of the leading group of the Party Central; the second plenary session in January 2018 passed the proposal for a constitutional amendment. The third plenary session in February 2018 reviewed and adopted a decision by the CPC Central Committee to deepen reform in the Party and state institutions as well as a plan for the reform, Xinhua reported. 

The communiqué from the third plenary session said, "Faced with new requirements for various tasks in the new era, the current function and structure of Party and state institutions are not completely suitable for implementing the five-sphere integrated plan and the four-pronged comprehensive strategy, nor for modernizing China's system and capacity for governance."

Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the Communist Party of China Chongqing Municipal Committee, said that since the 19th National Congress of the CPC, Xi, as the core leader of the CPC Central Committee, has paid great attention to strengthening the Party's leadership in various sectors, and the reform of state institutions has also improved efficiency and reduced overlapping functions.

"This is a condition to further push the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance," he said.  

Chinese experts also noted that the upcoming plenary session's theme also showed its connection to the goals set by the third and fourth plenary sessions of the 18th CPC Central Committee, which are to deepen the reform comprehensively, and comprehensively advance the law-based governance of China.

"The law-based governance and deepening the reform comprehensively both serve the goal of modernizing China's system and capacity for governance," Su said.

The report of the 19th CPC National Congress said "Law-based governance is an essential requirement and important guarantee for socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must exercise Party leadership at every point in the process and over every dimension of law-based governance, and be fully committed to promoting socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics."

Unbreakable connection 

The CPC Central Committee Political Bureau said in the meeting Thursday that "upholding and improving the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics" together with "the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance" are significant strategic missions of the Party, and should be led by the CPC Central Committee. Party committees and governments at all levels, as well as leading officials should strengthen their consciousness to safeguard and uphold the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, to guide the Party and society to respect the system, strictly execute the system and firmly safeguard the system, the political bureau stressed.

Su said some people have ignored the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics while merely mentioning the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance. This way they would misguide the people to apply Westernization to the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance. But this is wrong, he said.

The points stressed by the political bureau proved that there is an unbreakable connection between the two missions, Su said. "A political system must first be established before the reform and modernization is pushed forward," he said.