“Healthy China”

healthy China is a strategy that has been in the making for several years. The idea was proposed by some Chinese scholars at the beginning of the 21st century. In August 2012, the Ministry of Public Health released a strategic research report, “Healthy China 2020,” a joint work of several hundred experts. In March 2015, in his Report on the Work of the Government, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that “Good health is a basic public necessity. The government will constantly improve the medical and health care services to create a healthy China.” “Building a healthy China” was listed as one of the goals China will work to realize in the “Recommendations for the 13th Five-year Plan for Economic and Social Development (2016-20),” which was deliberated and adopted by the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at its Fifth Plenary Session in November 2015.

The “Healthy China” strategy highlights the health service for the general public. In building a healthy China, the government will establish a basic medical and health care system, covering both urban and rural areas, by the year of 2020. It will be a system of relatively complete public health and medical care, a system of relatively complete medical security, a system of relatively secured drug supplies, and a system of relatively scientific medical and health care management and operation. With equal provision of basic public health services in both urban and rural areas, every citizen will enjoy basic health and medical care. The average life expectancy of the Chinese people will be further extended, and the mortality rates of infants and pregnant and lying-in women further lowered. The target is to bring the main health index up to the level of a moderately developed country.