UN General Assembly
1987

China is marching forward along the road of building a socialist society with Chinese characteristics. Now, stability and unity prevail throughout the country. Reform and the open policy are being implemented steadfastly. The Chinese economic registers a sustained and steady growth, and the people's living standards keep improving. Of course, we are fully aware that China's productive forces are cooperatively weak and its economic relatively backward. China is still at the Initial stage of socialism. During this fairly long historical period, our main: task is vigorously to expand the productive forces so that China will gradually lift itself out of poverty, backwardness and underdevelopment. To this end, we must persist in reform and opening up at home and to the outside world, work hard to develop a planned commodity economy and continue to expand our economic and technological exchange and co-operation with other countries in the world, leading to a dynamic and rapid development of the productive forces. The forthcoming thirteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China will review the historic changes that have taken place in China in the past nine years, reaffirm a series of fundamental principles and policies that have proved effective and give a theoretical exposition of reform and the open policy. The Congress will draw up new plans aimed at accelerating and deepening the economic structural reform, and work out a blueprint for political structural reform with a view to promoting the cause of socialist modernization.