Expanding the Middle-Income Groups, Building a Middle Class-Dominated Modern Society—Analysis and Forecast of China’s Social Conditions during the Period 2016–2017

The year 2016 was the first year of the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Since the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, when the government reiterated its philosophy of development with a commitment to the principles of innovation, coordination, environmental-soundness, openness and inclusiveness at the core and a strategy of development that prioritizes steady growth, structural optimization, growth model transformation, redressing weaknesses in the economy and improving people’s material standard of living and quality of life, the Chinese economy has seen steady growth, progress in structural optimization, and increases in the quality of growth. Notable achievements have been made in social development, and life has improved on the whole for the Chinese people. The size of middle-income groups continues to expand, and China is poised to become a modern society with an olive-shaped income distribution structure within a short period of time. Advances in economic and social development notwithstanding, risks and problems arose that need to be addressed.