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For the grassroot masses, the policies-setting report delivered at the once-every-five-year national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is probably too multifarious and too macro-sounding to study. The one passed by the just concluded 17th National Congress of the CPC, however, contains some encouraging messages that are manifestly new. One of them is the emphasis on the improvement of people's livelihood. Compared to reports in previous congresses, a larger part of the policy statement is devoted to the issue with more explicit wording about what should be done to ensure the improvement. The report says that the share given to labor in the primary distribution of wealth should be raised and that the relationship between efficiency and fairness be "handled properly". This marked the first ever acknowledgement that the share of after-production profits laborers obtained as compared to that garnered by other productive elements was unfairly low. In the last 20 years of the past century, China took on market-oriented reform and went all out to ensure a fast economic growth. Counteracting the previous egalitarianism, which was intrinsically a haven for poor work performance, the nation accepted the notion that efficiency has priority over fairness. The notion was right at that time as it was a sobering stimulant for Chinese who had become accustomed to the practice of "eating from the same rice wok". And efficiency did play a vital role in the dramatic growth of China's national economy since the launch of the reform drive at the end of the 1970s. | 
