THE Communist Party of China (CPC) yesterday kicked off a key meeting, which centered on rule of law for the first time in the Party’s history.

    The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, which will last until Thursday, will deliberate on a draft decision of the CPC Central Committee on “major issues concerning comprehensively advancing rule of law,” sources close to the meeting said.

    The decision is widely expected to set the tone for the CPC to promote rule of law in China in an all-round manner under new circumstances.

    This is the first time a plenary session of the CPC Central Committee has taken rule of law as its theme.

    China wrote rule of law into the Constitution in the 1990s. The 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1997 decided to make rule of law a basic strategy and “building a socialist country under the rule of law” an important goal for socialist modernization.

    According to sources familiar with the matter, the CPC leadership has taken the view that China’s reform has entered a critical stage and a “deep water zone,” while warning of “a complicated and changing international situation.”

    The gravity of the CPC’s undertakings in safeguarding China’s reform, development and stability is thus unprecedented, and so is the multiplicity of the contradictions, risks and challenges it faces.

    Rule of law will henceforth play an ever more prominent and important role in the overall work of the Party and the government, the sources said.

    The Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee will also report its work to the Central Committee during the meeting.

    (Xinhua)