Entering the new century, the CPC set the goal of building a moderately prosperous society of a higher level in all aspects for the benefit of over one billion people by 2020 at its 16th and 17th national congresses. To meet this goal, and to improve socialist democracy and the socialist legal system, fully carry out the basic strategy of governing the country by law, better safeguard the people's rights and interests, social fairness and justice, and promote social harmony, the Chinese legislature strengthened legislation work and constantly improved the quality of legislation. To safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and promote the peaceful reunification of the country, the legislature enacted the Anti-Secession Law. To develop socialist democracy, it enacted the Law on the Supervision of Standing Committees of People's Congresses at All Levels, Administrative Licensing Law, Administrative Coercion Law, and some other laws. To protect the lawful rights and interests of the citizens, legal persons and other organizations, and guarantee and promote the healthy development of the socialist market economy, the legislature enacted the Property Law, Tort Law, Law on Enterprise Bankruptcy, Anti-monopoly Law, Law on Anti-money Laundering, Enterprise Income Tax Law, Law on Vehicle and Vessel Taxation, Law on the State-owned Assets of Enterprises, Banking Supervision Law, and some other laws. To improve the social security system, and ensure and improve the people's livelihood, the legislature enacted the Social Insurance Law, Labor Contract Law, Employment Promotion Law, People's Mediation Law, Law on Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration, Food Safety Law, and some other laws. To conserve resources, protect the environment and build a resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society, the legislature enacted the Law on Renewable Energy, Circular Economy Promotion Law, Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, and some other laws. In addition, the Chinese legislature also promulgated and revised a group of laws to strengthen social management and safeguard social order.
As the NPC and its Standing Committee enact laws, the State Council and local people's congresses and their standing committees, based on their scope of legislative power as prescribed in the Constitution and related laws, have adopted many administrative regulations and local regulations, which play an important role in improving China's socialist democracy and legal system, and promoting the establishment of the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics.
To ensure a unified legal system and make it more scientific and consistent, legislative bodies at different levels sorted out laws and regulations on several occasions. From 2009, the NPC Standing Committee, the State Council, and local people's congresses and their standing committees started to sort out laws and regulations in an all-round way. The NPC Standing Committee annulled eight laws and decisions about legal issues, and revised 59 laws. The State Council annulled seven administrative regulations and revised 107 administrative regulations. Local people's congresses and their standing committees annulled 455 local regulations, and revised 1,417 local regulations. Such work has helped to solve the problem of incompatibility among laws and regulations.
Since New China was founded, and particularly since the policy of reform and opening up was introduced in 1978, China has made remarkable achievements in its legislation work. By the end of August 2011, the Chinese legislature had enacted 240 effective laws including the current Constitution, 706 administrative regulations, and over 8,600 local regulations. As a result, all legal branches have been set up, covering all aspects of social relations; basic and major laws of each branch have been made; related administrative regulations and local regulations are fairly complete; and the whole legal system is scientific and consistent. A socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics has been solidly put into place.