Third, we must improve our country's urbanization strategy. What urbanization approach should China adopt? This is a major issue, and the key to getting it right is to make protecting the health and safety of our people the basic goal of urban development. At present, 60.6% of China's population is permanent urban residents, and the figure is likely to rise in the coming years. We should promote people-centered urbanization and make our cities healthier, safer, and more livable, so that our people can enjoy a high quality of life.

It accords with objective principles to enhance the economic and population carrying capacities of areas with economic development advantages, such as major cities and urban agglomerations. Yet, economic scale should not be the only factor in urban development. Ecology and security should be given greater priority in urban planning, and economic, living, ecological, and safety requirements should all be considered. We should apply our people-centered development philosophy, make all-around social progress and well-rounded development of people our starting point, and formulate urban development plans guided by the vision of eco-civilization and an integrative approach to national security, so as to make our cities more livable, resilient, and intelligent and establish high-quality urban ecosystems and security systems.

The concentration of industries and people in advantageous regions is an objective economic law, but no city should grow indefinitely. The current population density of China's megacities (each with over 10 million permanent residents in urban areas) and large cities (each with 5-10 million permanent residents in urban areas) is very high. For example, the main urban districts of Beijing and Shanghai have population densities of over 20,000 per square kilometer, compared to about 13,000 in Tokyo and New York. In the long run, cities across China need to bring their population density under control, and there needs to be standards for controlling the average population density of major cities. We need to build new suburban cities with integrated industries, balanced job and housing provisions, livable environments, and convenient transportation; encourage polycentric development and suburbanization; promote the orderly construction of digital cities; improve intelligent management capabilities; and gradually solve the problems of excessive population density and overloaded functions in central urban areas.

Circumstances vary significantly in different parts of our country, so we should promote diverse urban layouts based on local conditions. In densely populated areas, such as in eastern China, it is important to optimize the internal spatial structure of urban agglomerations, reasonably control the size of major cities, and prevent unbridled urban sprawl. We should develop city clusters and form polycentric, multi-level, and multi-node urban agglomeration networks. There must not only be strong interconnections between cities, but also necessary ecological and security barriers. Provinces and autonomous regions in central and western China with the right conditions should nurture multiple major cities to avoid being disadvantaged by having only one major city. There are 1,881 counties and county-level cities in China, and it is common for rural residents to buy houses and gravitate toward county towns. We should select a group of county towns for prioritized development and enhanced policy guidance, to make them important points of support for expanding domestic demand. When it comes to upgrading old urban areas and residential communities, there is huge demand and room for development in areas such as underground plumbing and wiring, construction of parking lots, child and elderly care, housekeeping, education, and medical services.

Fourth, we must improve the mix of scientific and technological inputs and outputs. Containing Covid-19 has posed a stern test for our science and technology community; its important role was made very apparent, but its weaknesses were also exposed. We need to improve the distribution of scientific and technological resources, strengthen our ability to make scientific and technological innovations, and pursue a path of scientific and technological R&D suited to China's conditions.

We need to adopt a goal- and problem-oriented approach to scientific and technological development. Protecting the health and safety of the people is an important task for our Party and government, from which scientific and technological research should draw inspiration to address profound questions in cutting-edge technologies and breakthroughs. We need to attach greater importance to basic research in life sciences, including genetics, genomics, virology, epidemiology, and immunology; accelerate R&D and innovations in relevant medicines and vaccines; and put more emphasis on the use of IT and big data in these fields. We should value top-level design, optimize the layout of basic research, and grow our areas of strength. We need to improve the setup of disciplines in universities, strengthen education of basic disciplines and cultivation of capable personnel, and shore up weaknesses in less popular disciplines. With these efforts, we will gradually strengthen our system of basic research and produce more original innovations.

During our Covid-19 response, collaborations between businesses, universities, and research institutes have produced positive results, setting good examples for us to study and follow. We should create a new mechanism for applying scientific and technological advances, with enterprises being the main actors and the government coordinating the efforts of all sides. We should link up funding, technology, applications, markets, and other factors and work hard to solve both the "first mile" problem of conducting basic research and the "last mile" problem of commercializing and applying advances, so as to ensure innovation and value chains are effectively connected among businesses, universities, and research institutes.

Fifth, we must ensure harmony between humans and nature. I have repeatedly emphasized that humans and nature form a community of life. As human beings, we must respect nature, follow its ways, and protect it. Our Covid-19 response has made us more keenly aware that building an eco-civilization is vital to our nation's sustainable development, and our pursuit of economic and social progress must be based on harmony between humans and nature.

Friedrich Engels made it clear long ago: "Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us." Since the first industrial revolution, humankind has constantly become better able to exploit nature, but overdevelopment has led to a reduction in biodiversity, forced wildlife migrations, and increased transmission of wildlife pathogens. Since the beginning of this century, humankind has suffered from SARS, avian influenza, MERS, Ebola, and Covid-19, as the emergence of new infectious diseases has become more frequent worldwide. Only by maintaining a balance between humans and nature and preserving ecosystems can we protect human health. We must understand deeply that humans and nature form a community of life and step up efforts on all fronts to build an eco-civilization. We must always uphold ecological progress.

Increasing human activities continue to touch the boundaries and baselines of ecosystems. We must protect boundaries and baselines, both tangible and intangible, to ensure harmony between humans and nature. We need to improve planning regarding our territorial space, ensure implementation of the functional zoning strategy, and draw up redlines for protecting ecosystems. We should accelerate efforts to establish a system of nature reserves, develop biodiversity protection networks, and define reasonable spatial limits for economic and social activities.

We should enhance our whole nation's awareness of the need to protect the environment and ecosystems, encourage green production and consumption, and promote healthy and positive ways of working and living. We should carry out patriotic health campaigns extensively, advocate healthy diets and lifestyles, and crack down hard on illegal wildlife hunting and trade.

Sixth, we must strengthen our public health system. Though we can boast our remarkable achievements in public health, we must move quickly to strengthen areas of weakness exposed in our response to Covid-19.

We need to improve top-level design to elevate the role of the public health system in our country's governance structure, develop public health institutions at the central, provincial, city, and county levels, strengthen cultivation of health specialists and training of health workers, and enhance their ability to perform their duties. We need to improve the public health environment in rural and urban areas and develop strong prevention and control capabilities and public health services in villages and communities. We need to step up planning and construction of public health institutions, departments of infectious diseases in hospitals, and biological laboratories, and ensure sound management of sensitive medical and experimental data. We need to boost education of health care and scientific knowledge and increase people's awareness of public health. Traditional Chinese medicine has played an important role in our Covid-19 response. We should draw on our experience, carry out scientific research, work hard to develop traditional Chinese medicine, and integrate it with Western medicine, so as to constantly improve our capabilities in this regard.

Our fights against major infectious diseases have revealed that we must move more quickly to develop a bottom-up system that ensures early detection, warning, and response so as to control diseases as they arise. We need to make enhancing initial monitoring and early warning capabilities the most urgent priority as we improve our public health system and develop our public health emergency management system. We need to strengthen information sharing between disease control and prevention centers, hospitals, and research institutes to enhance their abilities to provide early warnings of infectious diseases, known or unknown.