It systematically expounded the theory of the primary stage of socialism in China and defined the Party's basic line of "one central task and two basic points" for building socialism with Chinese characteristics during that stage.

It also affirmed a three-step development strategy, which was launched by Deng Xiaoping. China worked out the three-step development strategy in the early 1980s to achieve the country's modernization. 

It included to double the country's 1980 per capita GNP in the first ten years of the strategy's implementation with adequate food and clothing for the people as the goal (first step), to redouble the doubled per capita GNP by the end of the century (second step), and to achieve modernizations by the middle of the next century (third step). 

The congress highly valued the process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee. 

Building socialism with Chinese characteristics is the second historic leap next to the first one, which refers to the success of the new-democratic revolution led by the first generation of collective leadership with Mao Zedong at the core, in the process of integrating Marxism with the Chinese realities.

China accelerated the economic development from 1984 to 1988, showing a vigorous picture of mutual promotion between agriculture and industry, between rural areas and cities, and between reform and social development. 

While the scale of the national economy attained a new height, some problems appeared, such as the fluctuation of commodity prices and duplicated construction. 

The CPC Central Committee decided to spend a certain period on improving the economic environment and rectifying the economic order to create a more favorable environment so that the reform would go smoothly. 

A political disturbance occurred in late spring and early summer of 1989. The Party and the government, taking a clear-cut stand against the turmoil, depended on the Chinese people to quell the anti-revolutionary rebellion. 

It defended the socialist regime, safeguarded the basic interests of the people and guaranteed further reform and opening. Meanwhile, the CPC Central Committee declared that the Party's basic line and decisions made on the Thirteenth National Congress would not change. 

The Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee elected the new collective leadership. After the fourth and the fifth plenary sessions of the Thirteenth Central Committee, the second generation of the collective leadership with Deng Xiaoping at the core transferred the power gradually to the third generation of the collective leadership with Jiang Zemin at the core. 

The Central Committee extensively persevered in the Party's basic line and continued focusing on economic development while attaching equal importance to both tasks of economic growth and ethical and cultural progress.