Understanding China’s road to common prosperity: background, definition and path

China’s ambition to realize common prosperity for all the people has received worldwide attention since its complete victory over extreme poverty in 2020. This paper summarizes for the first time the “who, what, when and how” that essentially characterizes common prosperity, i.e. common prosperity is prosperity for all the people, is prosperity in all aspects, means step-wise prosperity and calls for joint contribution, and clarifies that it is not equivalent to “becoming rich at the same time” or “being equally well off”, nor is it the same thing as egalitarianism. Contemporary China faces challenges including the development challenge, the distribution problem and the public products supply issue in achieving this long-term goal. Possible solutions may be fostering high-quality development, optimizing income distribution, strengthening the social safety net, achieving effective digital governance and promoting high-level opening-up.