By Zhong Sheng
As China celebrates the 70th anniversary of its founding, and global observers are casting their eyes towards the east and seeking the codes to China’s development miracle which is unseen in human history, a white paper recently issued by the country’s State Council Information Office stated how China made such success possible.
The white paper, titled China and the World in the New Era, says that the ultimate reason for China’s success achieved in the past 70 years is that China has found and will continue on the right path – socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The choice of path is critical to the successful development of a country. By closely combining Marxism and reality of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has built a wide path, the socialism with Chinese characteristics that helped the country achieve prosperity and helped the people achieve happiness.
The wide path, achieving magnificent results, will be forever recorded by the history of human progress for its distinctive Chinese characteristics, broad and farsighted global vision and care for humanity.
This path has helped China, a populous country, provide adequate food and clothing for its people, making the brightest chapter in the history of global poverty reduction.
In the early days of the People’s Republic of China, following a century of war and chaos, the country and the people were in dire poverty. However, the country today is moving towards a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
During the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, over 700 million people were lifted out of poverty, accounting for 70 percent of the world’s total. It is a miracle in the human history of poverty reduction.
Providing adequate food and clothing for the people is a basic issue of global peace and development. Therefore, China’s huge poverty alleviation efforts help not only itself.
Peter Nolan, professor from the University of Cambridge, believes that the development path explored by China will promote global sustainable development. Many leaders of developing countries also noted that they would learn from China’s experiences.
This path has helped China promote innovative solutions in global governance as the country is injecting powerful energy into the peaceful development of the world.
China adopts independent foreign policy of peace, and actively promotes the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence) to be the basic norm of international relations and basic principle of the international law.
It is playing an important role in building a fair and equitable international political and economic order, contributing ideas and plans to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development.
In the new era, China is promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and a new type of international relations, and has offered the Belt and Road Initiative.
Getting closer to the center of the world stage, China has become an important power to protect international justice and the international system with UN at its core.
Chairman of the Kuhn Foundation Robert Kuhn noted that China, by actively engaging in global governance, is a defender of world stability, equality and prosperity.
This path, which suits China’s reality and requirements of the times, has shown developing countries a new choice of modernization through China’s successful practices.
China’s practices explained that western systems and models are not the only solution to a country’s governance and modernization, and every country can explore their own path.
Rather than copying the development mode of western countries, China has built its own path by learning from past experiences and human civilization according to its reality.
American scholar Arif Dirlik noted that the value of the socialism with Chinese characteristics lies not only in its importance to global economy, but also the alternative path it has offered for developing countries.
China’s progress in the past 70 years proved that no country can achieve prosperity by asking for assistance and waiting, and only striving leads to a bright future. The socialism with Chinese characteristics relies on its solid and unremitting efforts, the fulfillment of its own responsibility and its pioneering spirit.
In the new era, China will maintain its original aspiration with confidence, and join hands with global countries to achieve common development and win-win cooperation.
(Zhong Sheng is a penname often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)
