- Contributing at home and abroad
China’s 40 years of reform and opening up have largely contributed to the country’s transformation into a modern, dynamic and robust economic power. Throughout these past 40 years of reform and opening up, Communist Party of China (CPC) and its visionary leadership has proved to be the backbone of China’s rise, providing leadership and vision to the country’s march on the world horizon.
Year 2019, which marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, is a key year for China and the CPC to help securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
With its 89 million-strong membership, the CPC is a team acting as mentor and visionary for the Chinese nation. It provides the country with a vision, and transits this vision into the reality by providing inclusive policies and acceptance of differing ideas which over the years has proven essential to helping the country weather various storms since the CPC’s founding in 1921.
As the CPC continues to lead China’s ascent, the influence of China and the CPC is deeply integrated and one cannot be separated from the other. China’s initiatives that have a global vision, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a community of shared future for mankind, also represent aspirations of the CPC.
China today still is undergoing globally significant transformations, providing the world with more public goods. China, despite introduction of the New Normal policy, has maintained a spectacular pace of economic growth, kept the yuan stable amid many difficulties, reduced its debt, pulled its 800 million people out of poverty and adopted innovative strategies to defeat all conspiracies against its rise.
Benefitting from its rich history, China has developed a unique disposition of patience and pragmatism, enabling the country to achieve its economic miracle in four decades and build a moderately prosperous society in a gradual way.
Keeping in view that China’s per capita income was less than $200 back in 1979, the per capita GDP has now been recorded $9,500 – a huge leap forward in mere forty years. China’s GDP for the first quarter of 2018 was 19.88 trillion yuan.
For the year of 2019, CPC plans to pursue supply-side structural reform as the main task, take tough steps to forestall and defuse major risks, carry out targeted poverty alleviation
This was 10.5pc more than the first quarter of 2017 (18.03 trillion yuan). For the past four quarters, the GDP was 84.56 trillion yuan. This is US$13.4 trillion. Adding in Hong Kong and Macau puts China’s GDP at $13.8 trillion.
China will likely be defined as a high-income economy by the World Bank in 2021-2023. China’s exports will play a smaller role for China’s economy. Ten years ago, they made up 35 percent of China’s GDP. Exports currently make up 18 percent of China’s economy.
Consumption in China now makes up 77.8 percent of the economic growth, having increased by 20 percent since last year. In the first quarter of 2018, it produced 30 percent more industrial robots than in the year before and 139 percent more electric cars.
But CPC is planning to help the world benefit from its economic strength. The BRI project, envisioned by CPC general secretary, Xi Jinping, the president of China, is creating and growing new export markets in South Asia, Latin America and Africa. BRI may prove to be the greatest project in history and is to become the ‘engine of growth in the future’ and have the most influence on the world economy in the long run.
So far over 100 nations and international organisations have expressed support for the initiative, and dozens of them have signed cooperation agreements with China. China’s exchange of goods with ASEAN states alone has grown by nine percent to $279 billion (€227 billion).
When the Silk Road (BRI), which aims to link Asia with Europe and Africa with trade and infrastructure along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes, is materialised, it will link 65 countries and unite some 40 percent of the global economy.
What makes China different from other nations is that it always has a long vision and it has tools to implement and transit the vision to reality. With its economy going through important structural reforms, China is expected to become a strong industrial nation by 2025 and a knowledge-intensive country on a par with other advanced nations by year 2049.
As China focuses on producing sophisticated technological products, many of the labour-intensive industries and heavy industry plants will move from China to other nations and this will help reshape the global supply chain.
China is already providing the world with public goods such as sending peacekeepers, fighting piracy, and sending medical missions to really poor countries to take care of the people who cannot afford to have good medical treatment. China has already had tremendous influence in other nations.
Another of China’s contributions to the world is the increase of Chinese tourists overseas, noting that the number has skyrocketed to hundreds of millions today since the start of China’s opening-up in 1978. China plans to help countries, mainly developing ones, along the Belt and Road build modern infrastructure and industrial facilities.
In China’s achievements, the CPC plays a very important role as the party is a product of China and a combination of the country’s many experiences in the past. CPC urges party members to be role models for others as this is the development of the party with unique Chinese characteristics. It wants China to be ‘more open in the future’, which will help increase China’s inbound and outbound investment.
China made major progresses under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee in the year 2018, as people had enjoyed a stronger sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security. In the year that marked the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening-up, China’s CPC resolved to further the reforms and raise the level of opening-up. A total of 1,932 reform schemes have been carried out since the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2013.
For the year of 2019, CPC plans to pursue supply-side structural reform as the main task, take tough steps to forestall and defuse major risks, carry out targeted poverty alleviation, prevent and control pollution, and promote sustained and sound economic development.
CPC also plans to pursue efforts to support Hong Kong and Macao in integrating their own development into the overall development of the country and maintain their lasting prosperity and stability. CPC also vowed to work for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and called for efforts to build a community with a shared future for humanity.
In the year 2019, the CPC would shoulder its responsibility to implement what is required by the CPC Central Committee and pool the wisdom and strength of Chinese people inside and outside the country for the realisation of the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
To put the guiding principles from our 18th National Congress into action, the Party Central Committee has held seven plenary sessions. There, decisions and plans were made on issues of major importance, from reforming the institutions and transforming the functions of government to deepening reform in all areas, advancing law-based governance, formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan, and seeing governance over the Party is exercised fully and with rigor.
In the past five years, CPC has implemented the five-sphere integrated plan and the four-pronged comprehensive strategy, fulfilled the goals of the 12th Five-Year Plan, and made smooth progress in implementing the 13th Five-Year Plan. On all fronts new advances have been made for the cause of the Party and the country.
CPC has remained committed to the new development philosophy, adopted the right approach to development, and endeavoured to transform the growth model. The result has been a constant improvement in the quality and effect of development.
