China in the New Era
(by H.E. HUA Ning, Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan)
Today we celebrate the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Over the past 72 years, the Chinese people, united under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), have built the PRC from scratch to the 2nd largest economy in the world, marking a great leap from standing up, getting rich to becoming strong. Now, China has entered a new era of development. On the occasion of the centenary of the CPC in 2021, China has successfully achieved its first centennial goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, historically solved the problem of extreme poverty, and embarked on a new journey toward the second centenary goal of fully building a modern socialist country.
In its new era, China adheres to the new vision of innovative, coordinated, green, and open development, and accelerates to foster a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay with domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other, so as to provide new opportunities for the world with its own new development.
China in the new era is committed to scientific and technological innovation to promote high-quality development. Science and technology are the primary productive forces. To achieve scientific and technological progress is an inalienable right of every country. China insists on independent innovation, comprehensively deepens the reform of the scientific and technological management system, continuously increases investment in major scientific and technological strategies, and accelerates the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Through unremitting efforts, China’s scientific and technological strength has achieved leapfrog development as an innovative country, and China is moving from a country with technological quantity to one with technological strength. In recent years, China’s innovation-driven development has achieved remarkable results, and the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to economic development has exceeded 60%. In 2020, China’s total R&D investment exceeded USD 371.4 billion, an increase of 10.2%. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization report, China had 68,720 patent applications last year, ranking 1st in the world; China ranked 12th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, marking a steady rise for 9 consecutive years. The scale of China’s digital economy has exceeded USD 5.4 trillion, ranking 2nd in the world, accounting for 38.6% of GDP. China has achieved leadership in 5G, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technological fronts. The manned spaceflight and lunar exploration programs, and manned deep-sea submersible and drilling projects have been successfully implemented. Technological innovation is becoming a strong driving force for China to enter a new stage of development.
China in the new era is committed to deepening reform and opening up in an all-round way with domestic and international economic circulations reinforcing each other. China has a population of more than 1.4 billion people who are constantly moving towards wealth, among which there are more than 400 million and expanding middle-income groups. It is the world’s most rapidly growing super-large-scale market with huge potential and sufficient stamina. Facing the development and changes of domestic and international conditions, China is enhancing domestic economic circulation as the mainstay, striving to build a complete domestic demand system, strength supply-side structural reforms, improve production, distribution, circulation, and consumption sectors, and stimulate the vitality of the domestic market. At the same time, on the basis of reform and opening up in the past decades, China is committed to expanding high-level opening to the outside world and becoming more closely integrated with the world economy. At present, China is the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries and regions, and the total volume of trade in goods and services steadily ranks 1st in the world. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has held a series of international economic and trade exhibitions, actively building open and win-win cooperation platforms for African and global enterprises. In the first half of this year, China’s total import and export volume of goods trade reached USD 2.8 trillion), marking a record high in history. The actual use of foreign capital increased by 28.7% year-on-year, marking the highest in the same period in the past 10 years. At present, the number of China’s free trade zones has expanded to 21. Its tariff has been further decreased, the negative list of foreign investment has been continuously reduced, the foreign-related legal system has become more open and transparent, and the protection of intellectual property rights has been further strengthened. China’s continuously optimized business environment provides new opportunities for countries around the world.
China in the new era is committed to achieving common prosperity and allowing all Chinese people to share the fruits of development. China has always adhered to the people-centered development philosophy, and strengthened the construction of inclusive livelihood, so that the results of development can benefit all people more equitably. Common prosperity is not about egalitarianism, nor is it the wealth of a few people. Instead, it focuses on solving the problems of regional disparity, urban-rural disparity, and income disparity, and enhancing the sense of gain, happiness, and security of the people. China is actively exploring effective ways to achieve common prosperity, and has established a demonstration zone for high-quality development and construction of common prosperity. It also focuses on the establishment of basic institutional arrangements for the coordination of primary distribution, redistribution, and tertiary distribution, strengthening anti-monopoly efforts, and building a fair and competitive market environment so as to create broad development space for various market entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, and further improve the socialist market economy
China in the new era is committed to building a community with a shared future for mankind and promoting common development of the world. A Chinese saying goes, “A man of virtue, while establishing himself and pursuing success, also works to establish others and enable them to succeed as well.” China maintains that all countries share a common future, and thus should hold hands instead of decoupling, and oppose the self-expected and purposefully made Thucydides trap. Since the People’s Republic of China restored its legitimate seat in the United Nations 50 years ago, we have always firmly upheld the international system with the United Nations at its core and the principles and purposes of the UN Charter. China insists on managing its own affairs well, and never pursue a beggar-thy-neighbor policy. Chinese President XI Jinping recently proposed the “Global Development Initiative” at the General Debate of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly. He pointed out that development holds the key to people’s well-being and called for building a global community of development with a shared future and speeding up the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China’s development not only enhances the well-being of the Chinese people, but also strongly promotes the cause of global development. The World Bank predicts that China will contribute more than a quarter of global economic growth this year. China has achieved the poverty reduction goal of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, and has contributed more than 70% of global poverty reduction. China provides development assistance to 166 countries and international organizations, and supports more than 120 developing countries in implementing the UN Millennium Development Goals. On the basis of donating USD 100 million to the COVAX, China will donate another 100 million doses of vaccine to developing countries within this year. China has announced that it will provide another USD 3 billion in international aid in the next three years to support developing countries in fighting the pandemic and restoring economic and social development.
The history of over 180 years of modern China, 100 years of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and 72 years of the People’s Republic of China tell us that the strong leadership of the CPC, the hard work of the people in unity, the development path that suits our own national conditions, and the persistent pursuit of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation are the keys to China’s freedom from deep suffering, the running of the country by the people, and achieving national independence and prosperity. On the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, we also wish that the people of South Sudan could realize lasting peace, permanent elimination of gunfire at an early date towards a bright future for the country with joint efforts.
