The beginning of 2022 has seen a successful China carrying on its commitments of building a community with a shared future for mankind. And the visionary Chinese leadership fully understands its international responsibility as a major country and trail blazer of human civilization.
The country’s path of modernization featuring fast economic growth and long-term social stability in the past decades has been a sharp contrast to European and US rises to power via war and colonialism. The Chinese model is characterized by cooperation and resilience, inclusiveness and openness, cultural integration, mutual learning, and mutual benefit.
Instead of colonizing other territories, slaughtering their way forward or controlling others via financial yokes and military bases which subjugate and plunder other peoples, China since 1949 has provided significant ideas for and worked hard to shape its own style and promote global peace and development.
Among others, it has proposed and followed the five principles of peaceful coexistence, observed an independent foreign policy of peace and nonalignment, raised a new mode of major-country international relations and the Belt and Road Initiative, worked for a harmonious world of lasting peace and prosperity, and strived for dialogue among civilizations and a global community with a shared future for mankind.
In building a shared community, China pursues cooperation rather than confrontation, opening up rather than isolation, and mutual benefits rather than the zero-sum game. It will continue to oppose hegemony and power politics. In this regard, China will surely make a greater contribution to humanity.
China has pioneered on a new path of people-centered development, instead of capital-focused US and British societies which leads to extreme polarization and blind pursuit of material gains in sacrifice of livelihood of the poor. The Chinese people have enjoyed tangible benefits. China’s success of lifting 800 millions out of poverty in past decades and elimination of absolute poverty by February 2021 has been among the greatest achievements of recent human history.
Moreover, nearly a fifth of the world’s population have unleashed enormous productive forces, achieved social transformation unprecedented in scale, and brought about huge advances in human civilization. The world has seldom witnessed revolutionary movements and regimes that completely changed the landscape and scope in a short span of time.
China’s miracle should be largely credited to the Communist Party of China, which can aptly be considered as a true model of excellence for the last hundred years since its founding in 1921.
Robust leadership comes from sound leadership while sound leadership comes from rational policymaking. For a party as large as the CPC, policymaking is its lifeline. The CPC leadership with Xi Jinping as the core has established sound guidelines which enable the country to carry out its work in a well-organized and systematic manner.
Throughout 2021, China is the world’s only major country that has not only revived its economy despite the COVID-19 pandemic but also helped 120 countries and international organizations with 2 billion doses of vaccines and medical aid.
As Xi pointed out in his New Year address, China has set out a new voyage of building a modern socialist state in all aspects, and is making confident strides on the path toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
China’s further rise will provide the rest of the world with more growth opportunities and chances for common development, thanks to China’s quest for global peace and cooperation, characterized by socialism and not letting others out in the cold.
China aspires to be a complete carbon-neutral state by 2060. Therefore, it will enhance its efforts toward eco-environment investment and implement green and sustainable policies in the new year. Economic stability and sustainability, technological transformation, infrastructure development, recovery from the pandemic and other progressive outcomes will again become clear manifestations of China moving in the right direction.
In the changing realm of international relations and global politics, China has emerged as a leader to integrate countries to solve the common menaces, i.e., climate change, carbon emission and others.
The global issues call for global solutions and cooperation. In this regard, China has been cooperating and assisting other countries in tackling these grave menaces together. It reflects the common values of humanity and finds the greatest common ground to build a better world. Thus, it is imperative for other parts of the world to value and study the successful Chinese civilization and join hands with China.
The author is Executive Director, Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad, Pakistan.
The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.