BEIJING: A report delivered by Xi Jinping at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) struck Sean Slattery as “very forward-looking.”
Slattery was one of nine foreign experts invited to translate and polish the heavyweight report. All nine went out of their way to present the world with high-quality translated versions of the report in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, German, Japanese and Lao. “The report shows great vision, but it’s very practical as well,” said the Irishman. “It’s going to have a big influence on China’s development going forward.”
“Chinese modernization” was deemed by most of the foreign experts to be one of the main messages that readers would get from Sunday’s report. Describing Chinese modernization as “of great importance” to the world, Slattery said its special characteristics are distinctively different to the paths that other countries have chosen in the past when pursuing modernization. He said that achieving modernization for the country’s 1.4 billion people is a huge step forward for humanity.
“By pursuing its own path of modernization, China is underscoring the importance of every country pursuing modernization through a path that is suited to their own conditions and that their people will accept and support,” Slattery said.
“For other developing countries, Chinese modernization offers a new choice for achieving modernization, based on their own conditions and more international cooperation, rather than plunder, war and blood,” said Yahia Mustafa, 65, who was responsible for editing the Arabic version. Peggy Cantave Fuyet has always wanted to know what the world’s largest socialist country looks like. The report offered her an insight. “People,” “the environment” and “peace” were her key takeaways from the report.
For the French-language expert, the words indicate that Chinese modernization is a modernization that benefits everyone in the country instead of just a few, that China will honor its words in achieving the goals of peaking carbon emissions and gaining carbon neutrality, and that the path China has chosen is not imperialism, colonialism or hegemonism, but a path of peaceful development. –Agencies
