BEIJING: As China strives to advance its modernization, international attention is focusing on how the nation will fulfill its ambition to become a modern socialist country by the middle of this century and how that process will affect the rest of the world.
The Communist Party of China laid out the central task of advancing national rejuvenation through a Chinese path toward modernization at its 20th National Congress in October.
The Party views Chinese modernization as not being solely related to achieving material wealth or a higher level of efficiency than that offered by the capitalist system. Rather, it is about effectively maintaining a higher degree of social equity, providing 1.4 billion people with a prosperous and dignified life, and promoting harmony between humankind and nature.
More important, the CPC pledged that Chinese modernization will lay a path for peaceful development, and that China will not achieve modernization through colonization or invasion. Neither will it seek hegemony or expansion.
In a congratulatory message sent to the Lanting Forum on Chinese Modernization and the World, held in Shanghai on April 21, President Xi Jinping assured the world that China will provide new opportunities for global development with new accomplishments in Chinese modernization.
It will also give new impetus to humanity’s search for paths toward modernization and better social systems.
Xi’s comments were echoed by political leaders, business executives and think tank researchers from nearly 80 countries taking part in the forum.
They said China’s modernization not only matters to the well-being of the Chinese people, but also creates a new model for human advancement.
Dilma Rousseff, president of the New Development Bank, said: “As a former president of Brazil, I am fully aware of what different patterns of modernization can mean for the peoples of the Global South. Over the centuries, a false modernization was imposed on us, which initially took the form of colonialism, with its killings of the indigenous population, slavery and predatory extractivism.” –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
