How China has achieved long-term social stability

BEIJING -- In about one month, Guangdong Province, a manufacturing hub in south China, contained a recent resurgence of local COVID-19 infections, once again highlighting Chinese efficiency in tackling the raging virus.

The global pandemic is a new test for the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), the world's largest political party with nearly 92 million members to celebrate its centenary. And the CPC made it. China took the lead in controlling the epidemic and restoring the economy.

Tourists visit the site of the Zunyi Meeting, a watershed event in the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), in Zunyi City of southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 3, 2021. Official data showed 230 million domestic tourist trips were made during the five-day Labor Day holiday, up 119.7 percent from last year. [Xinhua/Tao Liang]

Since founding the New China, the CPC has led the nation to ride out various major internal and external tests and accomplish tremendous and historic achievements through the arduous and consistent efforts of all ethnic groups.

Rapid economic development and long-term social stability are described as two "miracles" that the CPC has realized over the past seven decades.

Before 1978, the country experienced major tests, such as the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953) and the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. Since the reform and opening-up policy began over 40 years ago, China underwent the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the Yangtze River flood in 1998, the SARS epidemic in 2003, and the global financial crisis in 2008, among other hardships.

Under the strong leadership of the CPC, China surmounted all these difficulties and obstacles in its development process.

Besides eliminating absolute poverty, the country has tried various means to expand employment in recent years amid challenges both at home and abroad. From 2016 to 2020, China created more than 60 million jobs.

Students are seen during a spring campus job fair in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, March 24, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Long]

The guarantee for China's long-term social stability lies in socialism with Chinese characteristics, of which the leadership of the CPC is the defining feature and the biggest strength.

The picture of political and social stability, economic development, and ethnic unity in China are in sharp contrast to aggravating social divisions and political upheavals in some countries due to their systematic ills and selfish partisan interests.

Dedicated to serving the people wholeheartedly, the CPC has always put people's interests first, improving people's livelihoods while developing the economy, fighting poverty and epidemics, and sticking to the goal of prosperity for all. The country is to realize the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects this year.

Besides income increases, Chinese citizens enjoy other tangible development benefits, such as access to better education, medical care, and a safe environment. For example, a "toilet revolution" in recent years has helped farmers bid farewell to shabby latrines and use flush toilets like city dwellers.

The CPC has attached importance to the relationship between reform, development, and stability. Everyone has an increasingly strong sense of gain, happiness, and security in China. Through endeavors such as advancing rule of law and building a "safe China," China has been widely recognized as one of the safest countries worldwide.

A farmer harvests wheat in the fields of Qianzhuanmen Village, Fucheng County, north China's Hebei Province, June 13, 2021. China reaped another bumper summer harvest in 2021. [Xinhua/Zhu Xudong]

Meanwhile, the country's improved social governance on the principle of collaboration, participation, and mutual interests has also contributed significantly to social stability.

The world is undergoing changes unseen in a century. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerates this evolution. Under such a complicated and uncertain international situation, the CPC will further advance reform, development, and stability to comprehensively build a modern socialist country.

As the CPC upholds and improves Chinese socialism and modernizes the state governance system and capacity, China will continue its miracle of long-term social stability, which is also a significant contribution to global development.