Chinese Modernization: A Broad Avenue Leading to the Building of a Strong Country and National Rejuvenation

Proactively expanding domestic demand based on China’s vast population

Chinese modernization represents not only the largest but also the most challenging modernization process in history.

On the one hand, we need to fully leverage the benefits offered by our enormous market. We must focus both on present priorities, striving to bolster consumer confidence and to revive market vitality, and on the long run by establishing and improving long-term mechanisms for expanding resident consumption. This will help drive upgrades to consumption and unleash its full potential.

On the other hand, we must also ensure the supply of primary products. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of food and energy and the largest importer and consumer of strategic mineral resources. We need to fully harness both domestic and international markets and resources, see that the sources of China’s imports are diversified, and ensure the security of food and energy resources as well as key industrial and supply chains.

Ensuring that the gains of commerce development benefit all our people fairly based on the principle of common prosperity for all

Modernization is about more than numbers and statistics; it is ultimately about people’s wellbeing and happiness. Achieving common prosperity has proved a formidable challenge in human development. Despite a continuous rise in total wealth, some Western countries have remained ensnared by enduring wealth disparities and polarization.

Remaining committed to putting the people above all else, China has worked hard to maintain and promote social fairness and justice and pursued common prosperity to firmly guard against such polarization. Based on the notion that commerce should be for the people, China has promoted steady growth, ensured stable employment, and thus created benefits for its people. It has strived to narrow disparities between regions, urban and rural areas, and incomes. Such efforts have helped not only make the pie larger but also divide it up better.

Meeting people’s needs for a better life based on the goal of promoting both material and cultural-ethical advancement

Chinese modernization calls for abundant wealth not only in material terms but also in cultural-ethical terms, along with a firm sense of cultural confidence and self-reliance. Only with progress on both fronts can we ensure the smooth advance of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

In commerce-related matters, China has always laid equal emphasis on material and cultural-ethical advancement, pursuing both material enrichment and people’s all-around development. On the one hand, we have laid a robust material foundation for meeting the needs of upgrading consumption and industry. On the other hand, we have also worked to increase cultural-ethical wealth in line with people’s needs.

Promoting sustainable development of commerce based on the principle of harmony between humanity and nature

In the process of modernization, China will face greater constraints in terms of resources and the environment. It is, therefore, vital that we do not try to tread the old path of environmental pollution and resource depletion.

In light of this, the CPC Central Committee has pursued economic and social development and environmental protection in tandem. It has integrated green growth into the new development philosophy, designated pollution prevention and control as one of the three tough battles along with forestalling and diffusing major risks and carrying out targeted poverty alleviation, and defined developing a Beautiful China as one of the goals for building a great modern socialist country. These moves have opened broad horizons for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.

Advancing high-standard opening up based on a path of peaceful development

Adhering to the principles of independence and self-reliance, China has continued to open wider to the world, fully integrating itself into the global economy. This has enabled it to boost its own development while creating benefits for the rest of the world.

By continuing to provide new opportunities to the world through its development, China has embodied the principles of helping oneself by helping others and creating a shared future through concerted efforts. It has worked with the world to share the opportunities its vast market offers.

Continuing to regard development as the largest possible common ground, China will strive to create greater space for economic and trade cooperation and steadily build more development belts and roads to happiness for the benefit of people around the world.