China's blueprints the key to past success and its ticket to future growth

Note: The following is an edited translation of an article from the Chinese-language "Commentaries on International Affairs."

On the occasion of China's celebration of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, the international community once again set off on a treasure hunt to find the reason for China’s success over the past 40 years. Most analysts and people in the media have concluded that success was the product of institutional innovation, the courage to experiment, a willingness for self-improvement, and hard work. What they generally ignore is the fact that China has a blueprint for its economic and social development. This blueprint has provided a continuity to ensure China has and will continue to reach its goals along the course of its reform and opening up.

On Tuesday, October 18, 2018, Jia Zengwen, a 76-year-old farmer from Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province presented and introduced 108 diaries he had written over the past 60 years that document the rural transformation he has witnessed. [Photo: VCG]

China's reform and opening up began in the country’s rural areas. In 1978, 18 farmers in Xiaogang Village in Anhui Province decided to divide their village’s collectively-owned land. Each household would then be responsible for managing a small piece of the land, and they could keep for themselves anything they grew beyond the prescribed amount of grain that went to the government. This experiment would come to be known as the "household contract responsibility system" and was quickly promoted across China. From 1982 to 2018, the annual “No. 1 Document” of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of China has always been devoted to the reform and development of China's rural areas.

The pace of China's opening up to the outside world quickened in the city of Shenzhen in the southern province of Guangdong. Originally little more than a sleepy agricultural village, it didn’t take long for it to blossom into a commercial center. At first, it processed raw materials for foreign companies, but soon became a manufacturing dynamo in its own right. Now, it’s a hub of global innovation and high-tech research and development. After being elected General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping made Shenzhen his first stop on his first inspection tour of the country. He quoted China’s former leader Deng Xiaoping, calling for an emancipation of mind, the blazing of new trails, and greater experimentation. Not long ago, President Xi visited Shenzhen again and reinforced the message that China’s reform and opening up must continue.

Rural and urban reforms could be described as two intertwined journeys of development. Throughout these journeys, China’s government has used one “five-year national economic and social development plan” after another to draw the blueprint for stable national and social development. In October of last year, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China confirmed that China should build a moderately prosperous society in all respects in 2020, basically realize its socialist modernization in 2035, and strive to build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful in the middle of this century.

How did China manage to pull back from the brink of economic collapse to become the home of the world’s second-largest economy in just 40 years? The key has been China’s consistent efforts to reform and open up to the world. It has taken a targeted approach, strived to do more with less, adhered to a people-centered philosophy of development, focused on what the people care about, and persevered in the implementation of development measures. When it has encountered difficulties, China has always been tenacious and hard-working in pushing forward its reforms and in opening up.

For any country, major reform is always a tough and long-lasting battle. China's reform and opening up has been a constant for four decades, a feat that is possible because of the advantages of its state system. Such consistency in policy has proved especially advantageous in an increasingly uncertain international environment. The changes of national leaders and of political parties in government often lead to the abandonment of goals and misdirected national effort. But China's development path has shown the benefits of predictability, and the world is better off for it.