CHAMPIONING GLOBALIZATION
Amid attempts to blame globalization for hampering sustained economic growth and security, and even attempts to reverse the trend, China has defended globalization, reformed to better cope with it, and tried to chart a course forward.
"Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks, is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend," Xi told the 2017 World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, Switzerland in January.
The right thing to do is to seize every opportunity that economic globalization brings, work with one another to address every challenge it poses, and chart the right course, Xi said.
Over the last years, the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the core has effectively coped with challenges, with the guidance of sinicized Marxist political economy, and through structural adjustment and internal reforms, said Zhang Youwen, director of the Institute of World Economy under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
To be specific, Zhang said, the central leadership has valued independent pursuit of innovation and innovation-driven development, comprehensively deepened reform to cultivate new engines of development, as well as strived to build the CPC into a better ruling party, build a service-oriented government and improve government regulation over the market.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee has led the country onto a path of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, and centered on improving the quality and benefits of development, with the market playing a decisive role in resource allocation and the government's role brought into full play.
The central leadership has expedited the implementation of an innovation-driven development strategy, pushed forward supply-side structural reform, always placed work related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas high on its agenda, and promoted people-centered urbanization.
"Reform and opening up in China in nearly 40 years have proved that development and reform are the cardinal principles for resolving every problem," said Prof. Huang Weiping with Renmin University of China.
China has set an example for the world in this regard, by not attributing problems to others, but reforming itself, with the spirit of enterprise, to adapt to changes, Huang said.
PURSUING ROAD TO COMMON PROSPERITY
Market reforms -- mainly adjusting the relationship between government and the market -- over the past three-plus decades have built China into the world's second-largest economy, said Liu Shangxi, adding that "it's like a human being having physically grown, but in need of a healthy mentality and mature spirit as well."
He believes that social reform should become very important in the overall reform agenda, stressing that only when social reform improves can economic, political, cultural reforms and ecological construction go forward.
He went on to say that deepening social reform means pursuing socialist common prosperity and combining a market economy with common prosperity.
In Liu's view, whether China can lead civilization in the 21st century hinges on whether it can realize common prosperity through letting the well-off help those who lag behind.
Hu Angang echoed Liu's view, saying that a society that features common prosperity will be characterized by common development, sharing the results of development and eliminating poverty.
China's pursuit of a commonly prosperous society has been reflected in the international arena, said Hu, adding that China and other countries are a community of shared interests and shared future.
Over the past three years, China has been sharing its capital, technology and poverty alleviation experience, which it gained amid globalization, with other developing and underdeveloped countries through the Belt and Road Initiative and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said Hu.
It is just as President Xi elaborated at the WEF meeting at Davos: "We are not jealous of others' success; and we will not complain about others who have benefited so much from the great opportunities presented by China's development."
"We will open our arms to the people of other countries and welcome them aboard the express train of China's development," Xi added.
