Editor's note: Stephen Perry is the chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.  

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in 1978 started China's reform and opening up era. Contemplated as far back as 1962, the Third Plenum released a series of programs which moved China from being poor and backward to the modernized and successful economy that it is today. That has involved moving tens of millions out of poverty and hundreds of millions from peasant life to a much better urban life, creating a service industry that barely existed in 1978 to now accounting for nearly 50 percent of the working population. 

That was created from the base of a China stabilized from over 100 years of foreign invasion, civil war and great strife. By 1978, China was ready to resume its climb back to being one of the leading nations of the world. China had been the leading economy of 18 of the previous 20 centuries. China had been inward looking and comfortable until the early 19th century. By 1949, that was in tatters. By 2021, China has restored itself to a place that it can now build a new sharing nation with the most advanced economy, culture and society. The sharing concepts of real socialism are the target. A country for the people is the mantra. 

China's prime tool is now innovation. And its target years are 2035 and 2049. Great metropolises, mainly in the coastal areas where the populations are most dense, will spring up over the next 15 years. Agriculture is already changed to large scale and modern techniques and its unparalleled rises in yields will be increased by bigger transformations and variety of products that the people want. The service industry which has sprung up in the last 40 years, symbolized by Shenzhen, will develop to lead innovation in the world, and with the world. 

This Fifth Plenum may well be the moment that the CPC laid out its leadership of the transformation of China to its goal of being a modern socialist nation by 2049. 

China will not rest here. It is going to climb and climb again. That is my view from the vantage point of my father from 1951 through to my involvement from the late 1960s. I have seen the rebuilding of China and its transformation into a modern nation. The formula of history is being modernized and transformed and its new stature is now being rebuilt again into a new nation. The China we know and see today will have changed in 15 years' time. But the China that has developed over 5,000 years will still be the core inspiration and it will use Marxist tools to move forward as it has for the last 71 years. 

That is the way it has been and the way it will be. Some may wish it to be different. Some may even try to force it to be different. But the core is so strong and the conviction borne of achievement is also very strong. China's leader, President Xi Jinping, has helped its overall leadership see that from COVID-19 to globalization headwinds, from nature to culture, there are negative forces to be faced, that this will be no easy journey. Modesty, selflessness and pride in one's nation are key features to fight against corrupting influences. The Party must be vigilant against all these forces if it wants, he says, to lead China to its goal of 2049. 

Can they do it? The last 71 years, and the last 40 years in particular, says they can. It depends on good, wise and hardworking leadership, good qualities in the people, and a set of good plans that are constantly assessed rigorously and rebalanced by reality. 

China is on its way. Do not miss this moment as I missed the Third Plenum of 1978. China is changing hugely again and innovation is its tool. 

The world might stumble. China might find unexpected problems ahead. But the world is learning that this period of transformation, shaped in part by COVID-19, is fully absorbed by China and China's growth and innovation will assist the rest of the world if we let it find its own way. 

China will grow in Asia and Asia will grow in the world as a region of nations with transnational characteristics. Asia will work with Europe and North America to develop and build the economies of all nations on a sustainable basis. This process may be resisted by some who fear the future. But China is confident the rest of the world will progress through this time of fundamental change to a new paradigm. 

China is showing it is ready for change in this fifth Plenum. 

The 48 Group will transform to more actively monitor and explain what is happening in China, as it will affect us all. We will provide inputs to commerce and politics and culture and society. That is the task of my successors – to continue our unique work of 69 years. Our leaders have to work out how to benefit from this new force in the world. We can try to confront it to hold on to the past. Or we can try to negotiate our own progress and use China's transformation. 

We have a moment of national challenge and decision about where the world is going and if we can be global yet again. That is for others. My work has been to lead till now the work of understanding China. 

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