Editor's note: Cao Li is a professor and deputy director of the Economics Department of the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

In the new era and new journey, the central task of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be to lead the Chinese of all ethnic groups to realize the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. In the report to the 20th CPC National Congress, Xi Jinping said, "Chinese modernization, a socialist modernization led by the CPC, has both the common features of modernization in other countries and Chinese characteristics based on its own national conditions. Chinese modernization is the modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of material and cultural-ethical advancement, of harmony between humanity and nature and of peaceful development." 

Achieving modernization is a goal the Chinese have dreamed of since modern times. The CPC has led the Chinese to find a new Chinese path to modernization and created a new form of human advancement. The modernization path has solved numerous problems in the development of human society, expanding the ways for other developing countries to achieve modernization that provided a Chinese solution for humankind's exploration of a better social system, influencing the course of human history, and demonstrating the bright future of modernization of human society.

High-quality development is the primary task to build a modern socialist country in all aspects. High-quality development means moving from "whether there is" to "whether it is good." It's the development that embodies a new philosophy to make innovation the driving force, coordination the endogenous feature, go-green the prevailing mode, openness the critical path, and sharing the fundamental goal. High-quality development takes on extreme importance in the report. 

The modernization of socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new development stage amid the overall picture for national rejuvenation and major changes in the world unseen in over a century. The principal challenge confronting Chinese society has turned into the contraction between unbalanced and inadequate development and people's ever-growing needs for a better life. Therefore, we should solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development via high-quality development to meet people's ever-growing needs for a better life.

We must push the economy to achieve effective upgrades in quality and moderate growth in quantity. Although China has leaped to the world's second largest economy in GDP size, the problems of being "large but not strong" and "large but not excellent" are considerable. To promote high-quality development means to improve quality through pursuing advances in science and technology, to upgrade quality by boosting total-factor productivity, to pay more attention to the input-output efficiency, and to emphasize the efficiency of economic development. Through transformative changes in the quality, efficiency, and impetus, we can enhance the innovative power and competitiveness of the economy.

To enhance high-quality development, we have to take the real economy as the focus of China's economic development. In terms of the external situation, major changes in the world unseen in a century are accelerating. COVID-19 has increased the adjustment of the international situation and made countries competition around the real economy much more intense. In terms of the domestic situation, if China's high-quality development does not have a solid real economy system as the base, it will be a river without a source and a tree without roots. The real economy is the cornerstone to enhance capacity for innovation, to achieve sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening, and to build a strong domestic market and a new development pattern. It can be said that the real economy is the foundation of a country's economy and the source of its wealth. To achieve the development goals for the next five years and even its long-range objectives for 2035, efforts must be made to strengthen the real economy.

To promote high-quality development, we must foster development that is focused on the domestic economy while featuring positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows. On the one hand, we should develop the socialist market economy, push forward reforms for market-based allocation of production factors, accelerate the construction of a unified, open, competitive, and orderly market system, and build new highlands for reform. On the other hand, we should steadily advance institutional opening-up that covers rules, regulations, management, and standards, accelerate the building of a strong trade country, support the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, and maintain a diversified and stable international economic situation and trade relations.

From now on, high-quality development should be the primary task of building a modern socialist country in all respects. With a more proactive strategy of opening up, China will create more great achievements in the new era.

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