103 years on, how CPC leads China toward modernization

July 1 marks the 103rd founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) – the party that leads one of the world's most populous countries to realize rejuvenation through a Chinese path to modernization.

Found in 1921, the CPC faced with a China that was torn apart and bullied by foreign powers whose traditional political structure and overall socioeconomic and political order were broken by the two Opium Wars (1840-42 and 1856-60).

Although many patriots looked to the West for a formula to help modernize the Chinese nation, they could not find one that suited China's real conditions.

In exploring ways to save China, the early Chinese communists soon realized that a Western path could not possibly give birth to new productive forces and that China first had to carry out a profound social revolution. China's modernization would be possible only with the independence of the Chinese nation and the liberation of the Chinese people.

During this period, the CPC led the people in carrying out the new-democratic revolution to establish a new China in which the people run the country and thus realizing China's independence and the people's liberation.This put an end to China's history as a semi-colonial, semifeudal society, creating the fundamental social conditions for China to realize modernization.

After the founding of New China in 1949, the Party led the Chinese people to make great achievements in the socialist construction of the country, laying the institutional foundation for treading a new path to Chinese modernization.

In 1978, China launched reform and opening-up, a historic decision to shift the priority of the Party and the country's work agenda onto economic development. Based on an assessment of the conditions in China, Deng Xiaoping creatively set the goal of achieving "Chinese-style modernization" in 1979 and  defined parameters for the level of modernization China would achieve by the end of the 20th century.

To advance China's modernization, Chinese communists made bold explorations. They successfully integrated the socialist system with the market economy and made building a socialist market economy a goal of reform, thus ushering in a new stage of reform, opening up and modernization.

Since the reform and opening up, China has maintained rapid development, with its total economic output leaping to the second largest in the world and the scale of manufacturing leaping to the first in the world, creating an economic miracle in the history of world development.

Following the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, the Party has led the Chinese people in upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. The CPC Central Committee had made eradicating poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects one of its basic missions and a symbolic benchmark.

China fulfilled that arduous task by eradicating extreme poverty by the end of 2020, lifting about 800 million people out of poverty, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the global poverty alleviation efforts in the last four-plus decades.

The 20th CPC National Congress in 2022 proposed that a two-step strategic plan be made to build China into a great modern socialist country, and set the overall goal of development from 2022 through 2035 and from 2035 through 2050. It also said the CPC will lead the Chinese people to realize the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and realize national rejuvenation through a Chinese path to modernization, setting a clear timetable and targets for Chinese modernization.

Since the CPC's 18th National Congress, China's economy has achieved a historic rise, with the gross domestic product (GDP) growing from 53.9 trillion yuan in 2012 to 126 trillion yuan (about $18 trillion) in 2023.

In 2023 alone, amid uncertainty and pressure in the domestic and international environment, China's GDP increased by 5.2 percent compared with last year at constant prices, much higher than the projected global growth rate of around 3 percent, and takes the leading position among the world's major economies.

China's economy was forecast by the National Bureau of Statistics to contribute more than 30 percent to world economic growth in 2023, making it the largest engine of global economic expansion.

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