What lies behind China's economic miracle?

Rough terrain and a harsh natural environment, few roads or amenities. Conditions in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, amounted to a recipe for longstanding poverty.

Eleven of the 17 county-level regions in the prefecture, home to some 178,000 people, were designated as key areas in the country's poverty alleviation campaign.

Ahead of the Spring Festival in 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Liangshan's Sanhe Village and encouraged residents to identify and develop projects that match local conditions.

Focusing their efforts, villagers developed crop farming and livestock breeding businesses. One of the pillar industries is now Simmental cattle, said Luogu Youge, deputy secretary of Sanhe's Party branch.

"We have raised over 1,000 in the village," he said. "The average household income increased by over 10,000 yuan (about $1,450) from raising cattle alone."

Liangshan has been the target of a massive anti-poverty campaign: over 10,000 kilometers of rural roads have been built, 350,000 residents have been relocated to government-funded housing, and 215 villages have been offered help to develop a collective economy.

Today, local agricultural products such as potatoes, peppers and walnuts are sold far beyond Liangshan's mountains, leading to a marked increase in incomes, thanks to the improved infrastructure and the Internet.

"The most difficult part of victory is not the winning, but the sustaining," Xi once said, quoting a classic Chinese saying. He called for concrete steps to be put in place to consolidate and expand upon the outcomes of the fight against poverty as part of the country's effort to promote rural revitalization.

Xi, as the commander-in-chief of China's anti-poverty fight, promised that "the CPC will do whatever it takes to honor its commitment to the people."

Economic miracle

China, by establishing a socialist market economic system, fully unleashing market vitality and promoting rapid economic development, has transformed from an impoverished country to the world's second-largest economy, with GDP reaching 126 trillion yuan ($18 trillion) in 2023.

In the process, China has secured victories in the continued fight against poverty and completed the arduous task of eradicating extreme poverty – a historic achievement.

By 2020, the 98.99 million people in rural areas of China who were living below the poverty threshold had moved above it, and all 128,000 impoverished villages and 832 designated poor counties were officially judged to have exited poverty.

The country is now working to consolidate these achievements, rolling out a number of policies to link poverty alleviation with rural vitalization by deepening cooperation between the eastern and western regions.

On China's economic map, a large number of prominent projects that benefit the present with an eye on the future, including the Three Gorges Project, the Qinghai-Xizang Railway and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, are now operational, building a solid foundation for advancing Chinese modernization.

China has made improving people's livelihoods and well-being the fundamental purpose of its economic development.

The country has built the world's largest high-speed railway and highway networks and established the world's largest education, social security, and medical and healthcare systems.

By the end of 2023, 1.334 billion people were covered by China's basic medical insurance program, over 95 percent of the country's population.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China has pursued an innovation-driven development strategy.

The number of Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 list is now the highest in the world. Electric vehicles, solar batteries and lithium-ion batteries, categorized as China's tech-intensive and green "new three," had a combined export value of 1.06 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in 2023, jumping 29.9 percent year on year.

A slew of milestone innovations have emerged in key core technologies, major scientific and technological frontiers, and high-end equipment, and a number of intelligent and green industries are rapidly taking shape. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, China now has the largest number of top 100 sci-tech innovation clusters in the world for the first time.

At the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, China rolled out over 300 specific reform measures, presenting a clear blueprint for building a high-standard socialist market economy and promoting high-quality economic development to advance Chinese modernization.