Opinion: Shanghai is the window to China's future

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Europe

02:03

Hi there! Welcome back to Rui Thinking. There must be a reason why I have visited Shanghai three times in less than two months this year.

Shanghai has delivered two general secretaries to the Communist Party of China (CPC) since 1949. This cosmopolitan city witnessed the establishment of the CPC in 1921.

Between 1980 and 1986, I studied English literature and international journalism in Shanghai, at a time when China was going through a period of major transformation.

Over the past 40 years, people from my generation have benefited enormously from China's reform and opening-up policy.

The second chapter of the Chinese enlightenment movement, after the 1919 May Fourth Movement, took place in the 1980s when liberalization of minds started under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.

I was in Shanghai then and did feel the heat of intellectual liberalization.

Deng helped build a consensus in the wake of the Cold War to further transform the country economically in a spirit of pragmatism.

Since then, over 700 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and illiteracy has been eliminated to a large extent.

During his visit to Shanghai in 1992, Deng asked the city to be the pioneer of deep reform, brushing aside debates about ideology.

Today, after 25 years, Shanghai's economy ranks number three, if compared with all major European cities, after London and Paris.

Its free trade zone has also set an example for deep reform in the backdrop of trade frictions between China and the United States.

Undoubtedly, Shanghai is the window to China's future.

This is Yang Rui. See you next time on Rui Thinking. Bye for now.

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