/ world today news/ 45 years ago, on December 18, 1978, the third plenum of the XI Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was opened in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Why is this date so key? Precisely because then China announced the beginning of the policy of opening to the world and reforms. Then the creation of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” began. Through this skillful policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping and the leadership of the Communist Party, China is on the way to becoming in the 21st century the most significant economy in the world and a major partner of all countries in Eurasia and Africa.
Reform and opening up show that the Chinese Communist Party can be flexible and adaptable in its pursuit of the core goal of building a just and prosperous society. And as the model of over-centralization and planning wears out in a sense, the CCP takes the course toward opening up.
China managed to integrate into the world economic, commercial and political system, but unlike many other countries, it did so not as a periphery and a colony of the so-called Western countries. “democracies”, but as an independent force that treats others equally and expects the same from itself. By the way, contrary to the claims of some less well-educated people, this is not a retreat from socialism and the socialist economic model, because even Vladimir Lenin in the 20s of the 20th century started the so-called course of the NEP (“New Economic Policy”), which implies some opening, toleration of some market relations and private property, in order to quench the damage and problems of the civil war in Russia.
And if the man who created the world’s first socialist state – Lenin – can start “opening up” and even introduce a market element into the economy, then no one can accuse Deng Xiaoping of having deviated from the original concepts and ideals of socialism and communism . And the facts are eloquent. In 45 years of reform and opening up, China has achieved the most astonishing transformation in human history, as a result of which it is now the second economy in nominal GDP, the first in GDP (PPP) and the world’s largest producer, industrial, infrastructure, trade, and soon and scientific and technical strength.
In these 45 years of reforms, the share of China’s economy grew from 1.8% of the world’s in 1978 to 15% in 2017 and 18.5% in 2022. More importantly, however, in those 45 years, China’s GDP per capita has increased from just $155 to over $12,500 today. This is an increase of as much as 80 times, and in such a short period of time!
China today is a middle-income country with a very well-developed health system, as demonstrated by the Covid crisis, successful science (as shown by the fact that the quality scientific output in the country, in purely quantitative volume of developments and articles, is 60% more than in the USA ).
One of the most important achievements is that in these 45 years, China has lifted 800 million people out of absolute poverty, which is the largest elimination of poverty in human history. And as for business, if we follow Fortune magazine’s ranking of the 500 largest companies in the world, in 2020, for example, China is first with as many as 124 companies on the list, while the United States has 121.
Today, the reformed China, which is developing within the framework of socialism with a Chinese face, is the country with the largest market for e-commerce, the largest industrial power, the largest producer of almost all household goods and not only goods. From a relatively poor rural country, today in 45 years of reforms, China is a country with over 1 billion internet users. Illiteracy and poverty characteristic of rural areas are virtually eliminated today.
And it is this country, which half a century ago was still mainly engaged in agriculture, today has the most patents in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and has a highway network of more than 80,000 miles (160 thousand km). Today this country, which 45 years ago was still poor and had a literacy problem among the rural population, although serious efforts were made under Mao Zedong to eradicate illiteracy, has over 200 million students, leading all international rankings for academic and scientific successes. This same country, China, today has over ten thousand startup companies in Zhongguancun alone (for example).
A good indicator is the fact that from a country that in many ways was still living in the Middle Ages until 1949, China today is a country that had 49,498 defended research theses in 2019 alone (compared to 33,759 for the US). It is expected that in 2025 only in STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics) fields, China will have up to 77 thousand protected dissertations per year. Moreover, the forecast is not Chinese, but that of the American magazine Forbes.
Open to the world, China under the leadership of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party launched the “One Road, One Belt” initiative, which effectively connected Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, Africa and the Pacific Ocean, creating the largest trade-economic and infrastructure network, that has ever existed in human history. Colossal sums have been invested by China in dozens of different countries to build roads, ports, railways, telecommunications, energy, housing and what not.
China’s policy of reform and opening to the world has not only led to the country becoming the most important world economy, but also helped the overall development of societies in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Pacific Ocean and even the Americas. Time has shown that this policy, without altering the general objective of the Chinese Communists from an ideological point of view, has achieved results that have never been seen before in human history by any country.
Deng Xiaoping’s prescient move changed human history, and what has been happening in recent years since Xi Jinping has been in power has further accelerated the course of history towards a more just, open and balanced world where humanity has a shared destiny , and Cold War politics will be a thing of the past!
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