Category: Solidarity

Starting this weekend the people of Beijing and visitors to the city will be able to experience a spectacular light show. Over 2,800 sites across the capital will be bathed in glorious illumination bringing their nocturnal beauty to full expression. This weekend also sees the opening of the National Day holiday all across China. This holiday takes place from October 1st to October 7th every year. It is often called ‘Golden Week’ and it is an annual celebration of the inauguration of New China on October 1st 1949. Those of you who are good at Maths will have worked out that 2024 is then the 75th anniversary celebration. Therefore in this article I want to talk to you about some of the progress China has made over this period, because it not only remarkable but of global importance to us all.

Let’s start with the economics. Up until the middle of the nineteenth century China had the largest and most successful economy in the world. The problems of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a devastating effect on the lives of the Chinese people. In 1949 China only produced 4% of global GDP. Over 80% of the population worked in agriculture but the country was not self-sufficient in food. In 1949 China produced only 7.9 kwh of electricity per head of capita compared to 1144.6 kwh per capita in America, 141 times greater. In 1949, the average life expectancy in China was only 35 years. It is against baseline figures like these that the remarkable progress of China over the last 75 years can be measured.

China today accounts for almost 19 percent of the global GDP. China’s progress has brought benefits across the developing world. Until the 1990s, the developing world was dependent on the West for many things. But by 2007, large emerging economies, spearheaded by China, were driving global growth, while the advanced Western economies’ growth had slowed down. As a result, the impact of the Chinese economy on low and middle-income economies soared, with development projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative and multilateral financial institutions supported by countries including China such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank helping boost growth in many emerging and developing economies. In this way, China has been fuelling global growth.

One of the key lessons of the modern era is that economic growth must be balanced with environmental sustainability. Drawing on deeply embedded cultural ideas of ‘harmony’, China has energetically followed policies that are healing and sustaining eco-systems across the whole country. In my travels all over the country in the last ten years I have seen none of the environmental pollution that used to be presented as the image of rural China. Instead I have seen landscapes of profound beauty, which are loved and cared for by local populations engaged in their care and preservation. In Dali, Yunnan Province, a community leader, took me to the exact spot next to Lake Erhai where President Xi had stood and told local hotel owners who had started to make greater and greater profits from the growth of tourism, that they had to take down their lucrative hotels on the shoreline because they were damaging the water quality in the lake.

Over the last 75 years Chinese scientists have made significant contributions to the world in the realm of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For example, China has increased the population of giant pandas by establishing nature reserves and succeeding in artificially breeding them. Yuan Longping, a famous rice breeding expert in China who made outstanding contributions to the world’s food security, developed the first strain of hybrid rice in 1970 by crossing the sterile plants of wild rice found in Hainan with cultivars. Tu Youyou, a Chinese female pharmacist, won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of artemisinin, a drug that that helped save millions of lives from the threat of malaria globally, especially in developing countries.

China has established a system of national parks that are making enormous contributions to protecting eco-systems and vulnerable species. The Tibetan antelope, the flagship species at the Three-River-Source National Park, has increased to over 70,000. The snow leopard population has recovered to over 1,200, and the populations of Northeast tigers and leopards in the national park have grown from the initial 27 and 42 at the pilot stage, respectively, to around 70 and 80. The wild population of the Hainan gibbon, the flagship species at the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, has increased from fewer than 10 in two groups 40 years ago to 42 in seven groups. And in a remarkable story of international co-operation, the World Wild Life Fund, the Chinese Government and local people in the Yangtze River area have worked together to rescue the Yangtze Finless Porpoise that had been declared extinct. A survey in 2023 found a 23% increase in the population. It is hoped that lessons learned from preserving this river species can now be applied globally to rescue five other river Dolphins vulnerable to extinction.

Finally, in our quick tour through 75 years of achievements in China, let’s focus on education. In 1949 astonishingly, there was an 80% illiteracy rate in China. Education became an immediate priority for the new government. In 1952, 1956 and 1958, the Chinese government repeatedly launched free literacy-education campaigns, which were responded to enthusiastically by 150 million participants. As late as 1978, only 60 per cent of primary school pupils went on to study in junior high schools. Now school completion rates are in the high 90% range. There are 9,752 secondary vocational education schools, with a total of 17.847 million students enrolled. A financial aid system covering students from pre-school to postgraduate level has been established, ensuring that no student from a disadvantaged background is forced to drop out because of financial difficulties. This national focus on education has also benefited university education. China’s universities have been edging up the world university rankings, with more making it to the top 100, and some 100 disciplines making it to the world’s top 1,000.  There are now 7 Chinese universities in the World top 100 ranking. For the first time this year, as my Chinese students are studying to gain entrance to western universities, our campus is now hosting international students studying to gain entrance to elite universities in Beijing.

These are only snapshots from the remarkable journey of the last 75 years in China. What is important to note is that these 75 years of progress have made, and continue to make, international contributions, not just narrow national ones. For example, figures from the United Nations show that China’s sustained commitment to poverty reduction over this period has resulted in an over 70% global reduction in poverty rates. It is China’s expertise in manufacturing, supplying and installing highly efficient photo-voltaic solar power technology that is enabling the world to transition to cleaner alternative energy. In the first four months of 2024 alone, 43% of China’s photo voltaic cell production was exported to Europe. History shows us long eras of peaceful co-operation between China and the world, dwarfing any periods of rivalry and competition. The next time you use something as ordinary as a wheelbarrow, remind yourself this was a Chinese invention of an earlier time, which spread to the world across ancient trade routes. And think of the likely future benefits as China enters the next phase of its modernisation, led by a mission to ‘build a community of shared futures for humankind and to achieve shared and win-win development.’