In the following article, an abridged version of which was published in Chinese in People’s Daily on 31 March 2024, Carlos Martinez addresses the unprecedented scale of China’s modernisation process.
Other countries have achieved modernisation, but never on the scale of China. Furthermore, the process of modernisation in North America, Western Europe and Japan was built to a significant degree on colonialism, imperialism and the oppression of the nations of the Global South.
The article asks: How can we explain China’s successes? Answering that, “above all, they are a function of China’s political system, its revolutionary history, and the leadership of the CPC” – or as Xi Jinping has put it: “Our greatest strength lies in our socialist system, which enables us to pool resources in a major mission. This is the key to our success.”
Carlos continues:
The overall trajectory of China’s economy and the top-level allocation of resources is determined by the government – led by the CPC – rather than being in the hands of a small group of people who own and deploy capital. The interests of the people always come first. This is the ‘secret ingredient’ that allows China to blaze a trail towards modernisation in a country with a huge population.
China’s successful modernisation will double the proportion of the global population living in high-income countries and will, in the words of President Xi Jinping, “completely change the international landscape and have a far-reaching impact on humanity.”
In his speech of February 2023 entitled Chinese modernisation is a sure path to building a great country and rejuvenating the nation, Comrade Xi Jinping observed that “Chinese modernisation is unprecedented in human history in terms of both scale and difficulty.”
Other countries have achieved modernisation, but never on the scale of China. Furthermore, the process of modernisation in North America, Western Europe and Japan was built to a significant degree on colonialism, imperialism and the oppression of the nations of the Global South.
The most important precursors of the West’s modernisation are colonialism, slavery and genocide: the conquest of the Americas, the settlement of Australia, the transatlantic slave trade, the colonisation of India, the rape of Africa, the Opium Wars, the theft of Hong Kong, and more. Meanwhile, Japan’s rapid rise was facilitated first by its brutal expansionist project in East Asia, and then through its adaptation to and integration with the US-led imperialist system in the post-World War 2 era.
Such a path to modernisation is not available to China, and anyway the Chinese people would never walk down that path. China’s commitment to peaceful development is well established, and is enshrined in the country’s constitution. As Foreign Minister Wang Yi has stated firmly: “On how to accomplish this modernisation of the largest scale in human history, China has given an unequivocal and steadfast answer: to unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development.”
Thus there are no precedents for the task that China has set itself. By 2035, China aims to reach a per-capita GDP on a par with that of the mid-level developed countries such as Spain or the Czech Republic; to join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries in the realm of science and technology; to become a global leader in education, public health, culture and sport; to guarantee equitable access to basic public services; and to ensuring modern standards of living in rural areas. Furthermore, all this should be achieved whilst steadily lowering greenhouse gas emissions and protecting biodiversity, so as to restore a healthy balance between humans and the natural environment.
To achieve modernisation in a country with such an enormous country will be an incredible achievement, particularly since one of the requirements of China’s modernisation is that it should feature common prosperity; it is the modernisation of the Chinese people as a whole, not only the wealthier sections of society.
Even in a small country such as Singapore, with its population of 5.5 million, solving the problems of employment, healthcare, education, housing, childcare and elderly care is complex and difficult. China’s population is 250 times larger, and the level of complexity and difficulty is almost infinitely greater.
Impressive progress
China is still a developing country and there remains a long road to travel before the journey of modernisation can be considered complete. Nonetheless China has already made historic progress in that direction.
Life expectancy has more than doubled since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and indeed has now surpassed that of the United States. China has achieved near-universal literacy. Everybody has access to education and healthcare. The social and economic position of women has improved beyond recognition. In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, China is the world’s largest economy.
In late 2020, the Chinese government announced that its goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2021 (the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China) had been met. To eradicate extreme poverty in a developing country of 1.4 billion people – which at the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was one of the poorest countries in the world, characterised by widespread malnutrition, illiteracy, foreign domination and technological backwardness – is without doubt “the greatest anti-poverty achievement in history”, in the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
As a result of the extraordinary efforts of the Chinese government and people, the long-held dream of eliminating extreme poverty has been achieved. In addition to having a guaranteed income level, every single person enjoys sufficient access to food, clothing, housing, clean water, modern energy, education and healthcare. No other developing country, and no other enormous country, has achieved this feat.
With the extensive infrastructure construction programs of the last two decades, China’s development has become more balanced. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping introduced a policy of “letting some people and some regions get rich first, in order to drive and help the backward regions.” The Eastern and Southern regions, benefitting from their coastal location, ports and access to investment, did indeed “get rich first”. But Deng also specified that “it is an obligation for the advanced regions to help the backward regions”, and recent years have witnessed the massive expansion of modern infrastructure to the Western and Central regions, following the example and benefitting from the experience of the advanced regions.
With absolute poverty eliminated, China is taking important steps towards reducing inequality and tackling relative poverty, improving per capita GDP, revitalising rural areas, and reducing inequality between regions and groups. It is time for “making the cake bigger and better and sharing it fairly”, as Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin has said.
This progress stands in stark contrast to the advanced capitalist countries, where neoliberal economic theory has dominated for the last four decades, and where people are experiencing an alarming rise in poverty and inequality. Rather than pursuing common prosperity, the US and its allies are drifting towards mass destitution.
China is transitioning away from high-speed growth to high-quality development based on innovation. Already China has become a global leader in telecommunications, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and more. And in spite of the US’s attempts to suppress its development, China is on the cusp of being a major power in semiconductor technology.
Education is another important component of modernisation, and China has made significant strides forward in this area. Every single child receives nine years of compulsory, free education. The high school (15-18) enrolment rate now exceeds 90 percent, and the higher education enrolment rate stands at 60 percent (in Britain it is 35 percent).
The secret ingredient: socialism
How can we explain China’s successes? Above all, they are a function of China’s political system, its revolutionary history, and the leadership of the CPC.
At a meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016, Xi Jinping made this point very succinctly: “Our greatest strength lies in our socialist system, which enables us to pool resources in a major mission. This is the key to our success.”
Or as Deng Xiaoping famously commented in 1984: “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of the productive forces than under the capitalist system.”
It’s instructive to look at the example of India – the only other country with a population size similar to that of China. There are some important historical similarities between the two. India won its independence in 1947, and China won its liberation in 1949. At that time, both countries were in a parlous state, their populations enduring pervasive poverty and backwardness, ground down by centuries of feudal oppression and colonial occupation and interference.
India has made commendable progress, and yet its record of development falls way behind China’s. Its life expectancy is several years below the global average, whereas China’s is several years above the global average. Millions of children in India still don’t go to school, and its adult literacy rate is 76 percent. Hundreds of millions don’t have access to clean water or electricity. Tens of millions live in slums.
Not having had a revolution, political power in India continues to be monopolised by landlords and big capitalists. China’s political system, in which power is exercised by and on behalf of the masses, allows enormous resources to be consolidated for projects that serve the interests of the people. As such, China is able to effectively solve the problems that face all countries, particularly developing countries.
The overall trajectory of China’s economy and the top-level allocation of resources is determined by the government – led by the CPC – rather than being in the hands of a small group of people who own and deploy capital. The interests of the people always come first. This is the ‘secret ingredient’ that allows China to blaze a trail towards modernisation in a country with a huge population.
A major contribution to the world
Chinese economist Justin Yifu Lin has pointed out that, with China’s successful modernisation, “the global population of high-income nations will double, rising from 15.8 percent to 33.8 percent.” Modernisation has thus far been dominated by a small group of imperialist countries, with a combined population of 1.2 billion. China’s successful modernisation, in the words of President Xi Jinping, “will completely change the international landscape and have a far-reaching impact on humanity.”
China’s development will set an example for other countries of the Global South, and will finally put an end to the myth that there’s an equals sign between modernisation and westernisation. China will continue to share the fruits of its modernisation, via mechanisms such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, and as such it will provide development impetus for the whole world. China’s modernisation will be a major, historic contribution to global development.
