Persisting in Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Comprehensively Opening Up
Table of Contents
Reform and opening up is the most distinctive feature of contemporary China and the most distinctive character of contemporary Chinese communists. Without reform and opening up, there would be no socialism with Chinese characteristics, and there would be no excellent situation in which China is prosperous today. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has held high the banner of reform and opening up, carried forward the spirit of reform and opening up, persisted in comprehensively deepening reform and comprehensive opening up, and promoted major breakthroughs in the theory and practice of reform and opening up, creating a new situation in contemporary China’s reform and opening up.
Section 1: Reform and opening up is a new great revolution
The essence of China’s reform and opening up is to fundamentally change various specific systems that restrict the development of productive forces and social progress in order to meet the needs of socialist modernization. Whether viewed from the tremendous historical role played by reform and opening up in liberating and developing the productive forces, or from the depth and breadth of changes in China’s social relations and social life, it can be said that “reform and opening up is a great revolution in the history of the development of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.” This new great revolution has pushed the Party and the people to make great strides to catch up with the times, become the only way to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, and become a key move to determine the fate of contemporary China.
- The party and the people are an important magic weapon for making great strides to catch up with the times
Catching up with the trend of the times and speeding up its own development is an important starting point for the CPC’s reform and opening up, and it is also a great awakening of the party. Since the establishment of the socialist system in the mid-50s of the 20th century, China’s socialist construction has made important achievements, but due to the large population and weak foundation, coupled with the mistakes in the guiding principles of the party’s work, especially the occurrence of such an overall and long-term serious mistake as the “Cultural Revolution”, China’s economy is on the verge of collapse, the people’s food and clothing are all problems, and China is still one of the poor countries. During this period, the world economy accelerated and science and technology progressed with each passing day, and Western capitalist countries and some countries and regions around China seized the opportunity to achieve rapid economic and technological development. The gap between China and developed countries and regions has widened significantly. Regarding the changes in the international community and the gap between China’s development level and the world, Comrade Deng Xiaoping said when receiving foreign guests that year: “Recently, our comrades went out to take a look, and the more they looked, the more they felt that we were backward. The fifties were the same, the sixties were different, and the seventies were even more different. “1 He also pointed out clearly: “In the early sixties, there was a gap between us and the international level of science and technology, but it was not very large, but in the past decade or so, the world has developed by leaps and bounds, and the gap has widened very widely.” Compared with developed countries, the economic gap is not only 10 years, it may be 10 years, 30 years, and in some respects it may even be 50 years. “2 “If we do not carry out reform now, our modernization and socialist cause will be destroyed.“3 At the important historical juncture when the Party and the country were facing what to do, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee conformed to the will of the Party and the people and the trend of the times and resolutely made the major policy decision of shifting the focus of the work of the Party and the State to socialist modernization and carrying out reform and opening up. As a result, the process of comprehensive reform, from the countryside to the cities, from the economic field to other fields, is unstoppable;
From the coast to the river, from the east to the central and western regions, the door to the outside world is resolutely opened.
Comrade Deng Xiaoping clearly pointed out in the 80s of the 20th century: “We must catch up with the times, and this is the goal of reform.“1 “Catching up with the times” actually means vigorously developing social productive forces, getting rid of poverty and backwardness, and promoting China’s modernization. Reform and opening up have profoundly changed China and promoted the vicissitudes of change in China. In 1978, China’s total GDP was only 367.9 billion yuan, and the per capita disposable income of urban residents was only 343 yuan. By 2010, China’s total GDP jumped to 41. 2 trillion yuan, surpassing Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, per capita GDP reached more than 30,000 yuan. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, we have always adhered to reform and opening up without wavering, properly responded to the complex and changeable domestic and international situations, and achieved rapid economic growth, with a total GDP of more than 99 trillion yuan in 2019 and a per capita GDP of more than 70,000 yuan.
More importantly, China has embarked on a new path for developing countries to achieve modernization in the course of reform and opening up. Historically, modernization programs in developing countries have mostly been designed based on the experience of developed Western countries. Especially after the end of World War II, Japan, South Korea and other countries and regions imitated the Western model to achieve modernization, while the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the late 80s and early 90s of the 20th century made the modernization model of Western countries seem to be the only choice for developing countries. However, the reality of more than 70 years since the end of the Second World War shows that the modernization model of the developed countries has not achieved the expected results. According to World Bank statistics, between 1960 and 2008, 101 economies in the world entered the middle-income stage, but only 13 achieved the leap to high-income economies. The vast majority of countries and the vast majority of their populations have not escaped poverty through the Western model of modernization. The path of modernization that China has explored in the course of reform and opening up suited to China’s national conditions has expanded the ways for developing countries to modernize.
Reform and opening up has not only won unprecedented international status and influence for China, but also won unprecedented self-confidence and dignity for Chinese people.
Reform and opening up have broken the shackles of the system that shackles people’s thinking, prompted hundreds of millions of people to awaken from dullness and rigidity, and displayed unprecedented creative vitality; reform and opening up has promoted the development of ideology and theory, promoted the innovation of ruling concepts and methods, and rejuvenated the vitality of the party. The reform and opening up, which lasted for more than 40 years, has promoted China to achieve a great leap from “lagging behind the times” to “catching up with the times” and even “leading the times.”