BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on China's recently issued white paper:

 

On Sept. 28, China released a white paper titled "China's Epic Journey from Poverty to Prosperity," sharing its experience on the journey to moderate prosperity, or to say, building xiaokang society in an all-round way.

The Chinese people's dream of xiaokang society can be traced back to ancient times. In fact, "building a moderately prosperous society" truly became an important strategic goal of China's economic and social development back in 1979. That year, Deng Xiaoping presented the vision of "xiaokang" during a meeting with a foreign guest. It's said that the term "xiaokang," with its Chinese characteristics, posed the interpreter a really difficult challenge at the time.

By reading the white paper, it is possible to better understand that the essence of China's efforts to achieve moderate prosperity is to blaze and follow a path to modernization different from that of the West.

It is an independent and self-reliant path of pursuing reform and innovation. Through decades of exploration, China, a populous country with complex national conditions, has broken away from the Western model of modernization and creatively combined socialism and the market economy; China has adhered to the basic economic system with public ownership as the mainstay and encouraged, supported and guided the development of the non-public sector; special economic zones have been established to encourage eastern coastal regions to create wealth as the first step to achieving prosperity for all; China has also adapted to the international division of labor and achieved industrial growth. The most important element in China's realization of moderate prosperity has been firmly choosing the path that best suits its actual conditions.

It is also a path of balanced, coordinated and sustainable development. For a long time, the West equated development with economic growth in the process of modernization. But this is not the case with China. In just a few decades, China's GDP has jumped from 67.91 billion yuan in 1952 to 101.6 trillion yuan in 2020. At the same time, people's living standards have continuously improved. The Chinese people now have better access to education, medical services and elderly care; people's democracy has been expanded; people are enjoying richer cultural activities; and they live in a country where the sky is bluer, the land is greener, and the water more lucid. In pursuing moderate prosperity, China emphasizes coordinated progress in the economic, political, cultural, social, and eco-environmental fields.

It is also a path that has featured common prosperity from the outset. China's rapid economic growth in the over 40 years of reform and opening-up has enabled the basic needs of the Chinese people to be largely met. Since 2013, by implementing the targeted poverty alleviation strategy, China has worked to ensure that no one is left behind on the way towards prosperity. As a result, more than 90 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Achieving all-round moderate prosperity that benefits more than 1 billion people fully reflects China's integration of its pursuit of common prosperity for all into the process of modernization.

Now, China has embarked on a new journey towards socialist modernization in an all-round manner. This means that China will stick to this new modernization path featuring peaceful development, common prosperity and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. It will also make new contributions to global development and the progress of mankind.

China Mosaic
http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm

Realizing moderate prosperity: A new path of 'Chinese-style modernization'
http://www.china.org.cn/video/2021-09/30/content_77784917.htm