Chinese-Style Modernization Showcases New Form of Human Civilization

After a century of relentless struggle, China has achieved the “double miracles” of rapid economic growth and long-term social stability within a short period of time. This not only significantly enhanced its comprehensive national strength and brought unprecedented high-quality lives to the Chinese, but also made visible contributions to global development. China’s path of development is one that combines Marxist and socialist principles with its own conditions, and one that adheres to and advances socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the current era of rapid changes in economic globalization, industrial precision, virtual interactions, social informatization, and dynamic needs, China has scientifically and coherently addressed world-class challenges. These include balancing efficiency and equity, coordinating market and government roles, achieving coexistence of diverse forms of property ownership rights, optimizing resource allocation, and resolving deep-rooted social conflicts, thus realizing good governance. Great strategies and grand coordination require profound wisdom and effective execution. Examining the development paths chosen by countries worldwide, one can easily conclude that no latecomer nation, especially a relatively underdeveloped one, has successfully replicated the Western model. How to enable more people and countries to quickly achieve modernization remains a critical issue of global concern. The innovative practice of Chinese-style modernization offers invaluable experiences in this regard. China cannot be separated from the world, nor can the world be separated from China. China’s efforts, grounded in reality and determination, have provided more opportunities and strength to the global community.

1. A New Development Concept Centered on People

Development is a common issue for the contemporary world, and the direction, method, and subject of development determine the shared future of human civilization. China’s economic and social development aims to overcome the alienation, polarization, and negative consequences brought by long-term material modernization and the negative effects of modern capitalist logic. It emphasizes fully respecting and harnessing human initiative, grasping and meeting reasonable human needs, ensuring active participation in development, and providing continuous momentum for genuine and comprehensive development. Centering on people, seeking happiness for the populace, and prioritizing the rights and interests of working people are intrinsic requirements for promoting social justice. This necessitates appropriately regulating and limiting the automatic functioning of markets, capital, and power, ensuring that non-human factors revolve around people rather than the opposite. It prevents irrational influences on individuals, averts social tensions and divisions, and ensures balanced sharing of development benefits, hence creating a happy society where all the people feel involved, satisfied, and fulfilled. The emphasis on people is not just an abstract or general affirmation but a concrete and practical commitment through feasible and effective ideas, measures, strategies, and mechanisms. The concept of a human-centered approach transcends individualistic egotism and combines universal and specific realities, serving as a crucial approach to fundamentally surpass selfishness.

China’s understanding of development has become increasingly profound and comprehensive. It is not solely focused on economic growth, nor is it about isolated or one-sided development or unrestrained market behavior. Instead, it emphasizes the coordinated development of material, political, spiritual, social, and ecological civilizations, balancing the comprehensive development of individuals and overall social progress. Only by overcoming dependence on materialism and its substitutes, and moving towards comprehensive and high-quality development, can we achieve equitable and efficient development, avoiding the pitfalls of economic centrism. This comprehensive development theory and practice necessitate reflection, reconstruction, and learning from past lessons. For the new concept of comprehensive development, the focus is on the quality and efficiency of development, balancing political, cultural, social, and ecological development, and structural optimization, making development a multidimensional and integrated process.

The new development concept emphasizes handling significant dialectical relationships in development. By adhering to development dialectics, it fosters mutual adaptation and promotion of production relations, productive forces, the top-level design, and the economic base, thus accelerating the resolution of imbalanced and inadequate development issues. Pursuing development for its own sake and striving for unlimited resource expansion without coordination will end up impacting the overall efficiency and fairness, leading to unhealthy development and negative consequences, even bottlenecks. Since World War II, coordinating economic and social development has been a global challenge, with numerous explorations made. Yet, resolving the complex relationship between development and welfare, and between necessary welfare and efficiency, remains paradoxical. With its rapid development, China has lifted 98.99 million rural poor out of poverty, established the world’s largest social security network with basic medical insurance covering over 1.3 billion people and basic pension insurance covering over 1 billion people. By doing so, China not only ensured moderate social protection, but also set an example in addressing the complexities of such issues.

The sustainability of development – how long it can last, its ubiquity, and its impact on future generations – concerns the long-term and overall interests of society. Issues such as stagflation, policy offset effects, solidification, and ecological externalities in some countries reflect deep-seated problems of declining dynamism and fundamental contradictions within economic and social systems, hindering recovery and leading to unsustainable development trends. China’s adoption of the new development philosophy aims for higher quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable, and safer development that can ensure sustainability. Sustainable development considers issues within a broader historical and spatial context, accounting for intergenerational relationships, and balancing the costs and consequences of development. This approach is one of resilience and flexibility, with greater possibilities of fostering understanding among and acceptance by external parties. It will also lead to appropriate allocation and use of resources, creating an optimal overall effect.

2. Accelerating Modernization of National Governance Systems and Capabilities

Modern societies are increasingly complex and rapidly changing with various factors, risks, and challenges intertwined. Effective governance is crucial in correctly identifying and responding to these risks, be they conventional, unconventional, societal, ecological, financial or political. The more prominent these issues are, the higher the requirements for governance. Enhancing social governance through the latest technological means for comprehensive governance and improving governance norms and processes are urgent priorities; whereas neglecting governance and inadequate preparedness can lead to negative consequences and even social unrest. Therefore, achieving long-term stability, fostering societal harmony, and creating a balanced system that maintains both momentum and equality are major challenges every country must address.

China actively promotes the modernization of its national governance systems and capabilities, and addresses governance challenges by improving institutional mechanisms, laws, and regulations that do not meet the pragmatic requirements of development. It eliminates unreasonable constraints on productivity, making institutions more scientific and effective, forming fundamental, basic, and important systems across economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological fields, and ensuring institutionalized, standardized, and procedural governance of the party, state, and social affairs. The socialist system with Chinese characteristics has fully integrated institutional norms with its day-to-day operation. This has highlighted the system’s comparative advantages, fostered a strong culture of rules-based conduct, made governance more targeted at specific problems, and improved the efficiency of the system with the passage of time.

National governance capability refers to the capability of a nation in managing various societal issues with its public institutions. These issues range from reforms, development, stability, internal affairs, foreign policy, national defense, operation of the party, state, and military. Effective national governance stems from continuous improvement of governance capabilities. China integrates its governance objectives throughout societal practices, strict implementation and resolutely opposing non-compliance, circumvention, and shirking of responsibilities. From top to bottom and inside out, timely supervision and guidance are strengthened. Scientific evaluation is enhanced, excellence is rewarded while inadequacy is penalized, and incentive and punishment mechanisms are improved to overcome and prevent low governance efficiency. Additionally, digital technology is widely applied to drive the reengineering of governance processes and the optimization of governance models.

As one line in ancient Chinese classic reads, “govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish.” China’s governance emphasizes the scientific application of methods and approaches, maintaining correctness in direction, principles, and strategy. It combines top-level design with pragmatic experiments, advancing cautiously without resorting to “shock therapy.” Systematic governance is emphasized, with careful planning across various aspects, levels, and elements, ensuring policy coordination and integration across different periods and areas. Consistent efforts are aimed at creating a comprehensive effect, avoiding imbalances and isolated progress. This holistic approach focuses on major contradictions and key aspects, targeting critical areas and pivotal links. It leverages various stakeholders to achieve coordinated governance, balancing overall and local initiatives, addressing both root causes and symptoms, and combining gradual progress with breakthroughs, therefore making unified governance possible.

3. Building Community of Shared Future for Mankind through Active Participation and Win-Win Cooperation

China’s development path reflects an accurate and profound grasp of global issues. President Xi Jinping has pointed out, “The trend toward multi-polarity and economic globalization is surging. IT application in social development and cultural diversity are making continued progress. A new round of scientific and industrial revolution is in the making. Interconnection and interdependence between countries are crucial for human survival. The forces for peace far outweigh factors causing war, and the trend of our times toward peace, development, cooperation and win-win outcomes has gained stronger momentum. On the other hand, mankind is also in an era of numerous challenges and increasing risks. Global growth is sluggish, the impact of the financial crisis lingers on and the development gap is widening. Armed conflicts occur from time to time, Cold War mentality and power politics still exist and non-conventional security threats, particularly terrorism, refugee crisis, major communicable diseases and climate change, are spreading.” China has proactively and effectively addressed these paradoxes through a series of coordinated strategies.

One forward-looking assessment, or a fundamental tenet of Marxism, is that the world would follow a trend of open development. The Chinese path exemplifies openness and mutual benefit, cooperation and win-win outcomes as China’s doors to openness will never close; they will only open wider. Committed to a strategy of mutual benefit, China balances domestic and international considerations, emphasizing both attracting investment from overseas and encouraging domestic enterprises to go global. This strategy promotes a coordinated land-sea, east-west flow of openness and high-level trade and investment liberalization policies while actively exploring the potentials of free trade zones and ports. Under the new development paradigm, China is dedicated to promoting the dual circulation of international and domestic economies, actively countering the resurgence of trade protectionism through practical measures. By implementing a series of new institutional opening initiatives, China is showcasing its sincerity to the world through advocacies for dialogue, exchange, and cooperation among human civilizations. This approach eschews hegemony, a new Cold War, or decoupling, thus avoiding the “Thucydides Trap”.

China has always embraced the world with a proactive and positive attitude, fostering equal and friendly relations with various countries and comprehensively consolidating its foreign relations. Actively developing global partnerships, China strengthens strategic consultations at different levels, seeks to eliminate misunderstandings, and expands common interests with other countries. It promotes major power consultations and cooperation, effectively addresses significant disputes, and builds a framework for stable and balanced major power relations. Following the principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness, China deepens its relations with neighboring countries, and upholds the view of righteousness and benefit and the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith to strengthen solidarity and cooperation with developing countries, striving to expand its circle of friends in various ways. China is also enhancing the depth and form of its foreign relations, strengthening cooperation with political parties in other countries, and promoting exchanges at the level of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the military, local governments, and people’s organizations. In global governance, China is increasingly proactive, adhering to a concept of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits. It advocates for the democratization of international relations, upholds common values for humanity, insists on equality among countries regardless of size, strength, or wealth, and supports the United Nations in playing an active role. China advocates for greater representation and voice for developing countries in international affairs, continues to play the role as a major developing country, actively participates in reform and construction of the global governance system, strives to contribute reasonable perspectives in rule-making and procedural settings, and firmly opposes hegemony and power politics, taking on more responsibilities as a global power. The United Nations is the banner of multilateralism, with the UN Charter laying the foundation of the modern international order and establishing the basic norms of contemporary international relations. China firmly asserts that there is only one system – the international system with the United Nations at its core; there is only one order – the international order based on international laws; and there is only one set of rules, that is the basic norms of international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

The practice of Chinese modernization fully demonstrates that the new form of civilization encompasses rich connotations. In the contemporary world, it is necessary to promote the exchange, prosperity, and progress of human civilization from broader, deeper, and higher dimensions. By adhering to objective and systematic perspectives, learning from historical experiences and lessons, maintaining an open and broad mind, and solving prominent issues at present with the wit we gain from historical patterns and trends, as more comprehensive and effective strategies can guide economic and social development onto a sustainable and healthy path. Only in this way can we strategically address contemporary issues at their core, achieving the greatest extent of inclusive and coordinated progress for human civilization, and create a harmonious symphony of common development between China and the world.

[Author Peng Jinsong is Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Central Party School (National Academy of Governance)]