Shakeel Ahmad Ramay
Executive Director | Zalmi Foundation
China has just celebrated the 70 years of the creation of the People’s Republic of China. It was a celebration of hard work that China puts to achieve the goal of sustainable development. It was a show of strength, growth, prosperity, and happiness. The elegance of the execution of plans has surprised the world. The pace, way and dignified manners to attain the goals of sustainable development have opened a new chapter in human history. The journey was not as easy as China had multiple problems encompassing all spheres of life. It was home to industrial development, low education, high poverty, food insecurity, and corruption. Moreover, China was a victim of immense pressure from foreign powers low. USSR and the USA were playing their games to create a web of their influence.
The situation required a comprehensive and smart strategy to counter external forces and steer the process of development at home. China was fortunate, it has wise and sincere leadership. Their Leadership adopted a holistic approach to counter multiple problems. It made an inclusive effort in all aspects. The inclusive and holistic approach helped China to revolutionize the country. The beauty of the approach was the openness to change and refinement. Leadership introduced an incremental reform system and China still believes it.
The country started its journey by following the saying “thousand miles journey start with the first step”. It adopted a strategy to move step by step and forget about the overnight turn around. As Deng Xiaoping said, “we should adhere to the basic line for a hundred years, with no vacillation”. The strategy worked and now the country has graduated from small levels of development to the second-largest economy of the world. The major highlights of China’s rise can be summarized as follows.
First, China focused on economic growth. It applied a sustainable strategy and methods to give a boost to its growth. Owing to its strategy it achieved tremendous success in the growth of GDP and per capita GDP. In 2018 China’s GDP touched the magic figure of 90.07 trillion from 67.9 billion yuan in 1952. It exhibits an increase of 174 times since 1952. Pre-capita GDP also increased from 119 to 64600 yuan in 2018. It has registered an increase of 70 times.
Second, national strength has increased. Now it is the second-largest economy of the world, it has biggest foreign reserves, second-largest providers of services and second-largest on FDI map. Third, it gradually developed infrastructure and now it is leading the way. China has the largest network of high-speed railway (30000 Km). It has also witnessed remarkable growth in the development of highways. According to statistics, in 2018, the expressways expanded to 4.85 million Km and it also includes 143000 Km of high-quality highways.
Fourth, China is continuously working to transform its economy from primary to tertiary by putting equal weight on the primary. From 1952 the share of three sectors, primary, secondary and tertiary has changed as follows, 50.5: 20.8: 28.7 to 7.2: 40.7: 52.2 in 2018. The picture is amazing, China’s 92.9 percent labor force is in secondary and tertiary sectors. It is an indicator of quality living standards.
Fifth, China puts equal weight on human development. China has taken out 770 million people from the poverty trap. In 2018, there were only 16.8 million people below the poverty line. China has envisioned to achieve the target of zero poverty in 2020. Life expectancy has also increased from 35 years in 1952 to 77 years in 2018.
Six, the urban proportion of population is the rise. It has reached 59.6 percent in 2018 from 10.6 percent in 1952. China also made life easy for people by enhancing the power share of equipment and minimize human power. For example, equipment power in agriculture sector increased from 100000 kW to 1 billion kW in 2018.
Seventh, China has redefined the role of the environment and is continuously working to improve the environment condition. From 1976 China is trying to increase forest cover of the country. Current statistics show that the forest cover has reached 22.66 percent from 10.9 percent in 1976. During the last decade, it has put efforts on a fast track and invested trillions of yuan to improve the environment. President Xi is concerned about the environment and to mainstream it by introducing his idea of “Eco-civilization”.
Eighth, China demonstrated its will of peaceful rise. Despite the intimated behavior of Western countries China kept its cool and keep moving on the path of development.
inth, China believes in sharing prosperity. It does not want to be an island of development. It launched Belt&Route Initiative to share its prosperity with people. China strongly believes that only shared prosperity can ensure peace.
Tenth, she has patience to solve the issues. It avoided conflicts and asked nations to go for dialogue . and played an astute role to solve the issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan. For the last 70 years, China is also engaged with India to solve the border issues. China created the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to settle border issues through engagement and dialogue.
China’s success is based on four fundamental principles. First, “seek truth from Facts” it helped China to keep its approach rational. Second, all interventions or reforms should be people-centric and must take care of the livelihoods of people. It helped China to lift over 700 people out of poverty trap. Third, a mixed approach is best to move on development pathway. Fourth, gradual reform is key for ensuring the smooth implementation of all interventions. These four characteristics give birth to “China Model” of development. The fifth principle had been added by President Xi. He argued that sustainable development and peace can only be ensured by sharing prosperity. He introduced the concept of “Shared Prosperity” and launched multiple programs like Belt&Route Initiative etc., to materialize the concept.
