Nation's modernization drive attracts global attention(2)

Tough journey

Modernization for China has been a journey of hardship and perseverance. In modern times, countless Chinese patriots have looked to the West for a modernization formula to save the nation, but all the formulas failed.

Under the leadership of the CPC, China has found a path to modernization through its own efforts. Over the past 100 years or so, the nation has transformed from being impoverished and backward into the world's second-largest economy, the top trader in goods, the biggest holder of foreign exchange reserves, and the biggest manufacturer.

China has put in place the world's largest compulsory education system, social security system, and medical and health system — achieving in just a few decades industrialization that took developed countries several centuries to realize.

Over the 40-plus years since reform and opening-up was launched, the Chinese government has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty and increased the middle-income group's population to over 400 million.

China is now the main trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions. It places $320 million in direct investment around the world each day, while attracting over 3,000 foreign businesses every month, Foreign Ministry data show. Over the past decade, China has contributed more to global growth than all the G7 countries combined.

Foreign investors cannot afford to ignore the immense commercial prospects created by the vast Chinese market that boasts a rapidly growing middle-income group. Due to uncertainty caused by mounting geopolitical competition between major countries, some observers may be skeptical about China's modernization process, but others consider it has enormous potential.

Martin Jacques, former senior fellow at Cambridge University's Department of Politics and International Studies, said that when it comes to the nature of modernization, people always think of it primarily in technological and economic terms.

"I think that is obviously important, but it's much too narrow, because fundamental to Western modernization was the division of the world. Fundamental to Chinese modernization are only the opportunities to the world, particularly to the developing world, to develop and to modernize," he said.

Jacques added that Western modernization started at a time when Western countries used the rest of the world as a way to enrich themselves. In an extraordinary shift, the developing world had its first opportunity to modernize in the second half of the 20th century, he said.

"Led ultimately by China, you get this incredible transformation where modernization is actually the possibility for all of humanity, not for a tiny minority of Western countries. So the arrival of the developing world and the arrival of China transform the whole global landscape."

Noting that China's growth is redefining the notion of modernization, Jacques said the nation's rise is going to change the world in a way the West can't cope with. "The West, in my view, is basically frozen. It has no strategy. It doesn't understand China. It's like a rabbit caught in the headlights," he said.