BEIJING, July 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In 1978, Xi Jinping, who was studying at Tsinghua University at the time, visited Chuzhou City, east China’s Anhui Province and conducted an on-site research on rural reforms.
Xiaogang Village in Chuzhou is considered the birthplace of China’s rural reforms as this is where some villagers pioneered the idea of contracting collective land to individual households.
During his Chuzhou visit, Xi wrote a book of notes about what he saw and heard at that time. “I still keep it (the notebook). The experience was really impressive, because this was my first lesson about reform in rural areas since reform and opening up began,” Xi said.
Since then, Xi Jinping has remained committed to reform whenever and wherever he worked. In 1991, Xi, then Party chief of southeast China’s Fuzhou City, proposed the “do it now” spirit, featuring high efficiency and practical results in work.
In 2003, Xi, as then Party chief of Zhejiang Province, called on the eastern Chinese province to take advantages of its strength in eight aspects, including region, market economy and ecology to achieve leading, balanced and sustained development.
‘Correct path’
On his first inspection tour outside Beijing after becoming general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in December 2012, Xi Jinping visited south China’s Guangdong Province. During the visit, he said, “The decision to launch reform and opening up was right. We must keep to this correct path.”
In November 2013, the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee approved a decision to comprehensively deepen reform, with goals of improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China’s governance system and capacity.
Over a month later, China announced the decision to establish the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, which Xi headed. This marked the first time in the CPC’s history that a leadership body exclusively dedicated to reform was established at the central level. Later, this group evolved into the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, with Xi as its director.
Since then, China’s leadership has held at least 70 meetings and put forward the main direction, road map, major measures and tasks for deepening overall reform. Over the past decade, more than 2,000 reform measures have been rolled out, enabling the country to eliminate extreme poverty, promote integrated urban-rural development, fight corruption, support businesses, boost innovation and push forward a “green revolution.”
In February 2021, China announced its victory in extreme poverty eradication, as nearly 100 million rural residents in 832 impoverished counties had been lifted out of poverty since 2013.
Moreover, the Chinese economy has not only sustained robust growth but also more than doubled since 2012, cementing the country’s global status as a major growth contributor.
Advancing Chinese modernization
On the journey of advancing Chinese modernization, the need to deepen reform is further stressed. “Reform is the driving force for development,” Xi told a symposium attended by experts and entrepreneurs in May, calling for deepening reform across the board with efforts centered on advancing the Chinese modernization.
Xi also said at the symposium that he had been thinking about further comprehensively deepening reform after the 20th CPC National Congress. Noting that all the third plenary sessions of the CPC Central Committee focused on reform since the reform and opening up began, he said that this round of reform will align closely with the theme of advancing Chinese modernization.
From July 15 to 18, Chinese policymakers are gathering in Beijing for the milestone third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee. They are scheduled to deliberate on a key policy document on deepening reform across the board and advancing the Chinese modernization.
The policy dividends from the plenary session are thought to help China better navigate complexities in global landscapes, advance transformation and high-quality growth of the economy, and enhance the people’s sense of gain.
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