Opinion

China is stable, confident

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-21 09:27

Social and political turbulence is rocking some Middle East and North African countries, making many international observers speculate about the situation in China. China's political and social landscape is stable because of three decades of reform and opening-up, says an article in People's Daily. Excerpts:

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has been committed to transforming the country's leadership, improving governance according to the needs of the people at the time ever since launching reform and opening-up.

Thanks to the lessons from history, the CPC has been taking measures since the 1980s to reform the leadership system, and establish a retirement, succession, and collective leadership system.

The key to maintaining political stability is inviting all the people to participate in politics. The CPC and the government know that if people are barred from participating in politics, their voices will not be heard and interests not safeguarded, and that could lead to turbulence.

The CPC and the government leaders are committed to guaranteeing people's participation in politics by perfecting the electoral systems of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In fact, they are reforming the entire political system and making themselves open to supervision by the public and the media, promoting inner-party democracy and according priority to public opinion.

China has been undergoing market-oriented economic reform over the past three decades. In 1992, China formally made the market the basic mechanism for resources allocation and vowed to build a vibrant socialist market economy. It is committed to opening up to the outside world, and its accession to the World Trade Organization further accelerated its integration into the world economy.

Thanks to the reform, long-term economic growth has greatly enhanced China's national strength. It now has enough financial resources to build a social security system covering the entire population, improve the social security, health and education systems, and allocate more funds for the development of poor areas.

There is no doubt that Chinese people want stability, to cash in on the historic opportunity for development, develop the economy, improve the living standards of the people and enhance national strength.

Implementing these reforms is not easy. But the CPC and the government are confident of doing so with the total support of the people. Though many of the changes the leadership has brought were seen as impossible in the beginning, they are a reality today. Some international observers, however, are still not aware of that reality, or simply do not want to accept that China has made great progress in economic and political fields.

China may face many difficulties, even setbacks, in implementing many of the reforms. But the CPC and the government are confident of overcoming them on the way to building a socialist, harmonious society.

The above facts show that the situation in China is totally different from that in some of the Middle East and North African countries. China has chosen an inclusive path of reform, and economic, social and political development.

Reform and opening-up and the rapid pace of development have built a solid institutional foundation and infrastructure, which provide economic, social and political stability.