CPC stresses democracy within the Party, but against pure liberalization. It encourages all Party members to implement a democratic working style and truly reflect the people’s desire, problems and opinions. It welcomes all good suggestions from all parties and all groups of people from all over the country so that it can solve problems for the people.

CPC is open-minded and keeps on reforming itself according to the real situation. For example, in the early stage of the revolutionary period, it represents the interest of the working class. But after reform and opening up, there are no longer class enemies, all the contradictions are among the people. Thus, the CPC represents all the people, including those who work in private sectors. It aims to realize a harmonious society in which all the people can enjoy a wealthy and healthy life.

Finally, CPC is also a party that can admit its mistakes and correct them. For example, the Party admitted that the expansion of anti-rightist movement was wrong and many old officials who had been wrongly accused got justice later during the 1980s. It was also during the 1980s that China corrected its thoughts of simple communism by eating from the big pot and share absolutely fairly with limited resources. CPC admitted during its 13th Congress that China would be in the primary stage of socialism for a long time. Its goal is to improve the living standards of the Chinese people to the medium level of developed countries by 2050. For a long period of time, people should first make the cake big.

Currently China is facing new challenges of narrowing the gap between the rich and poor and the transformation of its growth pattern. That is how to share the cake. How can the CPC encourage those who get rich first to invest in the western poor regions and really help development in the poor regions? How can the government gradually establish a social security system for all? It again needs the wisdom of the CPC to solve the problem with proper policies.

As the world's largest party, CPC is not the same as other parties in the world. It is special because it is the Party members who delegate the people to carry out Party policies so that the people can live a better life. It always cares what the people think and what the people want. Whatever CPC does serves the main goal of meeting the increasing material and cultural demands of the people.

CPC is a special party also because it makes friends with all the parties and people of the world who love peace. It always wants to create a peaceful and harmonious international environment so that a harmonious world can be achieved.

However, the road ahead is not always smooth.

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao quoted an ancient sage, saying that one only reached halfway even though it has reached 90 kilometers of the total 100 kilometers. China still faces various challenges. To get rid of poverty among all the 1.3 billion Chinese people, to let everybody enjoy the rights of education, medical care and social insurance is still a long way to go, thus CPC needs to reflect on itself, try to overcome its own shortcomings, accept people's supervision, follow its charter and continue to lead people to realize the goal of living a wealthy and healthy life for all the Chinese people by 2050.

The author is a freelance journalist who focuses on sustainable development. She can be reached at chenxuefei7@hotmail.com. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the China Daily website.