Why int'l community is so concerned with China's development

15:46, March 02, 2010


China's three-decade fast development has brought in-depth, profound changes to Chinese society and arrested global attention, and the world community has paid keen attention to China. We are now facing the outside world with an open, magnanimous mind with our heart-felt thanks having expressed to people worldwide whether they affirm our experience in development or criticize our existing problems pertinently and with good intentions.

The int'l community has given great heed to China, primarily because it has shifted to the socialist market economy from a traditional highly-centralized planned economy and combined the basic system of socialism and the prevailing market system in the West, and this is indeed a great, unprecedented practice in the history of development in human society. The global community is quite familiar with both traditional, orthodox socialism and the market-oriented economy but it does not know much about the combination of the two. So, the international community would like to acquaint itself more with China's social practical process and actual effect.

Secondly, global community is so concerned about China and it is ascribed to its development model, rapid economic growth and the enterprise and industrial competitiveness, which would produce a significant impact on global community since China is the world's bigger developing nation.

China has taken prompt, active measures to cope with global warming trends, partaken in nearly all moves aimed at maintaining global environmental security, the world consultative mechanism, and gone in for joint actions, integrating the domestic energy firms, and enacting more laws and policies, so as to spur the enterprises to change the mode of economic growth. Moreover, the nation encourages low-carbon economy, ecological agriculture and circular economy, cuts the national resources consumption and pollutant emissions, steps up the control of ecological and supply chains and proceeds to improve the pollution control norms or standards.

These measures China has taken so far will undoubtedly add an immense pressure to itself on a short run, including pressures imposed in term of funds, economy, employment, taxes and the new innovative energy cost, etc, but the country will carry on unswervingly against such pressure. In a fairly long period of time, China will spur changes in the mode of economic growth, continue to optimize the economic set-up, and further deepen structural reform in its economic system.

The third reason for the international community to follow China so closely is its sustained high growth, which will continue to accompany the "double surplus" of China's current account and capital account and exacerbate the imbalance of world economy. Chinese economy has grown at an annual rate of 9.8 percent over the last 30 years or so. Incessant high growth was owed chiefly to potential released by means of restructuring the national setup in the course of economic structuring after the investment demand and consumer demand go on expanding apace.

Current exports continue to exceed imports, bringing in a large sum of foreign exchange (Forex) earnings, and the importation of capital projects overtakes the continuous output, bringing in huge surpluses in the number of capital projects. These factors for growth, however, still exist overall despite structural changes occurring on a medium term or a long-run. Hence, there is the basis for the maintenance of a high growth rate in the medium and long term in the years to come.

Basic trends in China's mid and long-term economic growth are that an excessive surplus situation in the current account surplus will gradually lessen or reduce due to a drastic decline in the contribution ratio of exports to the economic growth. Meanwhile, demand factors will be concentrated more in the nation's eastern region with a relatively even-distribution of all regions for the years ahead; the role of a private sector investment demand on the economic growth will increase and the mix of ownership will be further adjusted.

As for China's reform, however, there are still a host of deep-rooted problems yet to be tackled. Only through the higher-level and more all-round opening-up, can China contribute even more to a harmonious development of the international community and to better draw on the outcome from the development of human civilization. And China's further reform, opening-up and development will surely create a bigger and more spacious room of cooperation for the global community.

By People's Daily Online and contributed by Liu Binjie, director-general of China's General Administration of Press and Publication