UN report shows China’s great progress
A recent human development report revealed that China has been the only country to have progressed from a low development group to a high development group since 1990, which is attributable to the country’s people-centered development philosophy, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
According to the Human Development Report 2023/2024 titled “Breaking the Gridlock: Reimagining Cooperation in a Polarized World”, China’s human development index rose to 0.788 in 2022. The number was 0.499 in 1990.
The report was released by the United Nations Development Programme on Thursday.
The continuous rise of China’s HDI is the result of the Communist Party of China’s implementation of the people-centered philosophy and from putting the people at the core of modernization, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily news conference.
Since the start of reform and opening-up, of all the world’s poor who have been successfully lifted from poverty, China accounts for more than 70 percent of these, and the country has realized its poverty alleviation target for The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years in advance.
China’s life expectancy has reached 78.2 years, and its per capita disposable annual income now stands at nearly 40,000 yuan ($5,559).
Wang said that with Chinese modernization pushing forward, the Chinese people’s desire for better lives will come true, with better living standards and quality.
The UNDP report also revealed that human development recovery is uneven in nature. While wealthy countries are showing signs of robust recovery, the poorest are struggling. All the member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have surpassed their 2019 HDI levels, but among the least developed countries, only one in two have recovered their already-low pre-crisis HDI levels.
“This has highlighted the urgency of placing development high on the global agenda,” the spokesman said.
Noting that the Global Development Initiative has injected impetus into global development cooperation and has implemented sustainable development goals, Wang said that China is ready to work with all parties to enhance cooperation under the GDI framework.
China would like to contribute to implementing The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development so that people from various countries will live better lives, he said.
Wang also emphasized that China’s progress in human development does not contradict the fact that China is still a developing county. “Generally, China is still a developing country. This is the fact based on our national conditions and based on international law,” he said.
China’s rights as a developing country should not be infringed upon, he said, adding that, at the same time, the country would like to work hard to make more contributions to human progress and global development.