A POSITIVE WORLD PLAYER
On October 1, 2019, the People’s Republic of China celebrated its 70th birthday. The development miracle crafted by the world’s largest developing country over the past 70 years has again stirred debate around the world: How did China achieve such miraculous development? Where will China go in the future? How will a stronger China interact with the rest of the world? This last question attracted considerable attention.
According to realist theories in international relations prevalent in the West, rising powers tend to fall into conflict with established powers, and considering that established powers usually have many allies, conflict will involve allies while inevitably affecting a wider area and population. Contrasting such traditional theories, a more widely accepted perception of China’s rise in the international community is that China’s development offers opportunities for the world as China contributes its wisdom and energy to building a better world. Leanings towards the latter theory can be attributed to two reasons: First, although China is already a great power, it has never sought hegemony as it has kept on a path of peaceful development. Second, the world has been undergoing tremendous changes unseen in a century and witnessing a rapidly changing international political and economic landscape. Deep-seated problems in global development have become increasingly glaring. International structures of power have been moving towards better balance. The international order and global governance system have experienced major changes. These developments demand that people rethink today’s world through new concepts and ideas.
Over the past seven decades, China has realized remarkable achievements in development. According to the white paper China and the World in the New Era issued by the State Council Information Office, China has lifted the largest population out of poverty among all countries in the world and has become the world’s biggest contributor to global economic growth, largest trader in goods, and second-largest contributor to UN peacekeeping costs and regular budget. It is also noteworthy that China is the most populous country in the world. The international community has most often observed China’s development accomplishments from perspectives other than cumulative totals. For instance, the growth rate of China’s per capita GDP is the fastest in the world. In 1997, China successfully transformed from a lowincome country into a middle-income nation. Then, it took 12 years to rise to an upper-middle-income economy in 2010. Statistics show that in 2018, Chinese citizens made nearly 150 million outbound trips, and Chinese tourists became one of the largest groups of buyers in the world. In November 2018, the First China International Import Expo was held in Shanghai, heralding China’s arrival as a major global market in addition to status as “the world’s factory.” China is inviting more countries around the world to explore its market and board the “express train” of development.
In my opinion, the most iconic of China’s development accomplishments is its emergence as a great global economic power. Historically, China was the world’s largest economy for centuries. According to data compiled by Angus Maddison, China remained the world’s second-largest economy, trailing only the United States, all the way up to the early 1930s. However, China’s GDP was still primarily based on agriculture rather than industry. In a real sense, its modernization didn’t begin until the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, at which time China began formulating and implementing its First Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (1953-1957). With better-than-expected results for goals set in the First Five-Year Plan, China began to transform its backward industrial sector and lay a preliminary foundation for socialist industrialization, embarking on a new path of development.
It should be noted that China’s development has always been accompanied by healthy interaction with the world. China remained weak for a long time during the early modern era, which made it hard for the country to develop a close relationship with the international system. After the end of World War I, despite its status as the world’s second-largest economy, China was regarded as a third-grade country by many participants of the Paris Peace Conference. In the early 20th Century, foreign trade accounted for less than one percent of China’s GDP. As more and more countries around the world acknowledged the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China, it resumed its legitimate seat in the United Nations in 1971. In the mid1980s, China became the world’s largest developing country and determined that development was its core national strategy. Today, China is the world’s second-largest economy, largest trader in goods, largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, second-largest trader in services, second-largest recipient of foreign direct investment and second-largest contributor to outbound investment. Without healthy interaction with the outside world, China could not have made such remarkable achievements.
Behind such remarkable achievements were painstaking efforts of generations of Chinese people exploring the country’s development paths and its relationship with the world. Such exploration is continuing to promote further development. Despite mounting uncertainty and instability in the international situation, seeking peace and development remains the general trend of the times. Similarly, profound changes in the international landscape are not changing the general trend of global multi-polarity, and headwinds against free trade and multilateralism are not slowing the general trend of economic globalization. The fierce and complicated battles over international order will not change the direction of global governance reform. In this context, China proposed building a “community with a shared future for humanity” and a “new type of international relations” as it has promoted “a new type of economic globalization,” “communication and mutual learning among civilizations” and safeguarding the “international system with the United Nations as the core.” These values have received positive feedback from the international community.
In an era sated with opportunity, hope, uncertainty and challenges, countries in the world are linked to one another through common joys and sorrows. I believe that in the future, China will embrace the world with greater openness and inclusiveness and foster greater progress and prosperity for itself and the world. A continuously developing China will engage in healthier interaction with the world and make great contributions to world peace and development.
(The author is research fellow and director of the Department of Great Power Relations Research of the National Institute for Global Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)