Aiming for a community of shared future

Expectations run high on China amid global challenges including pandemic, climate change

As the world strives to tackle COVID-19, economic woes and climate change in the new year, more and more solution-seekers are looking to China for inspiration and insight.

While the world sees hope in ending the cataclysmic pandemic with lockdowns and vaccination among other measures, China is embarking upon a new 15-year endeavor to build itself into a “modern socialist country” under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, which celebrates its 100th founding anniversary this year.

The World Bank pointed out in its latest report on China’s economy that the country’s GDP is expected to grow 2 percent in 2020 and further rebound by 7.9 percent in 2021.

The bank has attributed the “faster than expected” recovery of economic activities to China’s effective epidemic-control strategy, strong policy support and resilient exports.

As COVID-19 continues to ravage the world, humanity has witnessed the CPC’s commitment to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

During their interviews with Xinhua, foreign scholars agreed that China’s success against this once-ina-century pandemic has shown the way forward.

Argentine economist and China expert Gonzalo Tordini said that the Chinese government and its people have demonstrated to the world “outstanding achievements obtained by orderly and persistent efforts to combat COVID-19”.

To help developing countries plagued by the pandemic, China has pledged to make its vaccines a global public good, both accessible and affordable.

The year 2021 is crucial to China as the first year of the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan. The nation is set to achieve its first centenary goal within the set time frame — the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It is set to embark on a journey toward the second goal: to fully build a modern socialist country by mid-century.

Facing daunting economic challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic and the rise of protectionism and anti-globalization, China has unveiled its “dual circulation” development pattern, where internal and external markets can reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

This new development paradigm “fully demonstrates the determination of the CPC and the Chinese government to continue opening up to the outside world,” said Ezzat Saad, director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.

“It has shown that instead of closing its door, China will share its development achievements with the world,” said Saad.

Since its inception, the Belt and Road Initiative has evolved into a crucial platform for global cooperation. Overseas observers noted that more and more countries are turning their attention to this open platform, hoping that a more bolstered connectivity will lead to an early recovery of the world economy.

For Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, China is “engaging the peoples of many countries in a mutually beneficial plan for growth and investment” through the BRI.

While COVID-19 remains unabated, the world is confronted with other formidable issues including extreme poverty, climate change and loss of biodiversity.

Later this year, China will host the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15).

China has witnessed success in setting practical goals to cope with climate change, said Lionel Vairon, a French geopolitical expert and former diplomat, adding that France-China and European Union-China cooperation in this area is highly anticipated and set to bring about promising results.

Combating poverty has been a primary concern for China, the first developing country to meet one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals directed at poverty.

“The UN Millennium Development Goals resonate with China’s vision of a shared future for mankind,” said Cavince Adhere, an international relations expert in Kenya.

“The realization of such development aspirations can only happen when countries work together,” Adhere said.