Understanding the CPC
— The CPC Through the Lens of Foreign Observations
— The CPC Through the Lens of Foreign Observations
The CPC centenary has polarized world attention for obvious reasons. During its 70-plus years of running the country, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has empowered the Chinese nation to advance from standing up, to becoming rich, to being ever stronger. China’s GDP has skyrocketed from the modest US $12.3 billion in 1949, when the People’s Republic was founded, to US $14.73 trillion in 2020. The country has been the world’s second largest economy for more than 10 years.
What’s more, having eradicated extreme poverty nationwide by lifting more than 770 million rural people out of poverty over a span of around four decades, China was the first developing country to achieve the first goal “no poverty” of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. Meanwhile, guided by its vision of people-centered development, the CPC has steadily improved people’s living standards by ensuring stable employment growth and improving education, housing, and public health services. The people’s sense of fulfillment has consequently intensified.
China’s admirable achievements have also inspired the vast number of developing countries to explore ways of developing their economies, of stabilizing their societies, and of building infrastructure by learning from China. The country’s effective control at home of the COVID-19 pandemic has, moreover, sparked discussion of what is the most effective governance model.
In this month’s Special Report, overseas statesmen, diplomats, and scholars render from different perspectives their understanding of the CPC. What they all have in common, however, is their unwavering confidence in the Party and their endorsement of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Chinese vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind.