Xu Xiujun: The Openness Effect of Chinese Modernization
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized: "Reform and opening up is the key move that decided the fate of contemporary China, and it is also the key move that decides the success or failure of Chinese-path modernization." The historical process of long-term exploration since the founding of New China, and particularly since the start of reform and opening up, demonstrates that Chinese-path modernization faces the world with an open and inclusive posture, achieving innovative development through the exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations. Chinese-path modernization possesses a distinct hallmark of openness and will bring more positive effects to world peace, development, prosperity, and progress through a higher level of opening up.
Openness is a Distinct Hallmark of Chinese-path Modernization
Chinese-path modernization conforms to the historical trend of globalization, continuously advancing through reform and opening up, and will open up even broader prospects through further high-level opening. As a distinct hallmark of Chinese-path modernization, openness continuously creates new conditions and shapes new drivers for its advancement; it is an inevitable choice of both history and reality.
Openness is a necessary condition for advancing Chinese-path modernization. As an important means of promoting resource allocation on a global scale, openness has become an indispensable condition for advancing Chinese-path modernization. On the one hand, openness created the necessary prerequisites for the rapid advancement of Chinese-path modernization. Starting from the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the development gap between China and the world continuously widened. At the beginning of the founding of New China, the country was impoverished and weak, the land was covered in scars, a thousand things awaited doing [1], and the vast majority of the population lived below the poverty line. From the founding of New China to the period before reform and opening up, the nation’s appearance underwent significant changes, and the foundations for agricultural and industrial modernization were established. To more rapidly advance the realization of the "Four Modernizations" [2], China made the great decision to implement reform and opening up, introducing a large amount of foreign capital, technology, and management experience, providing strong support for the economic takeoff. Reform and opening up became an important "magic weapon" [3] for the cause of the Party and the people to catch up with the times in great strides. On the other hand, openness continuously creates new conditions for advancing Chinese-path modernization in the New Era. In recent years, the undertow of anti-globalization has risen, and unilateralism and protectionism have increased significantly, leaving the global trading system facing unprecedented challenges. Meanwhile, as comprehensive national strength continuously rises, the external competition China faces has become increasingly fierce. Some countries view China’s development as a threat and pursue policies of containment and suppression, attempting to construct a "parallel system" that excludes China. Facing a complex international situation, China persists in the basic state policy of opening up to the outside world and actively promotes a higher level of opening up, continuously creating a favorable environment and advantageous conditions for fostering new advantages in international competition and constructing the dual circulation development pattern.
Openness is an important driving force for advancing Chinese-path modernization. On the one hand, openness is a crucial driver of economic and technological development. The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC pointed out: "Without a solid material and technical foundation, it is impossible to transform China into a great modern socialist country in all respects." Economically, openness facilitates the optimization of resource allocation and the expansion of market scale, driving China to continuously integrate into global industrial, supply, and value chains, realizing its own development within a state of high interdependence with all countries. Technologically, openness facilitates the accumulation of human capital and the diffusion of technology, encouraging China to participate deeply in international technical exchange, cooperation, and governance to achieve independent innovation. On the other hand, openness is a bridge for achieving exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations. Chinese-path modernization is a product of absorbing and drawing on the advanced achievements of world civilization; the exchange and mutual learning between civilizations is the source of power for advancing Chinese-path modernization, and openness is the key path to promoting this exchange. Through multiple channels such as information dissemination, knowledge sharing, and dialogue and interaction, openness can bring the advanced civilizations of various countries to China, providing necessary nourishment for Chinese-path modernization, while simultaneously spreading China’s advanced civilization to the world, winning more support and recognition for Chinese-path modernization.
Openness is the inevitable choice for Chinese-path modernization to conform to the trend of the times in economic globalization. Economic globalization is the inevitable result of human history developing to a certain stage. President Xi Jinping clearly pointed out: "Economic globalization is an objective requirement of the development of social productive forces and an inevitable result of scientific and technological progress; it is not something created artificially by certain people or certain countries." Although economic globalization has intensified international competition and the imbalances and inequalities of the world economy, and has brought many new problems and challenges to today’s world, one cannot simply blame the problems troubling the world on economic globalization. For the world, economic globalization is an irreversible trend of the times; for China, economic globalization is the trend of the times we must face as we plan our development. Therefore, economic globalization is the great historical background for promoting Chinese-path modernization. This means that in the new historical period, advancing Chinese-path modernization not only cannot involve closing ourselves off, but must involve promoting a higher level of opening up to the outside world, continuously generating more positive effects in the process of integrating into economic globalization.
Chinese-path Modernization Continuously Promotes Common Global Development
China’s development cannot be separated from the world, and the world’s prosperity needs China; China and the nations of the world have long formed an inseparable community with a shared future for development. Relying on high-level opening up, Chinese-path modernization continuously generates positive spillover effects, effectively promoting world development.
Chinese-path modernization drives the formation of a new pattern of world development. Economic globalization has promoted economic growth on a global scale, but it has also been accompanied by problems of unbalanced and insufficient global development, which remain prominent in certain countries and regions. These problems are mainly manifested in two aspects: first, the North-South gap between emerging market countries/developing countries and developed countries remains obvious; second, development gaps exist to varying degrees within various countries. In the process of advancing Chinese-path modernization, China has not only achieved rapid economic growth but has also greatly changed the long-standing pattern of unbalanced North-South development. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that from 1979 to 2023, China’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 8.9%, much higher than the world economy's average growth rate of 3.0% during the same period. Its average annual contribution to world economic growth was 24.8%, ranking first in the world. Thanks to the continuous expansion of China’s total economic volume, the status of emerging market countries and developing countries in the world economic landscape has continuously risen, rewriting the global development pattern. Meanwhile, through targeted poverty alleviation methods such as industrial poverty alleviation, China has helped nearly 800 million people escape poverty over the past 40-plus years, not only directly changing the distribution pattern of the global impoverished population but also providing replicable experience for the global cause of poverty reduction.
Chinese-path modernization continuously creates new opportunities for world development. China firmly pursues an opening-up strategy of mutual benefit and win-win results, continuously providing new opportunities for the world through China’s new development, promoting the construction of an open world economy, and better benefiting the people of all countries. It is particularly worth noting that Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of a huge population. China has a population of over 1.4 billion, exceeding the combined population of all existing developed economies. A huge population size means a massive market, providing vast market space for global enterprises. As consumption upgrades and industrial transformations continue, China provides more opportunities for the development of all countries. Currently, China is the world’s largest trader in goods, the second-largest recipient of foreign investment, and the third-largest source of outward investment; it is a major trading partner for over 150 countries and regions. By actively participating in international trade and investment cooperation, China provides huge market opportunities and sources of investment for all countries, promoting long-term world economic growth and expanding the space for world economic development. Over the past decade, China’s contribution rate to world economic growth has remained at around 30%, providing a strong horizontal drive for the world economy. Furthermore, in fields such as 5G communications, high-speed rail, and new energy, China’s technological innovation is at a world-leading level; through technological cooperation and diffusion, China will provide strong support for global technological progress and industrial upgrading.
Chinese-path modernization continuously contributes new solutions for world development. Chinese-path modernization breaks the myth that "modernization = Westernization," expands the paths to modernization for late-developing countries, provides a Chinese solution for developing countries to explore modernization paths suited to their own national conditions, and provides a new path choice for humanity to achieve modernization. China has successively proposed the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, offering Chinese solutions for global governance from the perspectives of world economy, politics (security), and culture, and coalescing a synergy for promoting common development in the international community. Currently, China has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations; the Belt and Road Initiative has become a highly welcomed international public good and platform for international cooperation. As the positive effects of the Belt and Road Initiative continue to be released, the role and influence of the Chinese solution have become increasingly prominent. World Bank report estimates show that Belt and Road infrastructure connectivity has significant potential to promote trade and investment in participating countries and improve people’s living conditions. Thanks to Belt and Road international cooperation, completed and planned transport projects will reduce freight times for participating countries and regions by an average of 1.7% to 3.2% and global average shipping times by 1.2% to 2.5%; real income for participating countries and regions will grow by 1.2% to 3.4%, and global real income will grow by 0.7% to 2.9%. These "Three Global Initiatives" [4] focus on prominent problems in fields such as world economic development and social progress, contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the process of world modernization. China is working with relevant parties to push for the implementation of these initiatives, continuously achieving new progress and making new contributions to promoting common development.
Chinese-path Modernization Leads the Reform of the Global Governance System and Order
Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of taking the path of peaceful development. This means China does not follow the old path of certain countries that achieved modernization through war, colonization, and plunder, but instead firmly stands on the right side of history and the side of human civilization’s progress, continuously promoting world peace, development, cooperation, and win-win results. Meanwhile, China effectively responds to a series of major problems and challenges facing today's world, actively advocating for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. Conforming to the deep advancement of economic globalization, Chinese-path modernization will drive global governance toward a more just and reasonable direction, playing an important leading role in the reform of the international system and order.
Chinese-path modernization advocates for an equal and orderly multipolar world. Sovereign equality has been an important principle regulating state-to-state relations for centuries and has become a principle followed by the United Nations and its agencies and organizations. The key to sovereign equality lies in the fact that, regardless of size, strength, or wealth, a nation’s sovereignty and dignity must be respected. This is of great significance for ensuring the normal development of international relations, promoting international peace and cooperation, and particularly for protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the vast number of developing countries. Stability and order are the basic prerequisites for global development and prosperity, as well as an important foundation for international cooperation. An equal multipolar world means adhering to sovereign equality in the field of global governance, fully embodying equality of rights, opportunities, and rules for all countries. An equal multipolar world means that all countries can participate equally in international affairs during the process of multipolarization, enjoy legitimate rights and interests, and make their own contributions; it also means that all countries must achieve a balance of rights and responsibilities in global governance. An orderly multipolar world means jointly abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, jointly adhering to universally recognized basic norms of international relations, acting within the international system with the United Nations at its core, and moving beyond the traditional international patterns of alignment into camps, fragmentation, and disorder.
Chinese-path modernization advocates for universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. Universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization is the aspiration of the people and the right path for the world; it is also the driving force and guarantee for economic globalization to move forward with the trend. Openness and inclusiveness are inevitable requirements of economic globalization. Only by persisting in openness and inclusiveness can the nations of the world learn from each other's strengths, exchange what they have for what they need, and achieve the "beauty of all together" [5] and peaceful coexistence. Universally beneficial economic globalization means conforming to the development requirements of all countries, especially developing countries, to make the "cake" of economic globalization bigger and divide it well, allowing the fruits of economic globalization to fairly benefit the people of all countries and realizing common development and prosperity for the world. To this end, all countries should fully implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, push development issues back to the center of the international agenda, deepen the synergy of development strategies, jointly solve the global development deficit, and promote the construction of a global development community, allowing the people of all countries to share the fruits of economic globalization. Inclusive economic globalization means practicing the spirit of "harmony without uniformity" [6] in the process of economic globalization, respecting each other's development paths and models, and jointly maintaining the safety and stability of global industrial, supply, and value chains, making the world more diverse and flourishing.
Chinese-path modernization advocates for just and reasonable global governance. Today's world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation; the shadows of Cold War mentality and power politics linger, local conflicts and turbulence occur frequently, and security threats in new fields such as artificial intelligence, climate change, cybersecurity, and biosecurity are following one after another. However, the current global governance system was primarily established under the leadership of Western powers after World War II. It has not only failed to effectively respond to a series of major challenges facing the world today but has also failed to respond to the reasonable demands of emerging market countries and developing countries; it has even become a tool for a minority of countries to seek hegemonic interests and a weapon to hinder the development of others. Chinese-path modernization upholds the common values of humanity—peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom—and constructs a community with a shared future for humanity, working with the people of all countries to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness, inclusiveness, and cleanliness and beauty. This is the mission and responsibility of the Chinese nation in the new historical era to seek peace and development for humanity; it is the fundamental strategy for effectively responding to the global governance deficit. Facing the increasing governance deficit in today's world, Chinese-path modernization guides the realization of a higher level of world peace and security, a higher quality of global common development, and a higher starting point for the progress of human civilization, leading humanity toward a more just and reasonable global governance.