On July 6, the famous Icelandic newspaper Fréttablaðið published a signed article by Ambassador Jin Zhijian entitled "The Communist Party of China Celebrates Its Centenary".
The full text is as follows:
July 1st 2021 makes the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). To better understand China, it is essential to better understand the CPC first. I hope this article will help everyone obtain a comprehensive and objective understanding of the CPC, the largest ruling party in the world with more than 91.9 million members.
The CPC is a party that represents the interests of all the Chinese people and is fully endorsed by its people. The CPC is composed of advanced Chinese elements. Since its founding on July 1st, 1921, the Party has set its original aspiration as to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, and has always represented the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. The leadership of the CPC is not self-proclaimed, but is chosen by history and its people. The Chinese nation was thrown almost to the brink of extinction as a result of persistent aggression by foreign powers since the year of 1840. To save the nation, our forefathers explored and exhausted almost all political models available at the time, and yet all ended up in failure. The CPC emerged as the times require and was given a historical task to save the Chinese nation from subjugation.
Over the past century, the Party has united and led the Chinese people through an extremely hard and bitter struggle to establish a new China, set up a socialist system, push ahead with socialist construction, implement reform and opening up. Under this circumstance, a right path was found to success and development, a path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The CPC always puts the people at the very center of its hearts and always upholds its fundamental tenet of wholeheartedly serving the people. The opinion poll conducted by many Western research institutes such as Harvard University has shown that the approval and satisfaction rating of the CPC and the Chinese government is as high as over 90%.
The CPC is a party that leads the Chinese people to create "miracle". Under the leadership of the CPC, China has undergone an earth-shaking change, ushering in an era for the Chinese people to stand up and become richer and stronger. China has realized industrialization in just a few decades, which took developed Western countries several centuries. China now has the most complete modern industrial system in the world, and becomes the second largest economy and the biggest trader in goods. China's GDP has risen from 30 billion US dollars in 1950 to 14.7 trillion US dollars in 2020, an increase of nearly 490 times.
Today, China has successfully built a well-off society in an all-round way as the middle-income population in China is over 400 million and as many as 850 million people have emerged from poverty. In 2020, China's per capita national income exceeded 10,000 US dollars, an increase of more than 140 times from the early period after the founding of the People' Republic of China. China's life expectancy has increased from 35 in 1949 to 77.3 in 2019, much higher than the world's average. China now has put in place the world's biggest systems of education, social security, medical care and community-based institutions of democracy. In the fight against COVID-19, China has taken various measures to take the lead in bringing the epidemic under control and achieve a head start in business reopening, thus accomplishing a great victory in containing the spread of the virus. China's miracle of development has attracted worldwide attention and has been highly praised by the international community.
The CPC is a party that upholds the truth, strives unremittingly, advances with times and stays vibrant and resilient. The CPC has firm ideals and beliefs, and is good at applying Marxism to China's realities and adapting the theory to the Chinese context. Thanks to its constant theoretical innovations, the Party has formed its theories, guidelines and policies with Chinese characteristics. The CPC is good at learning and using the successful experience of other countries, always maintains vigor and high morale, and always stands at the forefront of the trend of the times. The Party attaches great importance to enhance its ability. It has strict discipline, closely-knit organization and efficient mechanism, as well as strong abilities to lead, to unite, to organize and to execute. Moreover, the Party always faces up to its own problems and mistakes, and has the courage to reform itself and the ability to correct its errors. The Party has constantly improved its working style and resolutely opposed all forms of corruption. As a result, the CPC has survived a century of ups and downs, maintained the Party's purity and advanced nature, continued to grow and develop, and become the backbone of its 1.4 billion people.
The CPC is a party that dedicated to promoting world peace and development. The CPC has always pursued an independent foreign policy of peace, and upholds that all countries are equal, irrespective of size, strength, and wealth. Besides, the Party firmly preserves world peace and stability, upholds international equity and justice, sticks to peaceful development and never seeks hegemony. For the last 70-plus years since the founding of the People's Republic, China has never started a war or encroached upon a single inch of foreign soil. China is the only country that has codified peaceful development in its constitution. China has delineated and demarcated boundaries with 12 of its 14 land neighbors through peaceful negotiations, and has pledged to seek negotiated settlement regarding outstanding disputes over territory and maritime rights and interests. China is the second largest contributor to the UN, and the largest troop contributor of peacekeeping operations among the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
General Secretary Xi Jinping, from a global perspective, puts forward the concept of building a global community of shared future, building a new model of international relations, and jointly promoting Belt and Road Initiative. Besides, he also announces that China aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China has provided more than 300 million doses of vaccines and a huge number of medical protective materials to the world, making an important contribution to the building of a global community of health for all.
What system a country may adopt should be decided by its own people. Countries differ in history, culture and social system. Thus, different social systems should not become an excuse to make countries rivals, nor cause an obstruction to mutually beneficial cooperation. China will stick to the system and development path it has chosen and, at the same time, fully respect the independent choices of other countries. China will never export its system or engage in systemic competition. After 100 years of unremitting struggle, the CPC has profoundly changed the fate and future of China and the Chinese nation, and the direction and format of world development. Looking ahead, the Communist Party of China will add a new and exciting chapter in the journey of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and promoting human progress.
Jin Zhijian
Chinese Ambassador to Iceland