ON the eve of its 75th anniversary, perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the remarkable development and modernisation progress made since the triumph of the revolution in 1949.
Twenty-two years later, China gained its rightful place at the United Nations, in 1971, and the next five decades saw a start of its spiraling growth as a major developing country.
In 1980, when Beijing announced a One Child policy to keep its population growth under manageable proportions, the PRC was internationally condemned, but two decades later, the World health Organisation (WHO) admitted it was a very wise decision.

President Xi Jinping holds that “Modernization is not a luxury for the privileged few,” but rather “the common pursuit of all people around the world.”
It’s a simple but profound truth, based on China’s experience over the past 74 years, showing that modernisation can only come with the material means to change from old to new and past to present, but always with eyes clearly on the future.
As a developing country with 1.4 billion people, China’s modernisation process features ‘common prosperity’ as the key to its continuity.

President Xi also says “Common prosperity is what socialism is essentially about, and what the people want…” – which is why it remains a consistent goal of the governing Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, achieving common prosperity for all has featured even more prominently on China’s national development agenda, with advanced education and scientific and technological capacities as the powerhouses for sustained growth.
As a result, China can today boast that over 200 million Chinese have received higher education since 2012, with around 60 per cent of its economic growth spurred by scientific and technological advancement.

A decade later, in 2022, China contributed 17 per cent of the world’s GDP, and lifted nearly 100 million rural people out of poverty, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, by all means a giant step toward the ultimate bottom-line goal common prosperity for all.
China’s widely-acclaimed victory against poverty is a good example of its significant progress towards common prosperity, but this sterling achievement only came with and through special measures, starting with targeting poverty alleviation to maximise the use of limited resources by local governments.
That was done by every local-government agency and body identifying each and every poor household under its jurisdiction, creating a file, and starting the ongoing process of lifting those identified out of poverty.

But for any poor Chinese household to be registered, its qualifications must be disclosed for public scrutiny, compared with nation-wide data and then publicly confirmed.
This rigorous process is also transparent, as it also ensures the available labor, materials and financial resources are used where they are most needed.
China’s poverty alleviation is not approached by way of direct or automatic employment or cash bailouts, but instead focuses more on helping people produce and earn, by setting-up their own businesses with secure start-up loans and skills training.

Interestingly, in China, poverty alleviation performance is a key criterion in the evaluation, appointment and promotion of public servants at all levels of government and county-wide.
Relatively better-off provinces, cities, counties and entities are also paired with their poor peers, providing funds, people and other assistance.
More than three million officials have thus been dispatched to poor villages to work and live with the poverty-stricken people and this better and directly understand their plight.
In such an enabling social environment of government policy support, wide mobilization and public participation, many Chinese Internet companies have voluntarily helped remote regions sell their products via live streaming, and taught rural residents how to utilize social media platforms to grow their business.

As a result, many local products and people in places hardly known or heard-of are now known to the world. China also faced and overcame the numerous challenges associated with modernization of an extremely-huge population.
President Xi says China’s modernisation “is both the most difficult and the greatest…”
And rightly so.
With over 1.4 billion people, a number larger than the combined population of all developed countries, China has actually started transforming the international landscape of modernisation.
It’s is the largest-scale modernisation in human history, and also the most difficult, having to deliver on everything from employment, distribution, education and housing, to medical, elderly and childcare.

China has, therefore, shown the world that only by vigorously forging consensus among different members in society, and realising inclusive development that nations can make any steady and sustainable progress toward modernisation.
But in all of this, the PRC’s development still remains unbalanced and inadequate.
Why?

Because, even though it’s the second-largest economy in the world, its per capita GDP ranks lower than 80th worldwide; and there’s also a great gap between urban and rural areas in China, in terms of infrastructure, education, medical care and job opportunities.
As a result of geography and population factors, among many others, rural areas are still relatively underdeveloped (compared to urban areas).
Thing is, there is no precedent in human history where a country with over a billion citizens has successfully realised modernisation.

Advancing the Chinese approach to modernisation for a huge population is therefore difficult for small Caribbean nations, but it’s been right for the PRC, and with lots of lessons for the world.
Take the following facts:
Since the Industrial Revolution began, only 1.2 billion people are living in high-income countries modernised through the Western model, about 15.8 per cent of the world’s population.
China, on the other hand, has more than 1.4 billion people, accounting for 18 per cent of the world’s population, the modernisation of which will double the world’s modernised population.
Chinese modernisation is also building on and further exploring pathways for developing countries, which have more than 80 per cent of the world’s population.