The development of a nation can be seized accurately only when it is recognized from the aspect of coordinates of the world or the era. And a social change can be imbued with both hope and vitality only when it has originated from the common voice from the masses of the people.
Turn the clock of history back to 1978, when people could see the rise and fall of 60 airplanes per hour at Charles de Gaulle (CDG) International Airport, 16 miles (26 km) northeast of downtown Paris, while the Beijing Capital International Airport could only handle two planes per hour then. To date, the latter boasts the world's large individual terminal, which is capable of handing the arrivals and take-offs of 124 airplanes per hour, and it can match any of the world's top-rated airports in term of its capacity and advanced facilities.
Vicissitudes at the "gateway of the nation" epitomize "Chinese wonders" brought by the reform and opening-up in the past three decades from 1978 to 2008. In the past 30-year period, China has materialized the same degree of industrialization, urbanization and social shift, which had taken developed nations a whole century to attain; China has achieved an annual growth rate of almost 10 percent; and China has reduced its poverty-stricken population to 20 million from the 250 million. Relevant data released by the World Bank last year showed that over the past 25 years, China accounted for 67 percent of the achievements in global poverty reduction.
The development of China has not only spurred its people to embark on the broad road of peace and prosperity steadily but also to contribute tremendously to the global economic development and to progress in human civilization.
Great successes come from great pioneering efforts or undertakings. It is precisely owed to the reform and opening-up that have creatively set up the socialist market economic system, greatly aroused the enthusiasm of people in their hundreds of millions, and released the vis and vigor of this nation with a longstanding history. In the past three decades, the mode of development for a modern nation with unique Chinese hallmarks has been shaped and the concept of "putting people first" established to promote scientific development…
With the great power erupted from for creation, the masses of people have truly felt their happy life and are able to see the great hope of their nation. The new, great revolution the Communist Party of China (CPC) is leading the Chinese people in the new era has profoundly altered the country's destiny, opened up a socialist road with Chinese characteristics, and formed the theoretical setup of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Development is the main theme of contemporary China, and the reform and opening-up are its central concept. Development produces the "an all-inclusive key" to the solution of all sorts of problems in China, and the reform and opening-up constitute the fundamental motive power to spur the development of all undertakings. The reason that we are fully able to overcome all difficulties and hazards and ride the winds and plough the waves over the past three decades is precisely due to the fact that we have all along kept to the correct orientation and path of reform and opening-up, emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and advance with the times, so varied policies of ours conform to the common aspirations of CPC members and people alike, and have laid down a solid material basis and accumulated cohesive powerful spiritual strength for the development and progress of Chinese society.
As an extensive, in-depth social change, the reform and opening-up can neither be a plain sailing nor its goal be "accomplished with one leap". Viewing things in a broader development perspective on their 30-year historical process, we would have seen more problems if without reform and there would be more difficulties if without development. So development cannot be negated once some new problems and contradictions emerge in the course of development, nor can reform and opening-up be denied because of their protracted and arduous nature.
Great practice over the past three decades have given an eloquently proof that reform and opening up are crowned with immense, splendid historic attainments. "The orientation and path of reform and opening-up are entirely correct, and their merits and achievements can never be negated, notes the report to the 17th CPC Nations Congress held in October 2007, underscoring that "to stop or reverse reform and opening-up would only lead to a blind alley."
The year 2008 marks a critical juncture of the past and the future, when the reform and opening-up tide has surged ahead again. People in China are resolved to unswervingly advance the great cause of their reform and opening-up; immense changes that have happened in the past 30 years are by no means over, and there is also definitely no end to the nation's reform and opening-up.
By People's Daily Online and contributed by noted PD commentators
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