China must retain its strengths as it goes global

By Zhong Sheng (People's Daily)

17:17, December 14, 2011

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Edited and translated by People's Daily Online

2011 marks the 10th anniversary of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. International public opinion on the accession is generally positive as China and the rest of the world have achieved mutual benefit and common progress over the past 10 years. 

At present, the United States and European countries are facing difficult economic times, and no one would be naive enough to ignore the role of the Chinese economy in pushing the world economy toward recovery. 

However, certain media outlets have voiced negative opinions about China's development over the past decade. The Economist recently published two representative articles, one titled "China's Economy and the WTO: All Change" and the other titled "Chinese Politics and the WTO: No Change." 

The Economist's mixed opinions about China are not an isolated phenomenon. It has been more than three years since the beginning of the global financial crisis, but the U.S. and European economies remain sluggish, not to mention their political problems. 
Certain people have to give the fast-growing Chinese economy a high mark but seek to find flaws in China's political system and use the flaws to claim the un-sustainability of China's development. Some people have even gone as far as to suggest developed countries jointly set new "game rules" to counter China's threat. 

China is still the world's largest developing country and has to make long-term and arduous efforts to achieve modernization. We firmly believe that doing our own things right is the biggest contribution to the world, and have no intention of impacting the political and economic systems of the West. 

However, the United States and some European countries have had "good days" for too long, and have to release their sense of loss when they fail to find a strong support for their deep-rooted sense of superiority. This is the background for the "aggressiveness" of the West. 

The two articles were published on The Economist on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. People could not help recalling a famous remark made by a leader of a big power in the West 10 years ago: "Let China join (WTO). We will regulate China's way of acting and change China's political system someday."

Now 10 years have passed. Some Westerners have not changed their ideological and theoretical systems or the perspective over China. What has changed is that the words boasting of transforming China have become a less confident ridicule.

Joining the WTO was a major strategic decision China made to accelerate the reform and opening up and socialist modernization after a comprehensive analysis of both domestic and overseas situations, and an important step in the grand process of China's reform and opening up.

China has realized clearly that it needs to fully implement the WTO commitments and continuously improve the liberalization and facilitation level for trade and investment in order to participate in the international economic cooperation and competition to a greater extent and at a higher level. 

Indeed, many WTO rules were developed by the dominant Western countries. However, China has never linked complying with these economic and trade cooperation rules to drawing close to the West in the political system.

The reason is simple. The country's political system and development road ultimately depends on the will of the overwhelming majority and the country's specific national conditions and historical and cultural conditions. 

As Deng Xiaoping said, the key indicators for evaluating a country's political system and structure are its political stability, the improvement of its people's lives and the sustainable development of productivity. 

Since the founding of New China, and more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China has undergone historic changes. This fully proves that China's political system is in line with national conditions and has strong vitality.

Integrating into the world does not mean giving yourself up. Some Westerners do not understand this and blindly take rigid conservative views as synonymous with the Chinese political system. They do not yet have an open and peaceful mind to grasp the changes of China's development.

Email|Print|Comments（Editor：厉振羽）

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PD User at 2011-12-1498.71.179.*

Like the beginning of industrialization in America, the first 100 years were very good and prosperous and America became the giant of the world. China got in on the tail end of this prosperity. Now comes the price to be paid, wars and lawsuits, violations and criminal acts. China opens now to the survivors that have been the monopolists, those above the law, those unwilling to give up their control, the worst of the worst. Most Popular

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