Foreigners reflect on Party's success over past century

Consulting the people

Epstein and Ma Haide later became members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, taking part in practicing socialist democracy. They made proposals on health, education and other fields. In 2015, China for the first time sought opinions from foreign experts during the drafting of the annual Government Work Report.

Mustafa, who worked for the Sudan News Agency for about 10 years, has gained an independent understanding of China and the CPC after working and living in the nation.

"In the West, the goal of political parties is to gain political power and serve their own interests. For the Communist Party of China, power is a means to serve the people, and all development strategies and plans are centered on serving the people," he said.

Isabel Crook, a Canadian national, and her British husband David Crook studied CPC-led land reform in 1947. They later trained a large number of foreign-language speakers for China.

In 2019, the Chinese government awarded Isabel Crook and five other foreign nationals the Friendship Medal for their great contributions to supporting the country's socialist modernization, promoting exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries, and safeguarding world peace.

Michael Crook, the son of Isabel Crook and chairman of the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, said that what the foreign nationals felt most deeply was that the CPC was good at mobilizing the public, accepting supervision from the masses, and discussing issues with them.

The CPC has pioneered a socialist political system with Chinese characteristics and has continued to improve it to ensure that the people take part in democratic elections, consultations, decision-making, management, and oversight in accordance with the law.

Laurence J. Brahm, a senior international fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said Chinese democracy, which is different from that in the West, is a system of consensus-building.