20th Party Congress lessons for South Africa

The year of 2023 is the first year after China convened its 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The world's attention was focused on the congress on Oct 16-22, not least because China is the world's second-largest economy and the 20th CPC National Congress charted its future course of development.

The 20th Party Congress was held under strenuous geopolitical conditions — at a time when global inflation was touching new highs, the geopolitical balance was changing, and unilateralism and protectionism was increasing at the cost of multilateralism and peaceful shared development.

Despite all this, however, the 20th Party Congress declared China will adhere to the policy of further opening-up and pursuing win-win partnerships. In opting for cooperation instead of competition and confrontation, China aims to create an atmosphere that will help strengthen and support the United Nations and its mechanisms and work, in order to ensure countries reach a consensus on upholding regional and international bodies that promote harmony and prosperity.

The Chinese path to modernization, a key term defining China's journey toward national rejuvenation, has for the first time been written into the CPC National Congress report, with Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasizing the "central task" of the CPC is to serve the people and calling for efforts to realize national rejuvenation through the Chinese path to modernization.

Under the Party's leadership, China has made in a few decades the economic, technological and social achievements that the developed world took centuries to make.

Today, China is in a position to safeguard multilateralism and help resolve issues related to economic development, environmental protection, climate action and common prosperity that will promote world peace and facilitate the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

In fact, the 20th Party Congress report is a document of reason in a world affected by rising protectionism and unilateralism. As China's road to modernization widens, its growth prospects will improve, prompting it to help the international community reap more benefits from China's development.

As for South Africa, as a comprehensive strategic partner of China, it can learn valuable lessons from China's successes. China's per capita disposable income has increased from 16,500 yuan ($2,370) in 2020 to 35,100 yuan in 2021. Over the past decade, China has focused on promoting high-quality development. As a result, its GDP increased from 54 trillion yuan to 114 trillion yuan.

China has been adhering to a people-centric philosophy of development, especially over the past decade. That China has been creating more than 11 million jobs each year is proof of the success of its people-centric development.

The 20th Party Congress also vowed to strengthen cooperation and deepen people-to-people relations with other countries. So South Africa can expect its trade with China to grow substantially. After all, China is South Africa's biggest trading partner, and South Africa is China's biggest trade partner among all African countries. Their annual trade value has reached $54 billion.

China is also expected to deepen reform and opening-up, which in turn is expected to also increase China's trade with Nigeria ($26 billion), Angola ($23 billion) and Egypt ($19 billion) and other African nations. As a matter of fact, South Africa and other African countries are set to benefit from an array of resolutions passed by the 20th Party Congress.

Lest we forget, all this has been possible because China's progress toward modernization has given rise to new mutually beneficial partnerships and strengthened the existing ones with developing countries, allowing them to expedite their economic development and realize modernization.

The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization will encourage South Africa and other African countries to seek solutions to their development problems from within their own value systems instead of relying on imported and non-productive development policies of the past.

The core message for South Africa and other African countries from the 20th Party Congress can therefore be: adopt long-term planning to improve governance, instead of taking short-term measures which many developed as well as developing countries have done; adopt a people-centric approach to development and modernization, instead of adhering to the notion of rights without obligations; China is committed to sharing the fruits of its economic development; and China's modernization will promote global peace and development.

One can expect China's modernization to also strengthen South-South cooperation.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

The author is a sinologist and founder of SELE Encounters based in South Africa.

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