Reform and opening-up still key to advancing modernization

Editor's Note: The following are excerpts of an interview of Zheng Yongnian, a professor of politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), with the media on the upcoming third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Each third plenary session of the CPC Central Committee in the past has held a special meaning for China, having profoundly changed the course of the country. In December 1978, late leader Deng Xiaoping presided over the third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, which confirmed the shift of China's work focus from class struggle to socialist modernization, kicking off its reform and opening-up process. The third plenary session of the 14th CPC Central Committee in 1993 formulated the basic framework of the socialist market economic system and proposed the establishment of a modern enterprise system. The third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013 set the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform.

The world is entering a period of profound changes and facing many new and systemic challenges. World over, there is growing speculation about China's future development trend and policy direction, and even a feeling that China's reform has come to a standstill. In this sense, the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee will point out the direction for China's development and calm people's misgivings.

China's reform has entered a "deep water zone", with easy reforms having been done, and those left undone being the ones difficult to implement. With the deepening of reform, more complex and structural problems began to emerge, such as the reform of State-owned enterprises and the reform of the social security system. It is the same with the reform of the political system and social governance. For example, how to further combat corruption and how to promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas are complex policy issues that remain to be addressed.

For a long time, China's development focused on material modernization. But if institutional modernization always lags behind, some big problems will emerge. China must pursue a balanced development of economic modernization, institutional modernization and human modernization, and the upcoming third plenary session is expected to map out some effective initiatives.

From a realistic perspective, China's development faces a lot of internal and external pressures, but this cannot stop its reform and opening-up steps. This is not only for China's own sake, but also for the stability and prosperity of the world.