Decision sets modernization course that will guide nation for years to come: China Daily editorial

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China started its third plenary session in Beijing on Monday morning.

The four-day meeting is expected to chart the country's course to build a high-standard socialist market economy by 2035, with the country's per capita GDP reaching the level of moderately developed economies, laying a solid foundation for building a strong modern socialist country in all aspects by the middle of this century.

The strong headwinds the country is encountering in its pursuit of high-quality development and the increasingly complex internal and external environments, featuring rising uncertainties, risks and fast-changing landscapes, call for careful navigation and forward-looking piloting.

Effective leadership is crucial at this pivotal juncture in the country's development journey. The nation needs to harness the potential of its institutional strengths to keep a dynamic balance between the quality and quantity of its economic growth and efficiency and fairness in its governance.

That China's gross domestic product surged 5 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday, should be taken as an encouraging sign that, despite the tremendous difficulties the country faces, under the resolute leadership of the Party, it has managed to keep its economic growth within a rational range. That hard-earned growth in the face of the current hardships is testimony as to why President Xi Jinping issued a rallying cry in his latest article published by Qiushi magazine on Tuesday, urging the whole Party and nation to be fully confident of the prospects of the country as long as it upholds the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and seeks high-quality development along the socialist path with Chinese characteristics.

The fact-based work report CPC Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered to the plenum on behalf of the Political Bureau on Monday objectively shows the practical experience the central leadership has gained in coping with all kinds of challenges since 2012, and its success in leading the country to emerge ever stronger from the difficulties that have been overcome.

The CPC Central Committee's Decision on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Advancing Chinese Modernization — which as Xi expounded on to the plenum on Monday is oriented toward problem solving — will serve as a guiding document for China to further comprehensively deepen reform in the new journey.

The extensive discussions the members of the CPC Central Committee are having as they review the document is a meaningful process to enrich the historic file that will serve as the guideline for the country's reform and opening-up over the coming decade by pooling the collective wisdom of the Party.

While the document will be a scientific plan for further comprehensively deepening reform to advance Chinese modernization, it will also be a blueprint for the implementation of reform to ensure that China's development direction has a high degree of certainty, coherence and continuity.

Given China's paramount role as a global growth engine, a pillar of economic globalization, a stabilizer of global industry and supply chains, and a defender of world peace and stability, the success of the key gathering of the central leadership of the country will inject more certainty into the development of not only the country but also the whole world.