China contributes to global cooperation, economy

Historically, the third plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China mainly focused on major economic and social reforms of the nation, set the direction of the country's reforms and aimed to address strategic issues with distinct characteristics of the times.

For instance, the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC, held in late 1978, proposed the reform and opening-up drive, which changed China and influenced the world in a profound way. And in 2013, the third plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC heralded a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

By using history as a mirror, we can understand the rise of the nation and the enormous contributions of China's economic development since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012 to the Chinese people and to the rest of the world. It also allows us to better understand how the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, held from July 15 to 18, will inject new momentum and vitality into the Chinese and global economy in the new era.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Chinese economy has achieved an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent, ranking tops among the world's major economies for several years. In 2023, China's economic scale accounted for 18 percent of that of the global economy, up 7 percentage points compared to 2012. The country is now the second-largest economy in the world.

China has also made a leap in per capita income with an average annual growth rate of 5.7 percent. China's per capita GDP has exceeded $12,000 for three consecutive years, firmly placing it in the upper-middle-income country group.

With such remarkable economic achievements, China — which has a huge population of 1.4 billion — has not only realized a per capita GDP of over $10,000 and built a large-scale modern economy, but also injected new vitality and stability into the world's economy.

China has always been a firm supporter of trade globalization. Economic globalization has brought development opportunities to the world. It provides opportunities for a broad range of developing countries to pursue economic growth and advance industrialization to eliminate poverty.

Since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, China's economy has gradually integrated into global economic development, making solid strides in terms of alignment with rules and institutional opening-up.

In recent years, China has implemented a series of measures to open up to the outside world, including shortening the negative list for foreign investment access, encouraging foreign investors to increase investment, promoting construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port and strengthening intellectual property rights protection, which have helped optimize the country's business environment and attract foreign investment.

China has been actively promoting the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, demonstrating its determination to support rules-based free trade and multilateralism. The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China has also become an important tool for relevant countries and regions to expand trade, promote investment and push forward interconnectivity.

China has always been a leader in global green economy transition. Since proposing its dual-carbon goals in 2020, China has unwaveringly fulfilled its commitments, accelerated the transformation of its energy structure and promoted the leapfrog development of renewable energy.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency, in 2023, newly installed global capacity of renewable energy reached 510 million kilowatts, with China contributing more than half.

China's wind and photovoltaic products have been exported to more than 200 countries and regions, helping many developing countries access clean, reliable and affordable energy. In 2022, China's renewable energy power generation was equivalent to reducing approximately 2.26 billion tons of domestic carbon dioxide emissions.

The exported wind and photovoltaic products helped other countries reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 573 million tons, totaling a reduction of over 2.8 billion tons, accounting for about 41 percent of the global carbon emissions reductions over the same period.

China is the stabilizer of global inflation. While major global economies are experiencing widespread inflation, China's price levels have remained generally stable. Price stability is an important external manifestation of macroeconomic stability, and it also relies on the stable operation of the country's economic system.

Looking back at the past 30 years of global economic development, when a country's macroeconomy is stable, price levels are often relatively stable. However, during external shocks, economic overheating or slowdowns, significant changes in balance of payments and drastic exchange rate fluctuations, prices are prone to significant volatility.

It is reasonable to claim that the stability of global prices is inseparable from the stability of the global economy, and China has served to be the ballast of the global economy. Unlike the aggressive macro-governance strategies often adopted by the United States and Europe, China has consistently pursued responsible macroeconomic policies and avoided flooding the economy with excessive liquidity.

The country has focused on preventing and resolving major risks, enhanced the levels of food and energy security and deepened macroeconomic policy coordination with major global economies.

In the recovery environment intertwined with the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented changes, China has been exporting precious large production capacity and price stability, rather than an inflation crisis or economic and social shocks.

China is also a provider of a large market for consumption and investment. In the era of globalization, the international market is not only a testing ground for enterprises from various countries, but also a crucial channel for enterprises to build their core competitiveness.

Enterprises can leverage the international market to facilitate capital flow, shift industrial focus and undergo mergers and acquisitions to optimize and reorganize production resources, ultimately achieving endogenous development.

From the perspectives of market scale, consumption capacity and innovation capability, no other region in the world can replace the Chinese market. China not only shares its super-large market with enterprises from various countries, but also shares the advantages of its human capital market and intermediate product market with multinationals. This stabilizes the sales terminals of enterprises from various countries while ensuring the security of their supply chains.

China is a stabilizer for global economic growth. Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and high global inflation, the current global economy is in a complex and volatile recovery phase, urgently requiring stability and transparency.

As the world's second-largest economy, China's steady economic development not only helps boost global economic confidence, but also helps drive global economic growth. China's economy has established a solid long-term foundation for positive development.

China is the only country with all industrial categories listed in the United Nations industrial classification, with its value-added manufacturing accounting for about 30 percent of the global total and ranking first in the world for 14 consecutive years.

At the same time, China continues to share new development opportunities with other countries. In the context of rising global economic risks and rampant protectionism, China consistently adheres to the principle that the more it develops, the more it opens up, and thus actively creates a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and international. While providing driving forces for global economic growth, China also brings stability to the global economy.

Chinese-style modernization is a crucial historical journey to achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Building a "basically modernized country by 2035 and a fully modernized strong country by 2050" is the greatest dream of the Chinese nation.

Looking back at history, reform and opening-up have been key decisions to determine the fate of contemporary China and the only path to developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The 20th CPC Central Committee made a series of major decisions on how to comprehensively deepen reforms. It introduced systematic major blueprints to advance Chinese-style modernization with the determination to overcome all obstacles, effectively addressing the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development in the country. It is set to bring new driving forces for innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development of both the Chinese and global economy.

The writer is an assistant professor at the School of Economics, Peking University. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.