Experts shed light on the CPC's governance practices

Growth miracle stuns world Starting from the late 1970s, when the reform and opening-up policy was launched, the Communist Party of China has focused on de-collectivization of agriculture, opening up the country to foreign investment and advanced technology, and encouraging entrepreneurship.

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With nationwide industrial takeoff, economic reforms broadened, while price controls, and protectionist policies and regulations were lifted.

Nothing exemplifies the success of China's reform and opening-up more than Shenzhen. In 1979, it was a poor fishing village with some 20,000 residents struggling at subsistence level. Today, it has an urban population of almost 18 million and its per capita GDP (nominal) is more than $27,000, on par with Portugal and Bahrain. In this process, a special catalyst role was played by the special economic zones, which were initiated in coastal China.

In 2018, economic development in Guangdong province moved to a new stage with the launch of the Greater Bay Area, China's "Silicon Valley".

Initially, like Western Europe and Japan in the postwar era, Chinese companies used to imitate global technology leaders. Today, Chinese innovators and high-tech companies such as Huawei and ByteDance (Tik-Tok's parent company) are being imitated by global competitors and cooperators. Hence, the US' efforts to contain Chinese innovators in the name of "national security".

In four decades, Shenzhen has transformed itself from a poor village to one of the most advanced metropolises.

When reform and opening-up were launched in the late 1970s, the standard Western reform packages were shaped by the "Washington Consensus", which promoted disruptive liberalization, deregulation and privatization across the board. Such "reforms" primarily benefited foreign investors, domestic oligarchs and the informal economy, not the ordinary people.

That was not the Chinese path. The Chinese path favors stability, gradual advances and pragmatic experimentation.