Commentary by Zhong Sheng*
Since China’s reform and opening-up, the Chinese people have made remarkable achievements in development with their diligence and wisdom under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Over the decades, China’s rapid development, which has benefited from exchanges and cooperation with countries around the world, has in turn provided sustained growth impetus and important opportunities for other countries, including the US. It is both an indisputable fact and a general consensus among the international community.
However, some US politicians have shamelessly attempted to tamper with history and made the ridiculous argument that China’s reform and opening-up is the US saving China by nature.
Such brazen acts, which have revealed an extremely unhealthy mindset of certain politicians in the US, are the results of ignorance, shameless political calculations and ulterior motives.
It must be understood that any country’s development depends essentially on itself, and no country should ever claim itself as a savior of another country. It is even more impossible for China, a major country with 1.4 billion people, to have relied on gifts from foreign countries for development.
“Openness brings progress while seclusion leads to backwardness,” said President Xi Jinping, adding that China cannot develop itself in isolation from the world, and the world needs China for global prosperity. This is also one of the valuable inspirations China’s reform and opening-up has offered the world.
Interconnected growth
Thanks to China’s policy of reform and opening-up, China and developed countries including the US have been able to complement one another in terms of production factors and eventually enjoy mutually beneficial and win-win results, interconnected growth and common prosperity.
It’s worth mentioning that China has had to constantly overcome suppression, obstruction and interception from the US in the course of its development.
In the early 1990s, the US imposed large-scale economic sanctions on China and prevented China from restoring its status as a signatory to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Later, it hindered China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and unilaterally provoked economic and trade frictions against China.
It is by surmounting numerous difficulties along the road of openness and development that China has secured remarkable achievements.
Such achievements should be ultimately attributed to the Chinese people, who have constantly promoted reform and opening-up and struggled for development with their diligence and wisdom under the leadership of the CPC.
Great achievements come from lofty morals and huge courage, said Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, adding that China’s economic achievements derived from China’s self-confidence, rather than the support of foreign governments.
The US was faced with some major challenges and needed China’s development, he noted.
China’s economic miracle is in fact the result of great heart-touching efforts and hard work.
‘800 million shirts for a Boeing jet’
During its development, the country has relied on the solid and unremitting efforts of generations of Chinese people, which is represented in the typical case of “800 million shirts in exchange for a Boeing airplane”.
It has also relied on fulfilling its own responsibility in good times and in adversity, without exporting or shifting problems elsewhere, but blazing its own path with bold experiments, based on its own conditions, experience and lessons as well as the achievements of other civilizations.
China’s door is by no means only open for the US, but for all countries and regions in the world.
China has become the world’s second largest economy, one of the largest trading partners of the world’s major economies, and a major stabilizer and engine of the world economy.
The country has actually used more than US$2 trillion of foreign capital accumulatively since the beginning of its statistics on foreign investment in 1987, of which over US$80 billion has been from the US, accounting for only about 4 percent of China’s total inbound foreign investment.
Absurd conclusion
In the face of such data, who can draw the absurd conclusion that China’s development and growth are merely the result of the favors given by the US if he or she does not have ulterior motives?
China’s door will only open still wider. What China wants is to welcome guests from across the globe, benefit the whole world, and pursue common development with countries around the world.
The Chinese people are glad to see other countries enjoy huge opportunities and benefit from China’s development, and are always ready to welcome people from all countries to the express train of China’s development.
Numerous facts have incontrovertibly proven that the US has gained enormous benefits in the course of China’s reform and opening-up.
China-US trade rises 250 times
The bilateral trade volume between China and the US has increased by over 250 times from the early days since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, while the two-way investment between China and the US has jumped from almost zero to nearly US$240 billion.
The nice and inexpensive goods made in China have been best buys for American consumers. China’s vast market and sound business environment have generated huge profits for American companies.
From 2001 to 2016, the volume of US exports of bulk commodities to China increased by five times, according to relevant Western institutions.
Over 70,000 American enterprises have invested in China, with their total sales volume reaching US$700 billion. And 97 percent of these enterprises are making a profit.
Even against the backdrop of the China-US economic and trade frictions and the COVID-19 epidemic, the vast majority of US companies in China still hope to stay in China and expand investment in the Chinese market.
As long as US officials can observe China-US economic and trade cooperation from a comprehensive, dialectical, and long-term perspective, what the world will see would be bilateral ties between two major countries that benefit the world with generosity, inclusiveness, and broad vision.
Unfortunately, certain American politicians have only focused on the tensions and problems for their economic structure and distribution of interests brought about by globalization and free trade, and been obsessed with ideological differences and ulterior selfish political interests.
History & reality
Both history and reality have shown that China and the US stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation, and that cooperation is the only right choice for both parties.
Close cooperation and economic complementarity between China and the US could boost economic growth, industrial upgrading and structural optimization in both countries, and bring about common opportunities for their respective development.
Certain US politicians had better grasp that economic development is the foundation of a country’s development, and that politics is after all to serve the economy. Therefore, when political manipulation hinders or even harms economic development, it would inevitably have to be brought back on track.
These politicians in the US should quit their pride and prejudice and abandon their “savior” mindset before it’s too late, so as to return to the right track where they should adopt a correct altitude towards the history, reality and future of China-US relations.
– Minor edits and subheadings by The Macau Post Daily
*Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy
