You are here: Home > Opinion > Editor's Pick

The miracle called Communist Party of China

By Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, July 10, 2016

Adjust font size:

Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab Province, Pakistan. [Courtesy of Pakistan Embassy in China]

As a young schoolboy, China for me was a little red book. Intrigued by pictures of smiling children proudly holding the book and reading from it, I also wanted to share the magic of that special looking book. And that's how I learnt about a party called the Communist Party of China (CPC). But as I grew older, I realized that unlike any other typical party CPC was more of an ideological whirlwind. How else does one describe an ideological platform with 87 million committed members? CPC is not one of the many miracles of China. It is the miracle maker. CPC and China are two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to distinguish between the Communist Party of China and China itself, because the story of China is the story of the Chinese Communist Party. A story of epic success, achieved not by mere chance but through dogged resolve and masterful planning.

Two elements have made China great: The endless energy and hard work of the people, and the generations of leadership provided by CPC. These men of great vision and resolution provided continuity and kept the ship steady and on course, regardless of the changing circumstances and realities of the world. China's peaceful rise as the world's second largest economy and a paramount global power owes itself to the vision and dedication of the party and its leadership. It was only a few years back that the CPC started the journey of taking China to the world, and today the world comes knocking at its doors. Achieving excellent economic growth rates for three decades testifies to the loftiness of the party leadership's vision.

Till the 1920s, China was reeling like many of us: a country without direction and any true sense of identity. New China may have been born in 1949 but the seed was sown in 1919 by the May 4th movement, and the germination of the seed started when visionary leaders including great Mao Zedong formed CPC in 1921.

Modern China was not built overnight. The Chinese Communist Party inherited an unsure China - a China that had been subjugated and brutalized through protracted wars and imperial influences. 1949 changed everything. From the ashes emerged a consolidated country. By design, the first few decades were inward facing because this was the rebuilding phase. The party provided the bedrock on which the Chinese leadership embarked upon a painstaking journey - brick by brick they built the nation ground up.

1978 was the year when China changed forever. To understand the spectacular rise of China as a global powerhouse, it is imperative to comprehend the CPC. To the benign, it may appear as a stern single political apparatus controlling all state affairs but an informed insight reveals a persistently evolving ideological creature that is neither rigid nor a hostage to its own past.

It was in late 1978 when Deng Xiaoping shifted the focus of work to economic construction and introduced the policies of reform and opening to the outside world, bringing China into a new period of socialist construction.

By 1980s, China had cleared up its rebuilding agenda. Foreseeing the needs of the coming times, the party then chose leadership that was to turn China into an economic super power, and so they did. With Mr. Deng's sagacity and the party's complete support, China liberalized its economy to offer a miracle that is still hard to fathom and has catapulted China as the second largest economy of the world.

The new China is a global powerhouse. Over the decades, the CPC has given China a strong identity, a resolute sense of purpose and self, and transformed the once slumbering giant into a global, economic, military and strategic power.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.

1 2 Next