-- For the CPC, everything starts and ends with the people.
-- China tops the 2019 global rankings in terms of levels of satisfaction with government performance, with over 86 percent of the Chinese surveyed expressing satisfaction.
-- The CPC is "the architect of the country's social and economic achievements."
-- China has shown a spirit of solidarity and commitment in countering world challenges in keeping with the values the CPC has promoted.
by Xinhua writer Guo Yage
BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC), founded with an aspiration and the mission to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, celebrated its 99th founding anniversary on Wednesday.
From 57 party members represented by 13 deputies back in 1921 at the CPC's first national congress on a rented tourist boat on South Lake in the city of Jiaxing, east China's Zhejiang Province, the party now has more than 91 million members across the country.
All through the decades, the CPC has not only remained committed to its people-centered philosophy and led the Chinese people to achieve development miracles, but also made great contributions to the peace and development of mankind, winning worldwide recognition.
Ma Huihuang (L), leader of the poverty relief team of Shibadong Village, together with villager Shi Linjiao, promotes local products via live streaming at Shibadong Village of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, May 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan)
PEOPLE-CENTERED PHILOSOPHY
According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, China tops the 2019 global rankings in terms of levels of satisfaction with government performance, with over 86 percent of the Chinese surveyed expressing satisfaction, far above the global average of 47 percent.
"For the CPC, everything starts and ends with the people. This has put their people in the center of all that they do. The people are paramount above all," Richard Todwong, deputy secretary general of Uganda's ruling National Resistance Movement party, told Xinhua.
Indeed, just as Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called the people "the foundation and lifeblood of the CPC," the party has always been putting the well-being of the Chinese front and center, and the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a telling example.
In face of a ballooning caseload at home, the CPC decided that it would protect the lives and health of the people even at the cost of a short-term economic downturn and a temporary shutdown.
More than 39 million CPC members fought the disease at the front line, and over 13 million volunteered their services. Nearly 400 CPC members have defended others' lives and safety at the cost of their own.
The leaderships of Wuhan City and Hubei Province were reshuffled, with some officials sanctioned for irresponsibility and dereliction of duty and others honored and promoted for their dedication and sense of responsibility.
Medical staff of Wuhan No. 1 Hospital gesture to bid farewell to medics from Guangdong Province before their departure from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 23, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua)
"China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history," said a report released in late February by the World Health Organization (WHO)-China Joint Mission on COVID-19.
D.E.W. Gunasekera, general secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, said all structures within the highly institutionalized CPC, from local to national levels, "were geared up for the immediate task of containing the COVID-19 pandemic."
"The Chinese leadership took strict and effective actions and the people responded," he told Xinhua.
Lauding the CPC's "unique leadership" in fighting the pandemic, Ahmad Jawad, central secretary on information of Pakistan's ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said facing every challenge and every threat, it is always the leaders who become an important factor because they will not only secure their people but also guide and lead the people to overcome the challenge and threat.
Li Wei (R), a kindergarten teacher and a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), works as a community volunteer in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Feb. 27, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Zeguo)
DEVELOPMENT MIRACLES
Taking the happiness of the people to heart, the CPC has been devoted to leading China's homestretch toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and has helped the country achieve development miracles especially in poverty eradication.
"This has happened thanks to the wisdom and good leadership of the party, which has drawn up plans that suit the conditions of China and its people," Salah Adly, general secretary of the Egyptian Communist Party, told Xinhua, adding the history of the CPC is great and glorious.
According to official data, China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty over the past several decades, representing over 70 percent of global poverty reduction.
Over the past four years, China has relocated 9.3 million low-income rural residents to more inhabitable areas, 9.2 million of whom were lifted from poverty as a result, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body, said in March.
So far, 22 provincial regions have built over 2.6 million apartments and houses for the relocated people. And up to 99 percent of poor villages should have access to internet by the end of 2020, the government body said.
Mou'se Dati looks back at the Atulieer Village atop a cliff as he heads to his new home at a newly-built relocation community in Zhaojue County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing)
With the CPC, millions of people in quite a short time "made the leap from poverty to a much more comfortable life, with the power to keep making progress towards greater fulfillment," said secretary general of the Communist Party of Chile Lautaro Carmona.
At a symposium in early March on securing a decisive victory in poverty reduction, Xi stressed that lifting all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty by 2020 is a solemn promise made by the CPC Central Committee, and it must be fulfilled on time.
"China will emerge as the first nation in the world free of absolute poverty," Gunasekera expressed his confidence in the promise, adding, "China will create history."
The CPC is "the architect of the country's social and economic achievements," said Jose Luis Robaina, a senior researcher at Havana's Center for the Study of International Politics.
A China-Europe freight train carrying medical supplies bound for Madrid of Spain departs from the city of Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 5, 2020. (Photo by Lyu Bin/Xinhua)
COMMON PROSPERITY
Throughout the years, the CPC has been not only true to the Chinese people, but also devoted to the peace and development of the whole world by actively building a community with a shared future for mankind.
The CPC's foreign policies based on cooperation, multipolarity and a community with a shared future for mankind are quite favorable, said Gunasekera.
With the CPC, China has become an indispensable force in resolving global and regional issues, from wealth inequality, trade and investment to climate change, terrorism and peace-keeping.
As a country contributing more than 30 percent to world economic growth for years, China has been dedicated to sharing its resources with the world for mutual development through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which, in the eyes of Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia Dmitry Novikov, offers an example of mutual respect and cooperation.
In spite of the COVID-19 crisis, Chinese investment in Belt and Road countries and regions increased by 11.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, along with a 3.2-percent growth in trade, official data showed.
Photo taken on April 9, 2020 shows the undergoing berth expansion project by Chinese company at Dar es Salaam Port, Tanzania. (Xinhua)
Todwong said China's infrastructure development, especially in developing countries in Africa, has portrayed the country as a caring world leader.
"China does not intend to use its disproportionate size, economy of scale and development in different areas to sap the autonomy and sovereignty that each country has, but (aims to use it) for mutual benefit" through regional integration as promoted by its BRI, Carmona said.
The CPC's commitment to common prosperity has excelled itself in the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the leadership of the party, the Chinese people have been actively contributing to the global anti-epidemic fight, donating much-needed medical supplies, dispatching teams of medical experts and sharing epidemic information via video conferences.
From March 21 to the end of April, anti-pandemic supplies totaling 660,000 items and weighing 3,142 tons were sent from China by freight trains to European countries such as Italy, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic.
The country has also been racing against the time to find an effective COVID-19 vaccine, which it announced will be made a public good for all when available.
China has shown a spirit of solidarity and commitment in countering world challenges in keeping with the values the CPC has promoted, Robaina said.
"By its own example, the country proves the possibility of a fairer, more developed and safer world," Novikov said.■
(Xinhua reporters Zhang Gaiping, John Tugume and Ronald Ssekandi in Kampala, Shiran lllanperuma in Colombo, Li Hao in Islamabad, Wu Danni in Cairo, Valentina Bastias Atias in Santiago, Lin Zhaohui, Yosley Carrero in Havana, and Shi Hao in Moscow also contributed to the story.)
(Video reporters: Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan, Van Pov, Liu Ruijuan; Video editor: Chen Sihong)
