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Africa China Review Team.
In a televised New Year address, Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted key achievements of the country in various sectors. He lauded the country’s efforts in the fight against COVID-19 and took time to thank different institutions, professionals and ordinary citizens for the hard work and sacrifice. “Facing the sudden coronavirus pandemic, we put people and their lives first to interpret the great love among humans. With solidarity and resilience, we wrote the epic of our fight against the pandemic”, President Xi stressed.
Although China has a big population of 1.4billion people which would make it hard to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, it was the first country to record significant few cases of infections until today. Xi Jinping expressed he was, “proud of our great motherland and people,” further noting that, “only after polishing can a piece of jade be finer.” Indeed China set a global success story not only in coordinating, prevention and control of COVID-19, but shared experience and provided logistical support to many countries around the world.
Regarding economic growth, president Xi must have felt very proud to mention that, “China is the first major economy worldwide to achieve positive growth, and its GDP in 2020 is expected to step up to a new level of 100 trillion yuan.” Eradicating extreme Poverty is another milestone that the Chinese people celebrated this year, while progressive developing countries are inspired by the Chinese model of poverty eradication. In a period of 8 years, “China has eradicated extreme poverty for the nearly 100 million rural people affected, and all the 832 impoverished counties have shaken off poverty,” President Xi said. Again in 2020, the president further noted, China registered the historic achievement of establishing a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
President XI talked about the importance of global cooperation as one family from the experienced in the war against COVID-19. His advocacy for a community with a shared future for mankind was more significant and relevant in 2020, where no single country can claim to win the war against the COVID-19 pandemic without working together with other countries. “I had many phone calls with friends from the international community, both old and new, and attended many “cloud conferences.” What we discussed most was staying united to combat the pandemic,”Xi said. However, he pointed out that there was still a long way to go in prevention and control of the pandemic and called on the world to join hands for a better “Earth home”.
Breakthroughs in scientific exploration especially in space science as well as innovation were also highlighted. China has been the only country that has managed to send a spacecraft on what is known as the far side of the moon and able to collect soil samples there, while probing Mars for the first time is already underway. These are great achievements towards realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
The Chinese president reminded that the year 2021 will mark the 100th birthday (centenary) of the Communist party of China and at a cross road of the “Two Centenary goals.” The Chinese Communist Party has committed to achieve the “Liang Ge Yibai Nian (Two Centenary) Goals by years 2021 and 2049. The first goal in 2021, is to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, where lives of the people are improved especially those living near or below the poverty line. In reality, one can say that this has already been achieved. By 2049, the goal is to “build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious.” This means that China will have achieved the status of a fully developed country.
Africa China Review Team
