Commentary: World can learn from China’s experience of inclusive growth
By Cao Pengcheng
Of the 47 countries categorized as having low levels human development in 1990, China is the only one that edged into the high level as of 2014, the United Nations Development Programme said in its recently-released China National Human Development Report 2016.
The report added that China is able to lead the world in inclusive development. With the three major driving forces of economic growth, opportunity equality and social synergy, its experience can be used as a reference for other countries.
As a major topic of the G20 Hangzhou Summit, inclusive growth not only defines the urgent demands of the world, but also best represents “Chinese wisdom.”
In today’s world, developing countries contribute 40 percent of the world’s GDP, but the Western countries, as past pioneers in globalization, are now attempting to turn the clock back, putting the market openness and non-discrimination rules under challenge.
When talking about the new world order, US scholar Fareed Zakaria sighed that “the world is opening up, but we shut the door.”
Western countries cannot adapt themselves to the new arena, but they have to realize that economic potential can only be revitalized by inclusive growth. Emerging economies will be the key engine of future global economy, and closed and isolated cooperation rules are not the correct choice.
Compared with its Western peers, China has reaped fruitful achievements in inclusive growth. The country launched a spate of favorable policies for poverty-stricken regions and populations in its reform and opening up process.
As the first developing country to accomplish the poverty reduction task set in the Millennium Development Goal, it has committed itself to a new type of poverty reduction-based international cooperation through setting up aid funds and other approaches.
China also endeavored to help with their infrastructure connectivity of the developing nations through such initiatives and proposals as the “Belt and Road,” Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Silk Road Fund, with the ultimate goal to improve their self-development ability and bring them into global supply, industrial and value chains.
Most remedies given by the G20 since its establishment targeted the symptoms of the financial crisis rather than the deep-layered maladies. The prescription based on Chinese wisdom consists of fairness and an inclusive order.
The establishment of inclusive rules calls for the determination to build a community of shared destiny for all mankind, the correct standpoint on morals and profitability and the measures to promote win-win cooperation.
To achieve this goal, China has taken domestic measures in free trade zones, regional coordinated development and region-based differentiated policies. In the global arena, the country has made the “early harvest” a widely accepted negotiation principle, managed to integrate fragmented regional free trade arrangements, and adopted “step by step” plans in international cooperation.
With the summit’s tasks changing from leading openness to guiding cooperation, China and the world will write a new chapter in the upcoming G20 Summit.
*（Provided by People’s Daily）
