China’s reform since 1978 has been one of the most significant events in human history and has led to the growth of a modern global socialist power. This has completely changed the lives of more than one billion Chinese people and has greatly enhanced their material and spiritual lives.
If Mao Zedong led the Chinese people to stand up in the world through long-term armed struggle, the 40 years of reform and opening up that has occurred since 1978 has allowed the Chinese people to become rich through a fundamental transformation from a planned economic system to a socialist market economy.
After a long-term effort, the 19th CPC National Congress stated clearly that socialism containing Chinese characteristics has arrived into a new era, meaning that the nation has achieved a momentous transformation - it has stood up, grown rich, and is becoming stronger. Besides this, the primary contradiction that Chinese society is facing has evolved into the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.
The 19th CPC National Congress Report highlighted that this new era will be an era of building on past successes to further advance our cause. It also involves continuing with a new historical context to strive for socialism's success involving Chinese characteristics. This will be an era of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, and of moving towards all-out efforts to build a great modern socialist country. To realize the “Chinese Dream,” the most essential weapon, based on the most critical experience of China’s previous development, is to fulfill the task of economic growth, play the leading role in economic system reform, promote mutual adaptation between the productive forces and production relations, as well as between superstructure and economic foundation, and push continuous economic and social development.
