Xinhua News Agency published a lengthy article titled "Reformer Xi Jinping" on July 15.
The 20th Central Committee's Third Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China began on the 15th in Beijing, with General Secretary Xi Jinping leading the entire party and the nation on a new journey to further deepen reforms comprehensively.
For some time, he has proposed that the new round of reforms should "further liberate thoughts, liberate and develop social productive forces, and liberate and enhance social vitality," providing "strong momentum and institutional guarantees for Chinese-style modernization," which has attracted widespread attention.
This also strongly responds to external speculation about the prospects of China's reform and economic development.
The new era under Xi's leadership is also a new period of reform. China's comprehensive strength continues to grow, and its international influence is constantly increasing. In the face of various opportunities and challenges, it is now a critical period for accelerating the new round of reforms.
"Reform does not stop, and opening up does not cease."
Xi is regarded as another outstanding reformer after Deng Xiaoping. They share the same mission: to modernize China. However, the situations they faced were vastly different.
In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping initiated the reform and opening up, China's per capita GDP was less than $200. The reform started almost from scratch. By the time Xi took office as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee in 2012, China had already become the world's second-largest economy, with per capita GDP exceeding $6,000. At the same time, many development dividends were fading, including once low labor costs.
"The easy and universally pleasing reforms have been completed; all the good meat has been eaten, and what remains are hard bones to chew," Xi said. He refused to rest on the laurels of his predecessors and continued to sprint forward. Over the past decade, China has introduced more than 2,000 reform plans, more than doubling its economic output and maintaining its position as the world's primary engine of economic growth.
However, in response to the public's expectations for a better life, to maintain the momentum of economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, and to guard against various risks, significant efforts are still required.
In Xi's view, to achieve modernization in the future and continue writing the miracle of China, it is still necessary to make good use of the important tool of reform and opening up.
At the beginning of this year, during a collective study session of the Central Political Bureau, Xi reiterated the importance of reform. At the Two Sessions, he called for accelerating the promotion of reforms in various areas. During multiple inspection trips outside Beijing, he repeatedly emphasized that "reform is the driving force for development."
In late May, he hosted a symposium with enterprises and experts in Jinan to gather opinions and suggestions on further comprehensively deepening reforms. Huang Hanquan, president of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, told Xinhua reporters, "The atmosphere at the symposium was very lively. It is evident that reform holds significant weight in the General Secretary's mind, and he is very knowledgeable about all aspects of reform."
This spring, during a meeting with representatives from the American business community and strategic academic circles, Xi said, "We are planning and implementing a series of major measures to comprehensively deepen reforms, continuously building a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized, providing broader development space for enterprises from all countries, including American companies."
Xi's commitment to reform has been consistent. In the late 1960s, dissatisfied at the age of 16, he went to the countryside to work in Liangjiahe village on the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi for seven years, often going hungry. At that time, his wish was for the villagers to have enough to eat. He deeply resonated with Deng Xiaoping's original intention to initiate reforms—China "could no longer afford to be poor."
Like Deng Xiaoping, Xi's motivation for reform also comes from the expectations of the people. During his time in Liangjiahe, he led the villagers in implementing some bold reform measures, including opening a blacksmith shop, establishing a business shop, and improving the ecological conditions of farmland.
Xi has a family legacy of reform. At the beginning of the reform in 1978, Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, was sent by the central government to govern Guangdong, founding Shenzhen and other special economic zones. That year, while studying at Tsinghua University, Xi was entrusted by his father to conduct field research on the household contract responsibility system in Chuzhou, Anhui. He took extensive notes, which he has kept for over 40 years.
In every position he has held, Xi has been a pioneer of reform. In Zhengding, he advocated for the household production responsibility system, making the impoverished Zhengding one of the first pilot counties in Hebei Province for this system. An article published in the first issue of "China Youth" in 1985 described the new look of Zhengding under Xi's leadership: "A county party secretary from Shanxi visited Zhengding and, before leaving, emotionally remarked: 'Here, you can't hear everyone shouting reform, but everywhere is reform.'"
"Looking back now, if we say we have achieved something, one of them is that we have liberated our thoughts," Xi recalled about the reforms in Zhengding.
After leaving Zhengding, Xi went to the special economic zone of Xiamen. There, he promoted the establishment of China's first Sino-foreign joint venture bank—Xiamen International Bank. While serving as the governor of Fujian Province, Xi took the lead in implementing collective forest rights reform throughout the province, a reform that later spread nationwide and was called another revolution in rural China after the household contract responsibility system.
After being transferred to Zhejiang, he proposed the innovative concept of "replacing the old with the new" and became one of the earliest provincial party secretaries to participate in Zhejiang business activities, allowing private entrepreneurs to come directly to his office for important matters. He advanced Zhejiang's reforms from the economic and political fields to culture, society, and ecology.
His reformer persona has left a deep impression on international figures. In September 2006, then U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson visited China for the first time, choosing Hangzhou as his first stop, believing that Xi, then the Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee, was the "perfect choice" to meet first. "He is the kind of person who knows how to break through the goal," Paulson commented on Xi. He later recalled that during a meeting in 2014, Xi told him, "Reform-related matters are my top priority."
During his time in Shanghai, Xi urged the city to achieve "innovation-driven" development through reform and to promote the construction of an international financial center, becoming a vanguard of reform and opening up.
In 2012, after Xi became General Secretary, his first inspection trip outside Beijing followed in his father's footsteps to Shenzhen, where he laid a wreath at the statue of Deng Xiaoping in Lianhua Mountain Park, declaring his firm determination: "Reform does not stop, and opening up does not cease!"
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping opened a new era of reform and opening up and socialist modernization at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, while the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, led by Xi in 2013, was also of milestone significance, marking the beginning of a new era of comprehensively deepening reforms and systematically promoting reform.
At this plenary session, Xi listed a long series of challenges facing China's development, including corruption, unsustainable development, and ecological degradation. He stated, "The key to solving these problems lies in deepening reform."
The plenary session passed the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform." Spain's "El Mundo" stated, "Xi Jinping has opened the curtain on the most profound economic, social, and administrative reforms in China in 30 years."
More than a month later, the Central Political Bureau held a meeting and decided to establish a Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, chaired by Xi, marking the first time in the history of the Communist Party that a leadership body specifically for reform work was set up at the central level. This group later became the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, with Xi as its director.
"Major reform matters are all decided by General Secretary Xi Jinping." A department leader familiar with the situation told reporters that he carefully reviewed every draft of major reform plans, making handwritten modifications word by word.
"Knowing there are tigers in the mountains, yet daring to head toward the tiger's mountain."
Xi's comprehensive deepening of reform is based on his long-term practice and thoughtful consideration, forming a complete set of top-level designs. He believes that reform and innovation are the cultural genes of the Chinese nation, using the ancient Chinese saying "replacing the old with the new" to inspire people.
In terms of reform direction, Xi is clear-headed. He warns that denying the socialist direction of reform will lead to serious consequences, using phrases like "learning to walk in Handan," "drawing a tiger but ending up with a dog," "not adapting to local conditions," and "a dead end." "What cannot be changed must not be changed," he said. Xi emphasizes that reform must "uphold the comprehensive leadership of the Party."
For what should be changed, Xi demands resolute changes, and for those that do not yet have the conditions, he calls for creating conditions for change—including eliminating all obstacles that restrain the vitality of operating entities and hinder the full play of market and value laws. The scope, scale, and intensity of Xi's comprehensive deepening of reform are unprecedented, covering all areas including the economy, politics, culture, society, ecological civilization, Party building, national defense, and the military.
He has achieved innovation in the theory of reform in the new era and proposed a scientific methodology for reform, including: properly handling the relationship between liberating thoughts and seeking truth from facts, advancing comprehensively and breaking through key points, top-level design and "crossing the river by feeling the stones," having boldness and stability, and balancing reform, development, and stability. He requires using the "five-in-one" overall layout and "four comprehensives" strategic layout to lead reform.
He places great emphasis on the "systematic, holistic, and coordinated" nature of reform, requiring respect for the pioneering spirit of the masses in reform and grasping the timing and effectiveness of promoting reform. Steering reforms that concern the welfare of 1.4 billion people, he proposes "seeking progress while maintaining stability" and "establishing before breaking," ensuring that reforms align with China's realities.
"He corrected the 'GDP-only hero' mentality," said an official from Shaanxi. He recalled that Xi had issued six directives to stop collusion between officials and businesses in building villas in the Qinling Nature Reserve. This incident also reflects the resistance encountered in ecological reforms from local interest groups at the time.
Xi's reforms have always broken through difficulties. He aims to break more interest barriers. He said, "At this time, we need the courage of 'knowing there are tigers in the mountains, yet daring to head toward the tiger's mountain,' continuously pushing reform forward."
Less than 20 days after taking office as General Secretary, he presided over the formulation of the "Eight Regulations," aimed at eradicating chronic issues such as official banquets funded by public money and extravagance. This measure has persisted and been continuously improved, with the public sincerely praising that "the Eight Regulations have changed China."
Starting from this point, Xi launched an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign. He stated, "The anti-corruption struggle is beneficial for purifying the political ecology, as well as for purifying the economic ecology, and for rectifying market order and restoring the market to its original appearance."
The "zero tolerance" anti-corruption campaign has never ceased for over a decade, continuing to sweep through industries such as finance, grain, healthcare, semiconductors, and sports over the past year, resulting in hundreds of high-ranking officials, bank executives, hospital heads, and even the chairman of the Football Association and the national football team's coach being brought down.
Addressing both symptoms and root causes, Xi proposed reforms for the century-old Communist Party, initiating "the most thorough self-revolution." He led the establishment of a comprehensive and strict governance system for the Party, forming a relatively complete internal regulatory system, establishing and improving the inspection system and national supervision system, "putting power in the cage of the system."
"The Party and state institutional reforms initiated by General Secretary Xi Jinping are the most eye-catching in the reform process. He uses reform to solve the unique problems of a large party and to build a stronger and more powerful Marxist party," said Li Junru, former vice president of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
This is the largest reform to "move the cheese." Xi said, "Offending thousands is better than failing 1.4 billion."
Thus, he has pushed reform into deeper areas, leading social revolution through the Party's self-revolution—"the Party actively reforms production relations that do not meet the requirements of productive forces and the superstructure that does not adapt to the economic foundation, changing all management methods, activity methods, and thought methods that do not adapt to the development of productive forces, continuously eliminating the institutional and mechanism problems of social development, and further liberating and developing productive forces." Liu Bingxiang, a professor at the Party School, said.
While strictly governing the Party, Xi promotes comprehensive rule of law, breaking the long-standing practice of "power over law" and the social atmosphere of relying on personal connections through judicial reforms. At one meeting, Xi condemned the phenomenon of "money can buy absolution, money can buy life." He stated, "The socialist market economy is a credit economy and a rule-of-law economy."
He has led the formulation and revision of a number of laws, including the anti-monopoly law, elevating the fair competition review system to a legal requirement. The legal system for intellectual property rights has been improved. In a typical case judged in 2020, a Chinese court ruled that a Fujian company infringed on the name rights of American basketball star Michael Jordan, ordering it to stop using the name on its trademark.
Overseas public opinion refers to the new era of reform in China as "Xi-style reform," which is not a simple "economic transformation." Xi believes that the essence of modernization is the modernization of people. Therefore, the goal of reform is to shape the new era of Chinese people, allowing them to "establish cultural confidence and national pride." In 2012, he required the inclusion of "cultural confidence" in the Party Congress report. He later incorporated this concept into the "four confidences" of socialism with Chinese characteristics, stating that cultural confidence is "a more fundamental, deeper, and more lasting force."
"Xi-style reform" also means adapting Marxism to the new era and the realities of the country, integrating it with the excellent traditional culture of China.
As a result, reform has gained a new philosophical significance and has shown a high emphasis on institutional building—reform is increasingly facing deep-seated institutional and mechanism issues, thus a large amount of work has been done to establish rules and systems.
In his New Year's address as President in 2017, Xi stated, "The framework for reform subjects with the nature of four pillars and eight columns in various fields has basically been established." Those familiar with traditional Chinese architecture know that once the "four pillars and eight columns" are erected, the house is already taking shape and can be further improved.
Xi has directed the comprehensive deepening of reform toward a general goal: to improve and develop the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. This is undoubtedly a long-term and arduous process.
"Only reformers advance, only innovators are strong."
When Xi took office as General Secretary, China's economic growth rate fell below 8% for the first time since 1999. The European debt crisis severely impacted foreign trade, and real estate regulation weighed down domestic demand. Analysts from foreign banks stated, "China's economy has reached the most critical moment in nearly 30 years."
Xi identified the main direction of reform—insisting that development remains the key to solving all problems and that development must still be the top priority.
Xi believes that China's economy has entered a new stage of development. He proposed a new development concept of innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing, launching supply-side structural reforms, shifting the economy toward high-quality development, and constructing a new development pattern.
To help officials better understand the practical significance of reform and development, Xi used the story of Chinese tourists buying toilet seats and rice cookers abroad to "teach" them. At that time, many Chinese people were keen on purchasing various goods from luxury items to daily necessities overseas, while some domestic companies' products struggled to sell.
Through the supply-side structural reforms advocated by Xi, the dilemma of overcapacity has been alleviated, with the steel industry eliminating and resolving about 300 million tons of backward and excess capacity by the end of 2022, more than twice the total crude steel output of India that year. From energy-saving and environmentally friendly household products to new material sports equipment, from smart electronic devices to domestically produced large aircraft, an increasing number of products have gained popularity among consumers both domestically and internationally.
To promote reform, Xi has taken the lead, demonstrating keen foresight. A decade ago, the vast majority of vehicles on Chinese roads were fuel-powered. In 2014, during an inspection of the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, Xi proposed "developing products that meet various needs" and advancing new energy vehicles, moving China from a major automotive country to a strong automotive nation.
In the following decade, Xi became a "super fan" of electric vehicles, frequently inspecting automotive companies, visiting laboratories, test-driving electric vehicles, and encouraging producers to focus on product quality to create market competitiveness.
The new energy industry is, in fact, part of the new quality productive forces that Xi proposed. Although the term "new quality productive forces" is a new vocabulary he used during domestic inspections last year, he has long been promoting development. For example, in the 1970s in Liangjiahe, he was the first to introduce biogas to Shaanxi, allowing villagers to use "new energy" lamps and cook with gas instead of relying on firewood, which not only made life more convenient but also protected the environment.
Xi has read "Capital" multiple times and is a firm believer in historical materialism and dialectical materialism. He views productive forces as "the ultimate cause of all social changes and political transformations."
The new quality productive forces characterized by "innovation" and "high quality" reflect the urgency with which Chinese decision-makers face a new round of technological revolution—represented by artificial intelligence, converging life sciences, quantum computing, nanotechnology, new energy, new materials, space, and deep-sea technologies—to push for reform, which is consistent with Xi's proposed innovation-driven development strategy.
Xi stated, "Innovation is the primary driving force for development." He likened weak innovation capabilities to "the Achilles' heel of our large economy."
"Only reformers advance, only innovators are strong, and only reform and innovation will prevail," Xi said. He has pushed for unprecedented reforms in the scientific and technological system, leveraging the advantages of a new type of national system, establishing the first batch of national laboratories, strengthening the position of enterprises as the main body of technological innovation, and reforming the scientific and technological evaluation system. "Revealing the list and appointing leaders" and "horse racing systems" have been implemented. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a special deployment for education, science and technology, and talent work for the first time, integrating and coordinating these efforts.
The effects of reform have already emerged, with China's global innovation index ranking rising from 34th in 2012 to 12th in 2023. Data from the Nature Index released last May showed that Chinese authors ranked first for the first time in 2022 in terms of the share of papers published in high-quality natural science journals, surpassing the United States.
In 2023, Huawei, which had been under comprehensive blockade and suppression by the United States for many years, launched a new smartphone equipped with self-developed chips, leading public opinion to believe that this indicates the difficulty of some Western countries to contain China's technology. However, this is far from enough. Xi reminded, "Basic research is the source of technological innovation. Although our basic research has made significant progress, the gap with internationally advanced levels is still evident."
He called for deepening the reform of the basic research system and mechanism, supporting original innovation, and accelerating the development of strategic, frontier, and disruptive technologies.
"Let the market forces be fully unleashed."
When Xi took office as General Secretary, it had been 20 years since the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed building a socialist market economy system, yet some enterprises still found it very difficult to accomplish tasks. In 2014, a representative from the National People's Congress revealed a "Long March Map of Administrative Approval" at a local Two Sessions: a single investment project required over 30 approvals, with more than a hundred stamps, taking at least 272 approval days.
Xi detests cumbersome and inefficient approvals. During his time in Fuzhou, he took the lead in advocating for streamlining administration and delegating power, creatively implementing "one building for all investment project approvals," allowing all procedures to be completed without leaving the building. After becoming General Secretary, he decided to include "allowing the market to play a decisive role in resource allocation and better leveraging the role of the government" in central documents. Over the years, the State Council has canceled and delegated more than 1,000 administrative licensing items, reducing central government-level approved investment projects by over 90%.
Reforms such as "separating licenses from permits" have compressed the time for starting a business to an average of less than four working days. When enterprises go to the government for services, situations where "one stamp manages approvals," "at most one trip," or even "not needing to go at all" are becoming increasingly common. In January 2024, the State Council issued guiding opinions on "efficiently accomplishing a task."
"Let the vitality of wealth creation burst forth and let market forces be fully unleashed," Xi said.
The result of the reforms is that China has been rated by the World Bank as one of the top ten economies with the most significant improvement in the business environment. Tesla, an American company, is an example of benefiting from these reforms. In 2019, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory achieved "starting construction, completing construction, commencing production, and going public all in the same year," with CEO Elon Musk stating that this created an astonishing "Shanghai speed" and set a new global record in the automotive manufacturing industry. In May of this year, Tesla's Shanghai energy storage super factory broke ground, once again witnessing China's speed.
Xi is very concerned about and familiar with the situation of private enterprises. At one meeting, he lamented that private enterprises faced "three mountains" and "three doors," namely "the iceberg of the market," "the mountain of financing," "the volcano of transformation," and "the glass door," "the spring door," "the revolving door," stating that the goal is to "move the mountains and break down the doors."
He instructed the establishment of a Bureau for the Development of the Private Economy to alleviate difficulties for private enterprises. He called for promoting financial reforms to facilitate financing for private enterprises. At the same time, "any industry and field not explicitly prohibited by laws and regulations should encourage private capital to enter, and any areas that the Chinese government has opened or promised to open to foreign capital should also be opened to domestic private capital."
Under Xi's instruction, the phrase "those with permanent assets have permanent intentions" was included in central documents. In engineering construction, bidding, and government procurement, improper market intervention behaviors have been specifically rectified. The negative list system for market access has been fully implemented, with "non-prohibited means entry" outside the list. By the end of 2023, the number of registered business entities nationwide reached 184 million, more than three times that of 2012.
The first batch of private banks has been approved for establishment, the first privately controlled high-speed railway has been opened for operation, private capital has been allowed to enter the oil and gas exploration and development fields, and private companies have achieved successful records in rocket sea launches and the reuse of liquid oxygen-methane rockets. From 2012 to 2023, the number of private enterprises more than quadrupled, with their share of the total number of enterprises increasing from about 79% to over 92%.
Xi has also implemented bold reforms for state-owned enterprises. In 2017, China Unicom became the first central enterprise in the telecommunications industry to open up to private capital, introducing 14 strategic investors, including Tencent, Baidu, JD, and Alibaba, in a "mixed ownership" reform, which was evaluated as "the first appearance of a 'telecom operator + internet' capital and business innovation model in the 140-year history of the global telecommunications industry."
Subsequently, Xi implemented a three-year action plan for state-owned enterprise reform. State-owned enterprises have fully completed the transformation into corporate systems, with 38,000 state-owned enterprises establishing boards of directors, and term systems and contractual management covering over 80,000 enterprises.
In the new situation, China's various reforms have kept pace with the times. Foreign media have observed that the U.S. initiated a trade war against China in 2018, compounded by three years of the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical changes, testing the resilience of the Chinese economy. During this period, China's economic development model has also undergone new adjustments.
Xi has led China to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern that focuses on domestic circulation as the mainstay and promotes mutual reinforcement between domestic and international circulations to respond to changing circumstances. A key support for this strategy is the construction of a unified national market. To this end, a series of reforms have been implemented to eliminate local protectionism and dismantle regional barriers.
Li Junru stated that Xi has promoted reforms for coordinated regional development, "drawing" new "belts," "circles," and "points" across the land of China, upgrading the administrative division map of China. He has made decisions, deployed, and promoted the construction of the Xiong'an New Area, which is referred to as a "millennium plan," advancing the development of Qianhai, known as the "special zone within a special zone," and encouraging the economic and social development synergy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Chengdu-Chongqing region, the Northeast, and the Central region.
The intensity of Xi's "promoting reform through opening up" has also increased, especially advocating for "institutional opening." China has lifted restrictions on foreign ownership in securities companies, securities investment fund management companies, futures companies, and life insurance companies. Regions such as Jiangsu and Beijing have introduced measures to encourage foreign investment in key industrial clusters, attract high-quality foreign investment to participate in strengthening, supplementing, and extending industrial chains, and facilitate the cross-border flow of data for foreign capital.
China is also actively seeking to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This means that China will strive to comprehensively meet the rules and standards of this agreement through continuous deepening of reforms and make high-level commitments to open up market access beyond China's existing contracting practices.
In 2013, Xi instructed the establishment of China's first pilot free trade zone in Shanghai, and the number has now reached 22, with Hainan Island becoming a free trade port. Another reform led by Xi is the establishment of the world's first national-level exhibition themed on imports—the China International Import Expo. He has also planned the Service Trade Fair and Consumer Expo to showcase his vision for trade liberalization and economic globalization.
Currently, China is a major trading partner for over 140 countries and regions and remains the second-largest destination for foreign direct investment.
At the same time, Xi is committed to preventing situations similar to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis from occurring in China and is wary of the disorderly expansion of capital, arbitrary manipulation, and profiteering phenomena in some areas, stating that these harm the interests of the people, and proposing to set "traffic lights" for capital, "not allowing 'capital predators' to act recklessly while also enabling capital to function as a factor of production."
Public opinion believes that this reflects that China's reform no longer aims solely at growth but considers more priority balance items. A significant feature of Xi's leadership in comprehensively deepening reform is the relationship between coordinated development and security. China has successfully responded to major risks and challenges, being the only major economy in the world that has not experienced a financial crisis in over 40 years.
"For the people to reform, reform is meaningful."
Xi believes that the starting point and endpoint of reform are for the people, stating, "Reform is meaningful for the people; relying on the people for reform gives it momentum." This is entirely different from the "capital supremacy" practiced in the West.
In 2017, he pointed out that after nearly 40 years of reform and opening up, the main social contradiction in China has undergone significant changes, which is the contradiction between the people's ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. To this end, he promotes coordinated development, advocates for a shared concept, and is committed to achieving "common prosperity" as proposed by Deng Xiaoping.
When Xi took office as General Secretary, there was a significant gap between the east and west, and wealth inequality was severe. He conducted field investigations to understand the true poverty situation and decisively reformed poverty alleviation strategies, implementing "targeted poverty alleviation," deploying a "combination punch" from establishing files to relocating people, from industrial connections to educational poverty alleviation, sending over 3 million cadres to reside in impoverished villages for targeted poverty alleviation, ultimately eliminating absolute poverty in rural areas that had persisted for thousands of years.
China's reform began in rural areas, and Xi's advocated "three rural issues" reform is even more comprehensive—from establishing a food security mechanism to ensure "the rice bowl is firmly held in our own hands," to reforming the rural operating system and promoting comprehensive rural revitalization.
In his doctoral thesis "Research on the Marketization of Rural China" written at the turn of the century, Xi proposed, "Boldly carry out household registration system reform, resolutely eliminate various socio-economic differences attached to the household registration system, and completely eliminate the division of the urban and rural labor market caused by the household registration system." At that time, there was significant controversy over whether to abolish household registration restrictions.
After Xi took office as General Secretary, the central government introduced a plan to "promote 100 million non-household population to settle in cities," achieving this goal ahead of schedule in less than five years. In 2023, when Xi visited Shanghai, he specifically went to visit the apartments where migrant workers from other places lived. Hearing a worker from Shandong say he wanted to bring his spouse and children over to rent a house, and another from Anhui say he wanted to find a partner and settle down in Shanghai, he happily said, "Great! Take root, settle down, and develop."
During Xi's tenure, China ended the labor education system that had lasted for more than half a century, raised the individual income tax threshold from 3,500 yuan to 5,000 yuan per month, implemented the policy that "houses are for living in, not for speculation" to alleviate housing difficulties for the people, and successively implemented the two-child policy, the three-child policy, and policies based on population development trends, ensuring that basic pension insurance covers over 1 billion people and basic medical insurance covers over 1.3 billion people.
Xi believes that "the most important indicator of modernization is still the health of the people." He called for summarizing and promoting the medical reform experience of Sanming City in Fujian to solve the global challenge of medical reform. He promoted the complete cancellation of the drug and consumables markup system that had been in place for over 60 years, breaking the "medicine supplements medicine" approach and reducing patients' medical expenses. At a meeting he chaired, the deep reform committee approved a pilot program for centralized drug procurement, and relevant departments subsequently formed a "national team" to negotiate drug and medical consumable prices with pharmaceutical companies.
In a widely circulated "soul bargaining" event in 2021, under the insistence of the national medical insurance bureau's negotiation representative that "no small group should be abandoned," the price of a "sky-high life-saving drug" for a rare disease was reduced from 700,000 yuan per injection to 33,000 yuan after eight rounds of intense negotiations, entering the new version of the medical insurance catalog, giving hope to over 30,000 patients nationwide. Similar price reductions have reached hundreds of types of drugs, cumulatively reducing the burden of medical expenses for the public by about 500 billion yuan over the years.
Xi has promoted cultural system reform, making enriching the people's "spiritual world" an inherent requirement of Chinese-style modernization. To this end, China continuously improves cultural industry planning and policies, cultivating new cultural formats and consumption models. Just in the film industry, the number of screens nationwide has grown from 13,000 in 2012 to over 86,000 by the end of last year, ranking first in the world. A report by The New York Times earlier this year stated that China's film industry is producing more high-quality films that resonate with domestic audiences.
Education system reform is a key focus of "Xi-style reform," directly related to "cultivating talent" and "strengthening technology." He promotes balanced development of compulsory education, encourages quality education, reduces the academic burden on primary and secondary school students, builds a modern vocational education system, and establishes a modern university system. The proportion of national fiscal education expenditure in GDP has remained above 4% for several consecutive years, making education the largest expenditure in the general public budget.
Another breakthrough reform has occurred in the ecological field. More than a decade ago, environmental pollution was one of the most complained-about issues among the public. In early 2012, cadmium pollution occurred in the Longjiang River in Hechi, Guangxi, affecting the drinking water safety of millions. That year, collective incidents arose in Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, where the public opposed industrial projects due to concerns about environmental damage.
Xi, known for his governance of the Xiamen and West Lake areas, established the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, setting ecological protection as an inviolable "red line," implementing a "one-vote veto" system for environmental protection in local government assessments, and establishing a central ecological and environmental inspection system, instructing localities to appoint "river chiefs," "lake chiefs," and "forest chiefs."
During Xi's tenure, China has become the country with the fastest improvement in air quality, the most significant growth in forest resources, and the largest area of afforestation globally. China's installed capacity for hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass power generation ranks first in the world. As one of the achievements of the "energy revolution" he initiated, he led the establishment of the world's largest carbon market and promised that China would achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality in a much shorter time than developed countries. "Green and low-carbon development is a trend; those who follow it will prosper," he said.
Xi believes that correcting unsustainable growth patterns is essential for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation and for protecting the home of humanity, as the Earth is unique.
"Continuously exploring and moving forward courageously."
Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao commented, "Looking around the world, no other country can promote the reform process as comprehensively and decisively as China today."
The 2023 Trust Barometer report from the world-renowned consulting firm Edelman shows that China's overall trust level reached 83, ranking first among all surveyed countries; at the same time, China is the only country among all respondents that is more optimistic about its economic prospects.
Dan Steinbock, a scholar at the U.S. think tank India, China, and America Institute, commented, "Under Xi's leadership, China has achieved rebalancing through world-class innovation and prosperous consumption."
Observers believe that Xi, as the designer, practitioner, and leader of reform in the new era, has allowed the socialist market economy initiated by Deng Xiaoping to continue and continuously write new chapters, igniting a new engine for China's giant ship to accelerate toward comprehensive modernization, making the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation an irreversible historical process.
This is undoubtedly one of the most impactful reforms in human history. In the early 1990s, Deng Xiaoping proposed that "development is the hard truth," liberating and developing China's social productive forces, enhancing China's comprehensive national strength, and providing an irreplaceable propeller and ballast for global economic growth.
Xi has made high-quality development the hard truth of the new era and has initiated a comprehensive and systematic transformation in China, promoting a new type of economic globalization. He proposed building an innovative, vibrant, interconnected, and inclusive world economy, injecting strong momentum into the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Last year, China's economy grew by 5.2%, contributing one-third of global growth. The Chinese engine remains strong.
In May of this year, during his visit to Serbia, a country participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi visited the Smederevo Steel Plant, bringing steel crafts shaped like the Temple of Heaven and St. Sava Cathedral as gifts, with the steel sourced from this plant. Xi had visited here in 2016 and personally facilitated cooperation projects. After investment from Chinese enterprises, the steel plant turned a profit, securing jobs for over 5,000 workers.
The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi is an example of how China's reform and development benefit the world, promoting economic growth and poverty alleviation through connectivity. Currently, over 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations have joined this initiative.
The future of China is of greater concern. "If we continue to reform and explore new paths, China is more likely to succeed," reported the South China Morning Post.
Regarding future reforms, Xi stated that it is necessary to "launch a batch of strategic, creative, and leading reforms" and "achieve new breakthroughs in important areas and key links."
Public opinion is optimistic about the prospects of the reforms led by Xi—not only because China has a vast economy and market size, ample growth space and potential, but also because it has a unified leadership from a strong core ruling party, which possesses the determination and ability for self-revolution and error correction, as well as the action capability to implement long-term plans.
Many individuals from the "global south" believe that the success of China's reform provides a reference and choice for their modernization. The CEO of the Brazil Elite Entrepreneurs Association's China region, Dos Santos, stated that China offers a new people-centered concept that breaks away from traditional economic growth methods and can provide more ideas for regional future development.
In response to some overseas misunderstandings or concerns about China's reform goals and intentions, Xi often tells foreign friends that China has no intention of changing or challenging the existing world order. At the same time, China actively participates in and influences global governance, consistently upholding justice in international affairs.
Through comprehensive deepening of reform, Xi has inherited and carried forward Deng Xiaoping's cause, allowing China not only to continue writing economic miracles but also to showcase cultural charm and create a new form of human civilization.
China's modernization is both the most challenging and the greatest. Xi said, "This is a path never taken before, but we will continue to explore and move forward courageously."