Rely Mainly on Our Own Efforts and Take Foreign Support As Supplementary

The important thought put forward by Mao Zedong in 1958 was not only a fundamental policy of socialist construction in China, but also a consistent proposition of the CPC in leading the Chinese revolution and construction. As early as the New-Democratic Revolution, Mao Zedong pointed out that our policy should be based on China’s own strength and that we should uphold for self-reliance. We may hope for foreign aid but shouldn’t be dependent on it; we must depend on our own efforts, on the creative power of the whole army and the entire people.

On July 30, 1955, the Second Session of the National People's Congress deliberated and adopted the “First Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China (1953-1957)” pointed out: “In order to achieve modernization, we need to strive for foreign aid; at the same time, the Party put forward the guiding principle of focusing on our domestic forces in the task of country construction should be based on domestic forces, and we should be self-reliant in production and construction as well as be independent in politics.”

In 1958, Mao Zedong clearly pointed out: "We should focus on self-reliance, and strive for foreign aid as a supplement, get rid of superstition, independently carry out industrial, agricultural, technological and “Cultural Revolution”, overthrow slave ideology, bury dogmatism, seriously learn from foreign good experiences, and certainly study foreign bad experiences—take a warning, and this is our line.” In December 1964, Zhou Enlai made a report on the work of the government in the First Session of the Third National People's Congress which was held in Beijing and pointed out: “To correctly handle the relationship between self-reliance and international cooperation, self-reliance is the basic foothold, and international cooperation must be based on self-reliance.”

In the new period of socialist modernization construction, adhering to the principle of self-reliance as the main task and striving for foreign aid as the supplement is to give full play to all the potential of China's socialist construction according to the strength and wisdom of the Chinese people, independently formulate and implement domestic policies, fully mobilize and organize the masses, mobilize all positive factors, and develop the cause of socialist construction; and on the basis of equality and mutual benefit and in accordance with China's national strength, we should accept all financial, material and moral assistance from other countries that are conducive to China's economic construction, and strive to learn and introduce foreign advanced science and technology and management experience, so as to enhance our ability of self-reliance and promote the development and revitalization of China's national economy.

The principle of self-reliance as the main factor and foreign aid as the supplement embodies the principle of Marxist materialist dialectics concerning the different roles of internal and external factors in the development of things and their mutual relations. In the practice of socialist construction, if we neglect foreign exchange, we will be closed to the outside world; and if one—sided emphasis and dependence on foreign aid, it will inevitably be controlled by others and become a vassal of other countries.

Only by organically unifying the two, taking self-reliance as the premise and basis for striving for foreign aid, and taking striving for foreign aid as the condition and means of promoting and strengthening the ability of self-reliance, can we completely and accurately uphold this policy.