Reform and Opening-up

The strategic decision of internal Reform and Opening-up to the outside world made and implemented after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee. External reform is involved in economic system, political system and other areas. Reform is the self-improvement and development of the socialist system, a significant choice for China’s contemporary fate and the only way to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics. Opening to the outside world is a basic national policy of China and a powerful driving force for the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Reform and Opening-up is the most distinctive feature of contemporary China. China’s internal reform was required by the basic contradiction movement in socialist society. It started from the countryside and then developed to the city. It is a comprehensive reform involving social economy, politics, science and technology, education, culture and other aspects. It is a revolutionary change involving the original system and is called “China’s second revolution”.

The breakthrough of opening to the outside world is to choose to establish special economic zones along the coast, and then gradually push them forward in an all-round way. By the early 1990s, China had gradually formed an all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging opening-up pattern. Reform and Opening-up is an important part of Deng Xiaoping Theory and a fundamental policy of China’s socialist construction. Reform includes the economic system reform and political system reform. The first refers to transforming a highly centralized planned economic system into a socialist market economic system; the second includes developing democracy, strengthening the legal system, separating government from enterprises, streamlining institutions, improving the democratic supervision system, and maintaining stability and unity. Opening mainly refers to opening to the outside world, and in a broad sense also includes opening to the inside.

Reform and Opening-up is one of the two basic points of the Party’s basic line in the primary stage of socialism, and it is the only way for China to become prosperous and strong. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has vigorously promoted comprehensive and deepening reforms.

The “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform” adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee made strategic arrangements for comprehensively deepening the reform, and proposed that the overall goal of the reform was to improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and promote the modernization of country governance systems and governance capabilities.

Xi Jinping emphasized that there is no completion in reforming and we must adhere to the correct direction in reforming because of its significance. It requires that we should adhere to the four cardinal principles, the foundation of building a country. The core is to strengthen and improve the Party’s leadership in the reform, adhere to and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and neither take the old closed and rigid road nor take the evil road of changing its flag.