Chinese modernization is presented as the broad path toward building a strong country and advancing national rejuvenation, while also offering a route through which China seeks human progress and a more harmonious world. The long history of the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people in pursuit of national renewal is also described as a history of searching for a viable road to modernization. On the basis of sustained exploration since the founding of the People’s Republic, especially after reform and opening up, and through the theoretical and practical breakthroughs achieved since the Party’s 18th National Congress, Chinese modernization has been further advanced and expanded. A series of major statements by Xi Jinping has deepened the understanding of its meaning and essence, summarized its defining features, essential requirements, and major principles, and begun to form a more systematic theoretical framework around it.
A recently published compilation of Xi Jinping’s remarks on Chinese modernization groups 522 excerpts into seven thematic sections. Studying these statements is presented as especially important for the new era and new journey, in which Chinese modernization is to serve as the overall pathway for building a strong socialist country and realizing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Chinese modernization is socialist modernization under Party leadership
The defining judgment is that Chinese modernization is socialist modernization led by the Communist Party of China. This is treated not as a secondary description, but as the fundamental characterization that determines its nature.
Chinese modernization is described as a major achievement born of long-term practice and exploration under the Party’s leadership. Since the Opium War of 1840, China’s people and many patriots sought ways to escape national weakness, foreign aggression, and social decline. Different programs for national salvation and modernization were attempted, but none succeeded. In this account, the historical task of finding China’s road to modernization ultimately fell to the Communist Party of China.
During the New Democratic Revolution, the Party led the people in overthrowing the old oppressive structures and establishing the People’s Republic of China, creating the basic social conditions necessary for modernization through national independence and the liberation of the people. After the founding of the new state, socialist revolution and the establishment of the basic socialist system provided the political premise and institutional foundation for modernization. The achievements and theoretical gains made during socialist revolution and construction are described as supplying valuable experience, theoretical preparation, and material foundations.
In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, the Party shifted the focus of national work to economic development and launched reform and opening up, opening what is characterized as a new long march toward Chinese modernization. This, in turn, provided renewed institutional vitality and the material conditions for rapid development. Since the 18th Party Congress, the argument continues, the Party has built on those foundations by deepening understanding, improving strategy, and enriching practice, supplying a more complete institutional guarantee, a stronger material base, and greater spiritual initiative.
From this perspective, practical experience has already demonstrated that Chinese modernization is workable and stable, and that it is the only correct path for building national strength and achieving rejuvenation. Because it was won through prolonged effort and heavy sacrifice, it must be treasured, upheld, and further developed.
Why Party leadership is treated as decisive
The central claim is that Party leadership determines the fundamental nature of Chinese modernization. Since Party leadership is defined as the most essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the greatest strength of that system, it is presented as directly related to the direction, future, and ultimate success or failure of modernization.
The Party’s nature, purpose, founding mission, ideals, and policy positions are said to ensure that this modernization remains socialist rather than becoming some other kind of modernization. This includes:
- upholding the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and staying on that path;
- maintaining Marxism as the guiding ideology while continuing its adaptation to Chinese realities and the needs of the times;
- strengthening and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and modernizing the national governance system and governance capacity;
- developing socialist culture with Chinese characteristics and unlocking the cultural creativity of the entire nation.
Within this framework, Party leadership is described as the guarantee that Chinese modernization will not lose direction, abandon its spirit, or make subversive errors.
The role of the people and reform in driving modernization
Party leadership is also framed as the source of momentum, organizational strength, and long-term strategic consistency. Building a modern socialist country is described as a goal the Party has pursued throughout its history. On the basis of the achievements and experience of reform and opening up as well as the new era, the 20th Party Congress set out a clearer vision for development by 2035 and for building a great modern socialist country while advancing national rejuvenation.
Reform and opening up is described as the crucial move that changed contemporary China and as a decisive factor in the success of Chinese modernization. Since the 18th Party Congress, comprehensive deepening of reform is portrayed as a continuing source of energy for the modernization drive.
At the same time, the people are identified as the principal actors in Chinese modernization and as its deepest source of strength. The mass line, the people-centered development philosophy, and whole-process people’s democracy are all presented as mechanisms through which the aspiration for a better life becomes the goal of modernization itself. The vision of Chinese modernization is also portrayed as a unifying force capable of inspiring Chinese people at home and abroad to work together.
The highest-level design for advancing Chinese modernization
Xi Jinping’s discussions of Chinese modernization emphasize that its distinctive characteristics, essential requirements, and major principles amount to the highest-level top design for promoting it and must be upheld without wavering.
The defining characteristics of Chinese modernization
A country’s path to modernization is shaped by its historical traditions, social system, development conditions, and external environment. Chinese modernization is therefore said to share some common features of modernization in general while possessing characteristics rooted in China’s own conditions.
Modernization on a vast population scale
One of its most prominent features is the modernization of a huge population. Because modernization is ultimately about people, differences in population size change the scale of the task, the degree of complexity, and the methods of advancement. China’s modernization is described as historically unprecedented: bringing more than 1.4 billion people into modernization would exceed the total population of all existing developed countries combined and would reshape the global map of modernization.
That scale also means extraordinary difficulty. In policymaking and implementation, population size and the wide disparities between urban and rural areas and among regions must always be taken into account. The argument rejects both rash overreach and rigid conservatism, stressing historical patience, steady progress, step-by-step advancement, and sustained effort.
Modernization aimed at common prosperity for all
Common prosperity for all is described as both an essential characteristic and one of the clearest distinctions from Western modernization. Chinese modernization is said to begin and end with the people’s aspiration for a better life, with a strong emphasis on social fairness and justice and on preventing polarization.
Common prosperity is not presented as something that can be achieved overnight. It is described as a long historical process that requires patience and sustained work. The idea is not only to enlarge the “cake” through high-quality development, but also to distribute it better, so that the gains of modernization benefit all people more broadly and more fairly.
Coordination between material and spiritual civilization
Chinese modernization is also defined by the pursuit of both material abundance and cultural-spiritual enrichment. Material poverty, in this view, is not socialism; spiritual impoverishment is not socialism either. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is portrayed as a comprehensive undertaking of development and progress, requiring both a great increase in material wealth and a great increase in spiritual wealth, along with stronger confidence and self-reliance in thought and culture.
This means giving equal weight to both dimensions so that material civilization and spiritual civilization reinforce one another, leading not only to richer material life but also to fuller human development.
Harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature
Respecting nature, adapting to nature, and protecting nature are presented as defining marks of Chinese modernization. The goal is not only to create more material and cultural wealth to meet the people’s growing desire for a better life, but also to provide more high-quality ecological goods to meet the demand for a beautiful environment.
Building a “Beautiful China” is therefore placed in a prominent position within the broader project of national strength and national rejuvenation. This includes maintaining strategic resolve in ecological civilization construction and steadily advancing the green and low-carbon transformation of both production and everyday life, so that a high-quality ecological environment supports high-quality development.
Modernization through peaceful development
Another major feature is the commitment to peaceful development. China’s development is framed as something pursued while firmly safeguarding world peace and development, and China’s own development is in turn presented as a contribution to world peace and development. This outlook is tied to the idea of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Peaceful development is not described as a temporary tactic or a diplomatic slogan, but as a conclusion drawn from history, present realities, and future judgment. The position insists that no external force can shake China’s commitment to peaceful development. It calls for upholding peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit; pursuing an open strategy based on mutual gain; and creating new opportunities for the world through China’s own development. It also links Chinese modernization to participation in reform and construction of global governance, to genuine multilateralism, to shared values of humanity, and to major international initiatives on development, security, and civilization.
The essential requirements of Chinese modernization
The essential requirements and the distinctive features of Chinese modernization are presented as interconnected. The 20th Party Congress summarized these essential requirements as:
- upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China;
- upholding socialism with Chinese characteristics;
- achieving high-quality development;
- developing whole-process people’s democracy;
- enriching the people’s spiritual world;
- achieving common prosperity for all;
- promoting harmony between humanity and nature;
- promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind;
- creating a new form of human civilization.
This summary is described as the crystallization of deep reflection on China’s own experience and that of other countries, as well as of continuing advances in understanding, strategy, and practice regarding how a major Eastern country can accelerate modernization. The insistence is that these requirements must be fully understood, systematically grasped, and implemented throughout all areas of work.
The broader political framework tied to this includes maintaining the Party’s basic theory, basic line, and basic strategy; strengthening confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics; adhering to independence and self-reliance; and staying focused on the central task of the Party in the new era and new journey. High-quality development is identified as the primary task, and the new development philosophy, the new development pattern, and common prosperity are to be woven through every aspect of economic and social development.
At the same time, the outlook is not wholly inward-looking. It also calls for a global perspective, continued opening up, and learning from the successful experiences of modernization in other countries through exchange and mutual learning, so as to broaden and deepen Chinese modernization.
Major principles that must be firmly grasped
The 20th Party Congress set out five major principles for advancing Chinese modernization:
- upholding and strengthening the Party’s overall leadership;
- adhering to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics;
- maintaining a people-centered development philosophy;
- deepening reform and opening up;
- carrying forward the spirit of struggle.
Each is treated as indispensable.
Strengthening overall Party leadership is presented as fundamental to the future and destiny of both Party and country. It requires resolutely safeguarding the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership, and ensuring that Party leadership is implemented across all sectors, dimensions, and stages of national work.
Staying on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics means keeping economic development as the central task, upholding the Four Cardinal Principles, persisting with reform and opening up, and maintaining independence and self-reliance so that China’s development remains grounded in its own strength.
A people-centered development philosophy means consistently putting the people first, safeguarding their fundamental interests, improving their well-being, and ensuring that development is for the people, depends on the people, and shares its fruits with the people.
Deepening reform and opening up means continuing reform, innovation, and high-level opening, breaking through deep-seated institutional and structural obstacles, and converting the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics into more effective national governance.
The spirit of struggle means strengthening resolve, confidence, and backbone across the Party and among all ethnic groups of the Chinese people; refusing to be intimidated; coordinating development and security; and overcoming difficulties, risks, and challenges through persistent effort.
Advancing Chinese modernization through system-wide planning and coordinated action
A recurring emphasis is that national development requires not only a clear objective but also a clear path. Chinese modernization is therefore presented as having goals, plans, and strategy, and as something that will be advanced step by step in a solid and practical way.
A roadmap and timetable
Chinese modernization is described as having both a roadmap and a timetable. After reform and opening up began, the Party established a strategic arrangement for socialist modernization through the “three-step” development strategy. On that basis, the 18th Party Congress established the “Two Centenary Goals.” The 19th and 20th Party Congresses, after assessing both domestic and international conditions and China’s own development circumstances, set the objective of building a great modern socialist country in an all-round way and defined a two-step strategic arrangement:
- from 2020 to 2035, basically realize socialist modernization;
- from 2035 to the middle of this century, build China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful modern socialist country.
From now on, the Party’s central task is defined as uniting and leading all ethnic groups in China to build a great modern socialist country in all respects, achieve the Second Centenary Goal, and comprehensively advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese modernization.
This requires recognizing the scale and complexity of the tasks involved and strengthening both commitment and implementation. General goals, directions, and requirements must be translated into concrete targets, practical plans, clear schedules, and detailed construction blueprints. High-quality development is identified as the central theme. The broader framework includes coordinated advancement of the five-sphere integrated plan and the four-pronged comprehensive strategy, thorough implementation of the new development philosophy across all fields and all stages, and focused action to address unbalanced and inadequate development through innovation-driven, coordinated, green, open, and shared development.
Handling a series of major relationships correctly
Because pursuing national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization has no historical precedent, the process is presented as requiring a sound methodology and constant practical exploration. A scientific worldview and methodology are described as the master key for studying and solving problems.
The text stresses the need to use the worldview and methodology of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to solve China’s real problems and answer the questions posed by China, the world, the people, and the times. It calls for grasping the core positions, viewpoints, and methods embedded in that thought: putting the people first, maintaining self-confidence and self-reliance, upholding fundamental principles while breaking new ground, following a problem-oriented approach, thinking in systems, and maintaining a global outlook.
On that basis, advancing Chinese modernization is characterized as a systematic project requiring overall consideration, system-wide planning, and integrated promotion. Several major relationships must be handled properly:
Top-level design and practical exploration
Plans and policy systems should reflect the times, follow underlying laws, and show creativity. They must link the near term and the long term, connect higher and lower levels, and maintain internal coordination. At the same time, bold exploration in practice is necessary, and reform and innovation must drive development forward.
Strategy and tactics
Strategic thinking must be strengthened so that strategy is forward-looking, comprehensive, and stable. But strategic principles also need to be combined with tactical flexibility, allowing action to vary with local conditions, changing circumstances, and the overall trend of events.
Upholding fundamentals and promoting innovation
Chinese modernization must preserve its foundation, source, root, and soul so that it remains on the correct course. At the same time, innovation must occupy a central place in national development, enabling active adaptation to changes, opening up new sectors and tracks of development, and creating new drivers and advantages.
Efficiency and fairness
Chinese modernization aims not only to generate efficiency higher than that of capitalism, but also to safeguard social fairness more effectively, so that efficiency and fairness reinforce one another rather than cancel each other out.
Vitality and order
The goal is a dynamic balance in which society is energetic but not chaotic, active yet orderly.
Self-reliance and opening up
Independence and self-strengthening must be maintained, while high-level opening up continues to expand the space for Chinese modernization.
Opening new ground through tenacious struggle
Chinese modernization is described as an unprecedented, pioneering undertaking. For that reason, the road ahead is expected to contain entirely new issues, severe difficulties, and major tests, including turbulent and even storm-like risks. Advancing it therefore requires great struggle with new historical characteristics.
The approach called for begins with stronger awareness of potential dangers and adherence to bottom-line thinking: staying alert in times of peace, preparing for danger in advance, and being both willing and able to struggle. Strategic clarity is required so that risks and challenges are fully recognized. This includes vigilance against both “black swan” events and “gray rhino” risks, as well as preparedness not only to prevent risk but also to respond skillfully, neutralize dangers, and turn crises into opportunities. While all risks should be managed, special emphasis is placed on those broad, systemic risks that could delay or interrupt the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Strategic confidence is also deemed essential. The basis for that confidence is said to lie not only in China’s growing material strength but even more in firm ideals and convictions, persistent pursuit of truth, and loyalty to the Party’s founding mission.
Strategic initiative is equally important. This means understanding the historical features of the new great struggle, carrying forward the spirit of struggle, grasping its direction and initiative, strengthening determination, mastering its laws, and improving the capacity to handle major challenges, resist major risks, overcome major obstacles, and resolve major contradictions.
Attention to methods and tactics is also stressed. Cadres, especially younger ones, are expected to improve their abilities through hard experience in complex struggles—weathering storms, broadening their horizons, toughening themselves, and building real capability—so that they are tempered like true gold in fire.
Chinese modernization and a new form of human civilization
The article places Chinese modernization in a wider civilizational framework. World civilization is described as inherently diverse, and development roads as necessarily plural. Modernization, in this view, is not a single-choice question. What kind of modernization suits a country best is something its own people are most entitled to judge. China’s experience is presented as evidence that there is more than one road to modernization.
A new form of human civilization
Chinese modernization is characterized as a wholly new form of human civilization. Distinct paths to modernization in different countries and regions are rooted in diverse and long-standing civilizational traditions. Through long-term exploration and practice, the Party has led the people in upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics while promoting coordinated progress in material, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization. In doing so, it is said to have created both a new path to modernization and a new form of human civilization.
This new form is described as one in which Chinese modernization gives Chinese civilization modern strength, while Chinese civilization gives Chinese modernization profound depth. Deeply rooted in China’s fine traditional culture, embodying the advanced nature of scientific socialism, and drawing on all outstanding achievements of human civilization, it is portrayed as representing the direction of human civilizational progress. As a new form of human civilization, it is expected to enrich the garden of world civilizations through mutual learning with others.
A major transcendence of Western modernization in theory and practice
Differences in historical conditions lead countries to choose different development paths. Because modern global modernization began in Western capitalist countries, and because today’s developed countries are still mainly in Europe and North America or are heavily shaped by Western civilization, a mistaken impression can arise that modernization simply means Westernization and that Western civilization is identical with modern civilization.
The counterargument is explicit: world civilization is diverse, there is no single model of modernization with universal authority, and there is no one standard that applies everywhere. Modernization is not Westernization, not the exclusive property of a few countries, and not something to be copied through simple imitation.
Even if capitalist systems and Western models of modernization have evolved, the critique holds that their underlying tendencies—capital supremacy, the law of the strong over the weak, polarization, and hegemonic power politics—have not changed, and that their defects are becoming more visible. Chinese modernization, by contrast, is presented as containing a distinctive worldview, values, view of history, view of civilization, conception of democracy, and ecological outlook, together with a great practical process that amounts to a major innovation in the theory and practice of modernization.
In this account, the Party has led the people onto a successful Chinese path of modernization that has addressed many of the difficult problems of human social development. It is said to reject the old Western road of modernization centered on capital, polarization, materialist expansion, and external expansion and plunder. In doing so, it challenges the equation of modernization with Westernization and presents a different image of what modernization can be. As a major recent achievement of scientific socialism, Chinese modernization is therefore framed as offering the world a new model of modernization. The future completion of a great modern socialist country—one built successfully without following the capitalist road—is presented as something that would further reveal the historical significance of the social revolution carried out in China under Party leadership.
A new option for developing countries
Modernization is described as a shared aspiration of the peoples of all countries, but success depends on finding a path suited to one’s own national conditions and aligned with the broader laws of human social development. From the end of the Second World War to the early 1990s, many developing countries are said to have copied Western models in disregard of their own realities and historical conditions, only to find them unsuitable and to fall into long-term economic stagnation and social and political turmoil. The choice of development path thus became a recurring dilemma for many of them.
Against that background, the early success and visible achievements of Chinese modernization are presented as giving developing countries new hope and a new option. The position is careful to say that China has no intention of exporting Chinese modernization or a “China model.” Still, Chinese modernization is described as an example from which some developing countries can draw lessons as they independently pursue their own modernization.
In that sense, Chinese modernization is said to expand the available paths by which developing countries can reach modernization, and to provide a Chinese approach for humanity’s search for better social systems. The goal is not modernization for China alone, but a world in which all countries, including the many developing ones, move toward modernization together. World modernization, in this vision, should be peaceful, based on mutually beneficial cooperation, and directed toward shared prosperity. China expresses a willingness to work with other countries so that new achievements in Chinese modernization create new opportunities for global development and offer new support for humanity’s exploration of modernization and better social systems.
The larger political meaning assigned to Chinese modernization
Xi Jinping’s discussions of Chinese modernization are presented as high in vision, rich in content, and profound in thought, and as an important component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The broader call is to study and implement that body of thought together with the guiding principles of the 20th Party Congress, to fully grasp the political significance attached to the “Two Establishes,” strengthen the “Four Consciousnesses,” firm up the “Four Confidences,” and achieve the “Two Upholds.”
Within this framework, advancing Chinese modernization is described as the greatest political task. Economic development remains the central work, high-quality development the primary task, and the overall objective is to unite and strive for the building of a strong country and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through the path of Chinese modernization.