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 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 China's reform and economic development prospects.
The new era under Xi Jinping's leadership is also a new period of reform. China's comprehensive strength continues to grow, and its international influence is constantly increasing. Faced with 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 Jinping 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 Jinping 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; the easy meat has been eaten, and what remains are tough 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 the face of the public's expectations for a better life, the need 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 and continue writing the Chinese miracle in the future, it is still necessary to make good use of the important treasure 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. During the Two Sessions, he called for accelerating the promotion of reforms in various areas. On several occasions during his inspections outside Beijing, he repeatedly emphasized that "reform is the driving force for development."
In late May, he presided over a symposium with enterprises and experts in Jinan, listening to 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 weighs heavily 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 initiatives 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, he was dissatisfied with being sent to the countryside at the age of 16, laboring for seven years in the barren Liangjiahe village on the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi, often going hungry. His wish at that time was to ensure that his fellow villagers had enough to eat. He deeply resonated with Deng Xiaoping's original intention to launch 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 his fellow villagers in implementing some bold reform measures, including establishing a blacksmith shop, building a business shop, and improving the ecological conditions of farmland.
Xi Jinping has a family legacy of reformers. At the beginning of the reform in 1978, Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, was sent by the central government to govern Guangdong, establishing 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, transforming the impoverished Zhengding into one of the first pilot counties for this system in Hebei Province. 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 remarked before leaving: 'Here, you can't hear everyone shouting for reform, but everywhere is reform.'"
"Looking back now, if we achieved anything, one of them is that we 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 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 creatively proposed the reform idea of "replacing old birds with new ones" and became one of the first provincial 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 cultural, social, and ecological aspects.
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 goalposts," 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 tenure in Shanghai, Xi urged the city to achieve "innovation-driven" development through reform and to promote the construction of an international financial center, leading the way in reform and opening up.
In 2012, after Xi became General Secretary, his first inspection 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 initiated 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 Jinping 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 list 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, headed by Xi Jinping. This was the first time in the history of the Communist Party that a leadership body dedicated to reform work was established at the central level. Later, this group 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 on the mountain, yet still heading toward the tiger mountain."
Xi Jinping'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 "reform the old and establish the new" to inspire people.
In terms of reform direction, Xi has a clear mind. He warns that denying the socialist direction of reform will lead to severe consequences, using phrases like "learning to walk in Handan," "drawing a tiger but ending up with a dog," "incompatibility with local conditions," and "a dead end." "What cannot be changed will 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 action, and for what does not yet have the conditions, he calls for creating the conditions for change—this includes eliminating all obstacles that hinder the vitality of business entities and impede 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 innovations 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 while making key breakthroughs, balancing top-level design with "crossing the river by feeling the stones," and managing the relationship between boldness and stability, as well as between reform, development, and stability. He requires using the "Five-in-One" overall layout and the "Four Comprehensives" strategic layout to guide reform.
He places special emphasis on the "systematic, holistic, and coordinated" nature of reform, requiring respect for the pioneering spirit of the masses in the reform process and ensuring the timeliness and effectiveness of promoting reform. Steering reforms that concern the well-being of 1.4 billion people, he proposed "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 faced by ecological reforms from local interest groups at that time.
Xi's reforms have consistently broken through difficulties. He aims to dismantle more barriers of interest. He said, "At this time, we need the courage to 'know there are tigers on the mountain, yet still head toward the tiger 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 entrenched issues such as public funds being used for dining and extravagant waste in officialdom. This measure has persisted and continuously improved, with the public sincerely praising that "the Eight Regulations have changed China."
Starting from this point, Xi launched an unprecedented anti-corruption storm. 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, with hundreds of senior officials, bank executives, hospital heads, and even the chairman of the Football Association and the national football team's head coach being taken 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 framework, 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 notable 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 Central Party School.
This is the largest reform to "move the cheese." Xi stated, "Offending thousands of people is not as important as not failing 1.4 billion."
Thus, he has pushed reform into deeper fields, 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 that hinder social development, and further liberating and developing productive forces." Liu Bingxiang, a professor at the Central Party School, said.
While strictly governing the Party, Xi promotes comprehensive rule of law, breaking the long-standing issue of "power over law" and the social atmosphere of relying on personal connections in all matters through judicial reforms. At one meeting, Xi denounced 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 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 adjudicated in 2020, a Chinese court ruled that a Fujian company infringed on American basketball star Michael Jordan's name rights, ordering it to stop using it on its trademark.
Overseas public opinion refers to the reforms of the new era in China as "Xi-style reforms," which are 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 requested that "cultural confidence" be included in the Party Congress report. Subsequently, he incorporated this concept into the "Four Confidences" of socialism with Chinese characteristics, stating that cultural confidence is "a more fundamental, deeper, and more enduring force."
"Xi-style reforms" also mean a re-creation of Marxism to adapt to the new era and the realities of the country, integrating it with China's excellent traditional culture.
Thus, reform has gained a new philosophical significance and has shown a high emphasis on institutional building—reform increasingly faces deep-seated institutional and mechanism issues, leading to extensive work in establishing systems and frameworks.
In his New Year address as President in 2017, Xi stated, "The reform framework with four pillars and eight columns has basically been established in various fields." 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 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 its most critical moment in nearly 30 years."
Xi determined 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 to shift the economy toward high-quality development and to construct 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 were keen on purchasing various goods from luxury items to daily necessities overseas, while some domestic 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 home products to new materials for sports equipment, from smart electronic devices to domestically produced large aircraft, an increasing number of products have gained popularity among consumers at home and abroad.
To promote reform, Xi has taken the lead, demonstrating keen foresight. A decade ago, the vast majority of vehicles on China's roads were fuel-powered. In 2014, during an inspection of 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, repeatedly inspecting automotive companies, visiting laboratories, test-driving electric cars, and encouraging producers to focus on product quality to enhance market competitiveness.
The new energy industry is, in fact, part of the new quality productive forces that Xi proposed. Although he used the term "new quality productive forces" during his domestic inspections last year, he had 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 "Das Kapital" 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."
Characterized by "innovation" and "quality," the new quality productive forces reflect the urgency of Chinese decision-makers to promote reform in the face of a new round of technological revolution—represented by artificial intelligence, encompassing life sciences, quantum computing, nanotechnology, new energy, new materials, space, and deep-sea technologies—and this is consistent with Xi's proposed innovation-driven development strategy.
Xi stated, "Innovation is the primary driving force for development." He likened a lack of strong innovation capabilities to "the Achilles' heel of our large economy."
"Only reformers advance, only innovators are strong, and only reform and innovation can lead to victory," Xi said. He has pushed for unprecedented efforts in reforming the scientific and technological system, leveraging the advantages of a new type of national system, establishing the first batch of national laboratories, strengthening the role of enterprises as the main body of technological innovation, and reforming the scientific and technological evaluation system. "Ranking and competition" 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 are already evident, with China's global innovation index ranking rising from 34th in 2012 to 12th in 2023. Data from the Nature Index released last May indicated 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 faced comprehensive blockade and suppression from the United States for many years, launched a new phone equipped with self-developed chips, leading public opinion to believe that this indicates the difficulty of some Western countries in effectively containing China's technology. However, this is still 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 reforms in the basic research system and mechanism, supporting original innovation, and accelerating the development of strategic, cutting-edge, 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 at a local Two Sessions displayed an "administrative approval long march map": for an investment project, obtaining land and completing procedures required passing through more than 30 approvals, stamping over a hundred seals, and taking at least 272 approval days.
Xi detests cumbersome and inefficient approvals. When he worked in Fuzhou, he was the first to advocate for streamlining administration and delegating power, creatively implementing "one building for all approvals," allowing all procedures to be completed without leaving the building. After becoming General Secretary, he decided to write into the central documents that "the market should play a decisive role in resource allocation and the government should better play its role." 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 "separation of licenses and permits" have compressed the time required to establish a business to an average of fewer than four working days. Enterprises dealing with the government increasingly find that "one stamp manages approvals," "most run once," or even "not running at all" has become more common. In January 2024, the State Council issued guidelines for "efficiently completing 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. American company Tesla is an example of benefiting from the reforms. In 2019, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory achieved "starting construction, completing construction, going into production, and being listed all in the same year," with CEO Elon Musk stating that this created an astonishing Shanghai speed and set a new record in global automotive manufacturing. In May of this year, Tesla's Shanghai energy storage super factory began construction, 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," and that what needed to be done was to "move mountains and break 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 area that the Chinese government has opened or promised to open to foreign investment should also be opened to domestic private capital."
Under Xi's instructions, "those with stable property have stable hearts" was included in central documents. In areas such as 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 sectors, and private companies have achieved successful records in rocket sea launches and reusable 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 sweeping 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.com, 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 as required, 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 trade war initiated by the United States in 2018, combined with three years of the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical changes, has tested the resilience of China's 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. An important support for this strategy is the construction of a unified national market. To this end, a series of reforms have been initiated 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 country's administrative division map. 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 of 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, particularly 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 strengthen, supplement, and extend 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 in the area of market access that exceed China's existing treaty 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 vigilant against 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 sharks' to act recklessly while also enabling capital to function as a factor of production."
Public opinion believes this reflects that China's reforms are no longer solely aimed at growth but also consider more balanced priorities. A significant characteristic 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 provides the motivation." This is entirely different from the "capital supremacy" pursued 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 growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. To address this, he promotes coordinated development, advocates for a shared concept, and is committed to achieving the "common prosperity" 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. Through field investigations to understand the true poverty situation, he 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 stay in impoverished villages for targeted assistance, 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 bowl of rice is firmly held in our own hands," to reforming rural management systems 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 household registration relations, and completely eliminate the division of the urban-rural labor market caused by the household registration system." At that time, there was considerable debate about whether to abolish household registration restrictions.
After Xi became 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, during his inspection in Shanghai, he specifically visited the apartments where migrant workers from other regions lived. Hearing a worker from Shandong say he wanted to bring his spouse and children over to rent, and another from Anhui say he wanted to find a partner and settle in Shanghai, he happily said, "Great! Take root, settle down, and develop."
During Xi's administration, 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 policies for a single child, two children, and three children 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 comprehensive cancellation of the drug and consumables markup that had been in place for over 60 years, breaking the "medicine supplements healthcare" model and reducing patients' medical expenses. At a meeting he presided over, the deep reform committee approved a pilot plan for centralized drug procurement, and relevant departments subsequently formed a "national team" to negotiate drug and medical consumables 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 lifesaving 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 and giving hope to over 30,000 patients nationwide. Similar price reductions have reached hundreds of varieties, cumulatively reducing the burden of medical expenses for the public by about 500 billion yuan over the years.
Xi promotes cultural system reform, considering enriching the people's "spiritual world" as an inherent requirement of Chinese-style modernization. To this end, China continuously improves cultural industry planning and policies, cultivating new types of cultural formats and consumption models. Just in the film industry, the number of screens nationwide grew from 13,000 in 2012 to over 86,000 by the end of last year, ranking first in the world. A report from 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 funding in GDP has consistently remained above 4%, making education the largest expenditure in the general public budget.
Another breakthrough reform is 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, public incidents occurred in Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, where people opposed industrial projects due to concerns about environmental damage.
Xi, known for his governance of Tanshan Lake in Xiamen and the protection of West Lake in Hangzhou, 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, establishing a central ecological and environmental inspection system, and instructing localities to appoint "river chiefs," "lake chiefs," and "forest chiefs."
During Xi's administration, China has become the fastest country in the world to improve air quality, the country with the most significant increase in forest resources, and the country with the largest area of afforestation. China's installed capacity for hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass power generation ranks first in the world. As one of the results of the "energy revolution" he initiated, he led the establishment of the world's largest carbon market and promised the world 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 humanity's home, as the Earth is unique.
"Continuously exploring and moving forward courageously."
The Singapore "Lianhe Zaobao" commented, "Looking around the world, no country can comprehensively advance the reform process like today's China, with a commitment to action and urgency."
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 India, China, and the United States Institute, commented, "Under Xi's leadership, China has achieved rebalancing through world-class innovation and thriving 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 significant 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 established high-quality development as the hard truth of the new era and has initiated a comprehensive, 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 Belt and Road co-construction country, Xi visited the Smederevo Steelworks, bringing steel crafts shaped like the Temple of Heaven and St. Sava Cathedral as gifts, with the steel sourced from this steel plant. When Xi visited Serbia in 2016, he also came here and personally facilitated cooperation projects. After investment from Chinese enterprises, the steel plant turned a profit, securing jobs for over 5,000 employees.
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 "introduce a batch of strategic, creative, and leading reforms" and "achieve new breakthroughs in important areas and key links."
Public opinion expresses optimism about the prospects of the reforms led by Xi—not only because China has a vast economic and market scale, ample growth space and potential, but also because it has a unified leadership from a strong core ruling party, which possesses the determination and capacity 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 reforms 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 reforms, 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 that has never been traveled before, but we will continue to explore and move forward courageously."