Special Feature: China at 70

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Source : PCI   Date : 01-10-2019   

The author receiving '5 Principles of Peaceful Coexistence' award from President Xi Jinping in April 2015

"Don't forget the original intention. Keep the Mission in mind. A nation that forgets its origins will find itself in a blind alley." - President Xi Jinping

As a young teenager in the early 1970s, when I made the first of my nearly 90 journeys to China, China was poor, isolated and vastly under-developed, but with pride in its 'self-reliance'. Only two international, non-Communist airlines served China then: PIA and Air France. It was a time of turmoil and tumult in Chairman Mao's China, with the Cultural Revolution in full swing, and the Red Guards reigning supreme. Landing at Shanghai, we were feted with cups of boiling green tea and an interesting medley of revolutionary dances, and loudspeakers, in the backdrop blaring popular songs like 'The East is Red' and 'The Helmsman Sets the Ocean Course'. Boarding the small turbo-prop plane for Beijing, the shabbily-attired 'Red Guard hostess' announced in impeccable English: "We begin the flight with a quotation from Chairman Mao". I still vividly remember the quote: "Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory!"

I had been reading the 'Red Book' of Chairman Mao's quotations, and I could recall this quote coming from one of his famous essays, 'The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains', an inspirational story about never giving up despite arduous odds.

Beijing was then a city of vast, empty boulevards, filled with unisex, blue-tunic attired cyclists, with the occasional 'Hongqi' Red Flag sedans ferrying Party leaders and foreign guests. And, of course, the Red Book of 'Quotations from Chairman Mao' was a compulsory presence. Revolutionary opera was the order of the day, with 'The Red Detachment of Women' and 'The White-Haired Girl' competing for the top slot in the popularity charts! Apart from the 'Red Book', I had read two American writers, who were probably the first to predict that the future of China belonged to the Communist Party and not the corrupt and inefficient Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek, even though he was the American favorite.

Edgar Snow was the first Western journalist to interview Chairman Mao for his 1937 epoch making study 'Red Star over China'. He had predicted a victory for the 'long struggle of the Communist Party to carry through the most thoroughgoing social revolution in Chinese history'.

John S. Service was a 35-year-old young American diplomat posted in Yenan to liaise with the Communist Party's People's Liberation Army, during the period of the united front against Japan at the height of World War II. Soon after his arrival in Yenan, and after his interaction with Chairman Mao and his comrades, he filed his first dispatch in July 1944. He gave his initial impressions of the workings of the Communist Party leadership, a truly great picture. Referring to the Chinese Communist Party, John Service, a fluent Chinese speaker born to missionary parents in China, wrote: "What is seen at Yenan is a well-integrated movement, with a political and economic program, which it is successfully carrying out under competent leaders. The Communist Party has kept its revolutionary character, (and) has grown to a healthy and moderate maturity. This movement has such drive behind it, and is tied so closely to the people that it will not easily be killed. (Amongst Communist leaders), there is an absence of show and formality, both in speech and action. Mao and other leaders are universally spoken of with respect (amounting in the case of Mao to a sort of veneration), but these men are approachable. They mingle freely in groups. Clothing and living are very simple. Mao has warmth and magnetism. Morale is very high. There is no defeatism. People are serious and tend to have a sense of a mission."

5 years after that famous prophecy, on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao, made the historic announcement of the founding of the People's Republic of China at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, "The Chinese nation has stood up." New China was born.

Two other notable leaders amongst the founders of New China who stand out are, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. Both of them spent an early part of their youth in the 1920s studying in France, where they also befriended Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnamese Independence.

The suave and handsome Zhou Enlai, China's first Foreign Minister and Premier, had somewhat of a bourgeois background with a sophisticated sense of humor. Once, during the peak of the Sino-Soviet conflict in the 1960s, Zhou Enlai was compared to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who came from a working class background. The witty Chinese Premier retorted: the only thing common between Khrushchev and I is that we both betrayed our class!

Writing in his autobiography, the iconic actor, Charlie Chaplin says, that in 1954, when peace talks on Indochina were being held in Geneva, Premier Zhou Enlai was leading the Chinese delegation and he requested a personal meeting with him. When they met, Zhou Enlai told Charlie Chaplin that he was keen to meet him, saying "I am a fan of yours, having watched many of your movies!"

While due credit belongs to Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou as the founding fathers of New China, Deng Xiaoping deserves full marks for his courageous 'course correction' in 1979, that put China on the path of progress and prosperity via a 'socialist free market economy'. Deng's Reform and Opening up policy transformed a poor and underdeveloped country into the world's second most powerful economic and political powerhouse within a generation. In the process, 800 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty in what is a truly unique, unprecedented achievement in human history. Two other factors have been pivotal in China's progress: ability to learn from the experience of other nations, as Deng Xiaoping did in the case of tiny Singapore, visiting that Chinese-majority country in November 1978. He then established the first special economic zone, Suzhou, in 1992, which became a China-Singapore joint venture. During his meeting with Deng Xiaoping, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew told him, "If Singapore Chinese, who are descendants of poorly-educated coolies, could be so successful, how much better China can be if the right policies are adopted." Former Vice Premier, Li Lanqing, writes in his book, 'Breaking Through: The Birth of China's Opening-up Policy' that, when the delegation he led visited Pakistan in the early 1980s, they were visibly impressed by Pakistan's progress and the competence of its bureaucracy, learning from their Pakistani friends on areas ranging from operating the Karachi Port to preparing project proposals for the World Bank.

The other factor in China's phenomenal progress is a peaceful foreign policy; no Chinese troops are on war-duty outside China, and the absence of military conflict with any other country since the Reform and Opening up began 40 years ago.

During most of these 70 years, Pakistan and China have enjoyed a unique bond, a friction-free relationship, reinforced by mutually reinforcing interests and objectives that remain compatible, despite changes in their countries, in the region and the world as well.

As the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, stated on March 18, 2019, during his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart: "No matter how things change in the world and the region, China will firmly support Pakistan in upholding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and dignity." As the Pakistan Prime Minister told an American think tank in New York on September 23, regarding the unique quality and content of Pakistan's camaraderie with China: "China has never interfered in any of Pakistan's foreign or domestic policy, they don't tell us what to do and what not. CPEC is a great opportunity that China is offering to Pakistan".

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship of President Xi Jinping's Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), the biggest development and diplomatic initiative of the 21st Century, is already a success story with huge pluses for Pakistan. CPEC has given new hope, confidence and faith in the future to the people of Pakistan, and improved the image of Pakistan as an investment-friendly destination, revived dead projects like Gwadar Port (which is operational now) and Thar Coal (generating electricity for the national grid), resolved Pakistan's chronic 25-year old energy crisis, strengthened the Federation through infrastructure connectivity, provided Pakistan 'strategic space' both in regional and world politics and generated employment for 70,000 Pakistanis, plus 20,000 new scholarships for Pakistani students are in the offing for the next three years, apart from 28,000 Pakistani students already studying in China. And the best of CPEC is yet to come!

Both countries also stand by each other's core interests. China's core interests include it's territorial integrity and national unity, it's peaceful rise and development in the global arena, the paramount role of the Communist Party within China, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and South China Sea, and the promotion of BRI.

Pakistan's core interests include its sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity, right to national self-defense including pursuit of the nuclear and missile programs, Kashmir, resisting Indian hegemony, rejection of foreign interference and cross-border terrorism, support to Afghan peace process, promotion of Pakistan's goals at international fora like the UN Security Council, G-20 and Nuclear Suppliers Group, and CPEC.

China at 70 has made the successful transition from a regional power to a global power, or as President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party of China's 19th Congress in Beijing on October 18, 2017, that China has now "become a great power in the world, and it is time for us to take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind". Foreign Minister Wang Yi amplified this statement of President Xi, in his article in the 'People's Daily' on September 23, 2019: 'China would strive for a lead role in reshaping the post-Cold War International order led by the United States, while vigorously protecting its expanding national interest and warding off foreign interference in its affairs'. 70 years may be a small period in China's recorded history of over three millennia, but this period has been decisive in transforming China and it's role in a rapidly-changing world.

A very happy 70th Anniversary to our Chinese friends, truly a moment of celebration of a success story par excellence!