Qiushi Theory recently published speech given by Xi Jinping. The speech was given on February 7, 2023, following the CCP’s 20th Party Congress. The audience was the newly “elected” members and alternate members of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Committee as well as major leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial level.
Xi stated: “The path of modernization that a country chooses is determined by its historical tradition, social system, development conditions, external environment, and many other factors. Different national conditions will lead to different paths of modernization. Practice has proved that a country’s modernization should not only follow the general law of modernization, but also conform to its own realities and have its own characteristics. Chinese-style modernization has the common features of modernization in all countries, but it also has distinctive features based on its own national conditions.”
Xi further stated twice that China should not take the “old path of Western countries.” {Editor’s note: the problems that Xi highlights as resulting from “the Western path” of modernization have already come to pass in China. See below.}
“Fourthly, the modernization of mankind in harmony with nature. Since modern times, most of the modernization of western countries have gone through the stage of wanton plundering of natural resources and vicious destruction of the ecological environment, often causing serious problems such as environmental pollution and resource depletion while creating huge material wealth. … (I)t is impossible for China to follow the old path of Western modernization.”
“Fifthly, modernization on the path of peaceful development. The modernization of Western countries is full of bloody evils such as war, slavery, colonization, and plundering, and has brought deep suffering to the vast number of developing countries. The Chinese nation, having experienced the tragic history of invasion and abuse by Western powers, is well aware of the preciousness of peace and will never repeat the same old path of the Western countries.”
Source: Qiushi, August 15, 2023
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2023-08/15/c_1129801483.htm