On December 9, the Chinese Consul General in Chicago, Wang Baodong, published an article titled From development blueprint to shared opportunities for cooperation in the Chicago Tribune, an English mainstream media in the consular district. The original article goes as follows:

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened its fourth plenary session from Oct. 20-23. The session deliberated over and adopted the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the CPC for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, providing top-level design and strategic guidance for China's development in the next five years. This document is both a road map for Chinese modernization and an invitation to the world to share its opportunities. 

The scientific formulation and consistent implementation of the five-year plan stands as an important Party experience in governing the country, as well as a vital political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics, embodying China’s resolve and capacity to carry out each blueprint to the end and keep working hard from one generation to the next. 

Looking back at the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s GDP has successively surpassed the 110 trillion, 120 trillion and 130 trillion yuan marks and is projected to reach around 140 trillion yuan this year, while contributing on average about 30% of global economic growth. This Five-Year period witnessed pioneering progress, transformative breakthroughs and historic achievements in China’s economic and social development.

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, this will be a crucial stage for consolidating the foundation and achieving all-out progress to basically achieve socialist modernization by 2035. The Central Committee also set the following major objectives for the 15th Five-Year Plan period: significant achievements in high-quality development; substantial improvements in scientific and technological self-reliance and strength; fresh breakthroughs in further deepening reform comprehensively; notable cultural and ethical progress across society; further improvements in quality of life; major new strides in advancing the Beautiful China Initiative; and further advances in strengthening the national security shield. 

Over the next five years, China will build a modernized industrial system and reinforce the foundations of the real economy; achieve greater self-reliance and strength in sci-tech and steer the development of new quality productive forces; build a robust domestic market and work faster to foster a new pattern of development; promote high-standard opening up and create new horizons for mutually beneficial cooperation; and promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. 

President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump had a successful meeting in Busan last month at which they reached many important common understandings, providing new guidance and fresh impetus for the stable development of China-U.S. relations and injecting valuable certainty into a world undergoing turbulence and transformation. China and the United States should be partners and friends, which is what history has taught and what reality needs. China’s success is in no way at odds with the United States’ aspiration to “Make America Great Again.” As long as the two sides uphold mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, China and the United States can achieve mutual success and shared prosperity. 

A just cause finds great support, and a journey with many companions goes far. China is one of the world’s largest emerging markets, and the 11 Midwestern states covered by the Consulate General’s district are among the United States’ most important centers of agriculture and manufacturing. The potential for cooperation between the two sides is enormous. The Consulate General stands ready to work with all sectors across the American heartland to turn consensus into concrete action and translate shared visions into reality so as to promote the stable, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations and jointly create a better future for the people of both countries and for the whole of humanity.

Article Link: From development blueprint to shared opportunities for cooperation