Fan Peng: CPC’s full creativity counters Western distortions - Chinese - Fudan Institute of Belt and Road & Global Governance

With the coming of the centennial of the Communist Party of China (CPC), some Western media outlets have ramped up their groundless criticism of the CPC on a wide range of topics. The Party's creativity is one of them. Reuters on Wednesday published an article entitled, "China's Communist Party runs low on creativity." It said that today the CPC's "creative juices show signs of running dry," and that "officials appear increasingly nostalgic for old solutions… that can't address current problems." The Chinese version of BBC on Monday said CPC's top leader does not have any creativity.

Such view is nowhere near objective. The CPC has always kept pace with the times, adjusting its policies according to changes at different historical stages. No matter whether Western media outlets admit or not, it cannot change the fact that the CPC is creative.

In recent years, many profound changes and innovations have taken place in both China's political system and the way officials behave. When formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), the CPC has called for efforts to integrate enhancing top-level designs and soliciting public opinions. In terms of the socialist market economy, the Party has underlined that the new system that concentrates on nationwide efforts and resources regarding key national sci-tech undertakings should be improved. When it comes to politics, it has emphasized combining overall designs at the top level with the pragmatic approaches of "crossing the river by feeling the stones."

Today, the CPC's creativity focuses on promoting institutional designs and operating principles of reforms. The CPC respects the initiative of all regions and sectors, taking into account the overall, systematic and long-term needs of national development. The Party has become more problem-oriented, pragmatic and forward-looking.

China has been engaging in a large number of innovations. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one example. Under the principle of the "one country, two systems," authorities from different systems should mutually respect each other to reach a consensus. This shows a high-level governance and system innovation. Against the backdrop of de-globalization, the Greater Bay Area is a great creation. It facilitates cooperation between authorities with different systems in a country, contributing to win-win results.

The West is well aware of the significant achievements the CPC has reached. However, out of ideological prejudice, they tend to attribute the accomplishment to their self-made allegation that, "China made it through authoritarianism." Take the COVID-19 epidemic as a case in point. They believe that China's success in reining in the coronavirus is based on restricting people's freedom. When China's economy develops rapidly, they say that this is done through unfair systems. When China innovates, they say China is a robber, protecting its own companies and squeezing foreign enterprises' development space. Now, they say the CPC "runs low on creativity," which again, ignores the facts.

The creativity of the CPC originates from the upper level of the Party, which always shoulders the responsibility, maintains the accurate governance vision, sober mind, and is invigorated for reform and innovation. It also has the clear-sighted and correct judgment about international situations.

Martin Jacques, a well-known British scholar, told Global Times in a recent interview, "the CPC is much more creative and able to move and change than any Western political system since 1945."

The CPC is different from Western political parties. The latter represent only an interest of small groups while the CPC is the founder of the People's Republic of China. It is the only ruling party in China, the guardian of China's constitutional order. There are more than 95.1 million CPC members in the country. The system of the CPC is a part of the system of China's national governance. Any idea to separate the Party from China shows nothing but ignorance over China's basic political system and national situation.

Western parties cannot stay in power for long. So it is hard for them to consider or understand issues from a long-term perspective. Western political parties are built up on different ideologies. So they won't take their national development as a whole into consideration. Instead, they tend to point fingers at each other. Such a situation limits their creativity.

But the CPC can consistently promote China's industrialization and overall development. It brings the Party's creativity into full play.

(Fan Peng, research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Political Sciences. The views don't necessarily represent those of this platform.)

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