Towards high-quality development: A review of a chapter from Xi Jinping: The Governance of China IV

KATHMANDU: Our neighboring country, China, has made tremendous and miraculous changes in the lives of its people and the country within a short period of time. How China became a developed nation (even though the Chinese government says they are a developing country) is something that people and governments in other parts of the world are eagerly and curiously expecting to know. How did this become possible, what has the Chinese government succeeded in, and how will they continue to succeed in the future to achieve the targeted development goals?

To make the rest of the world aware of the policies and guidelines that are core to their development, the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party, in collaboration with research institutes and international publishing groups, is compiling and publishing different volumes of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China. The recently published fourth volume covers Xi Jinping’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era. This volume contains Xi Jinping’s spoken and written guidelines to the people and party cadres from 2020 to 2023 on different topics and issues. One of the chapters of this book is High-Quality Development. This chapter provides a very clear concept of understanding development and tries to follow the new understanding of development. In this review, we try to summarize this chapter briefly.

What do we think of whenever the word “development” appears? We begin to think about roads, bridges, electricity, etc. For years, the underdeveloped and developing nations of the world, like Nepal, regarded these things as the measuring tools of development. For a small economy in South Asia, development always revolved around connectivity—from east to west, from the Himalayas to the plains, from cities to villages, and linking corners across the country. However, a question arises: is this enough to understand development?

In the thought-provoking Chinese President Xi Jinping’s The Governance of China Vol. IV, we begin to understand how China has fostered new opportunities and opened up new horizons. It promoted the concept of high-quality development. This chapter contains seven topics, and Xi has divulged the concept and provided the guidelines to achieve it. High-quality development is related to innovation, coordination, green, open, and shared development, unlike the typical factors like land, labor, or capital. This new philosophy is profound and helps provide a conceptual framework for adapting to new global trends and critical economic challenges. President Xi states in the chapter, “We will stabilize the six fronts—employment, finance, foreign trade, inbound investment, domestic investment, and market expectations—and guarantee the six priorities: jobs, daily living needs, food and energy security, industrial and supply chains, the operation of market players, and the smooth functioning of grassroots government.” Such a comprehensive, dialectical, and long-term view of the existing economic situation, improving the structure, and fostering new drivers of growth are definitely crucial to achieving the development goals and making the lives of people better. This comes at a time when China is making great headway in new industrialization, information, urbanization, and agricultural modernization. Despite significant global challenges and the post-pandemic crisis, China has been able to achieve a new development dynamic, which is the result of the policies advocated by President Xi.

For this, he shares, firstly, there is a need to “leverage the strengths of the digital and smart economy, speed up industrial transformation enabled by digital and smart technology, and improve the stable performance and competitiveness of industrial and supply chains.” Likewise, there is a need to step up scientific and technological research and be well-positioned in innovation and development. For instance, he highlights the development of cities in the Yangtze River Delta, like Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shanghai, using science and technology and focusing on key areas and fields like integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence to achieve early breakthroughs. Such a strategy is very important for long-term urban development. Next, he highlights speeding up the high-quality development of underdeveloped regions. This impresses me the most. As Nepal has entered into federalism and has a provincial system, it is very important to have balanced development between different regions. “Gaps in development also mean potential for development,” which is relevant, as an old Chinese saying goes: “The sea is vast because it embraces many rivers.” As in China, gaps do exist in economic and natural conditions between different regions, such as cities and villages, plains and mountains, and urban areas and environmental protection areas in Nepal. To address this, Xi suggests, “You should not address these gaps in a simplistic or inflexible way. To solve imbalanced development, you should follow economic and objective laws, tailor measures to local conditions, provide differentiated guidance, see differences for what they are, and avoid applying a one-size-fits-all approach.” China’s impressive development of different regions over the past couple of decades is largely due to such an integrated approach. Besides, it has prioritized consolidating the foundations for green development, which has led to an increase in economic growth. In the topic “Addressing problems related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people in the new development stage,” he highlights how the country has been able to eliminate absolute poverty in 2020, which could be a great learning experience for Nepal too. There is a need to consolidate and expand achievements in poverty elimination, comprehensively promote rural revitalization, and speed up agricultural and rural modernization.

Xi’s next focus is on “Self-Reliance in Science and Technology,” which has boosted China’s overall strength substantially. This comes as China is set to become a global leader in innovation by 2035. He argues that the cultivation of innovative talent is crucial to the long-term development of any country. Xi’s next focus is on the Digital Economy, as China has already unveiled the Outline for implementing the National Cyber Development Strategy and the Outline for the Digital Economy Development Strategy. The country has made huge achievements in the field of 5G, artificial intelligence, and the industrial internet, which has inspired many other countries. A comprehensive digital information infrastructure that is smart, green, and low-carbon can be a solid foundation for the overall development of any country. Xi’s suggestion is relevant as he advocates making every effort to achieve breakthroughs in green and low-carbon technologies. He further stresses focusing all reform efforts on creating a “New Development Dynamic,” as opening up is the hallmark of contemporary China. It has engaged itself in a variety of bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms and initiatives, like the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, from which many countries, including Nepal, have benefited. It is evident that, over the past 20 years, the country’s economy has grown from being the 6th largest to the 2nd largest globally, and it aspires to be number one. At a time when Nepal has a quest to graduate from a least developed country to a middle-income country by 2030, there is a need for rapid economic growth. There is a need for persistent policies, reforms, and strategies to achieve solid and sustainable economic results. To achieve this, there is no alternative to the innovation-driven, high-quality development model practiced by China.

The integrated approach to development developed by Xi Jinping in his writings as High-Quality Development is relevant to all developing nations like Nepal. When we dream of High-Quality Development, we will have to focus on building a modern economy, prioritizing employment, and making greater use of the function and role of distribution. We must improve our systems of policies and institutions in public services. People-centered development must always be at the center. Xi focuses on a high level of independence and high-quality human resource development as the foundation for sustainable and high-quality development. This is true and a core issue for all countries seeking smooth and rapid development. Nepal can follow the concept developed by Xi Jinping for High-Quality Development, which is a comprehensive idea that could be replicated in our context.

This topic, Towards High-Quality Development in Xi Jinping: The Governance of China Volume IV, is very useful, practical, and thought-provoking to read for all development practitioners. It offers a new concept for understanding development in the present era.

(Shrestha is a former Nepali ambassador to China)