China's experience provides development lessons for world

The 60 years of experience of New

China has provided important lessons to the world on how to achieve a

balanced and pragmatic national development, Brazilian economist Luis Antonio

Paulino said on Thursday.

Paulino, an economics professor at Sao Paulo State University and head of

the university's Confucius Institute, said the history of the People's

Republic of China can be divided into two phases: the search for economic

self-sufficiency and the reform and opening process.

Economic self-sufficiency was pursued through a policy of isolation from

the global economy, while the opening up process, which started in 1978,

caused a significant change in the country.

Paulino said the period of 1949-1978 was extremely difficult for the

Chinese people.

"The task of modernizing a country as large as China, with an enormous

population, an underdeveloped economy and an unbalanced regional development,

demanded great sacrifices from the people and great leadership from the

Chinese Communist Party to keep the people united," he said.

The second period, which started from 1978 to the present day, was the

period of reform and opening up and its main figure was Deng Xiaoping.

"During this period, China carried out large reforms in both cities and

rural areas as well as in different economic sectors," Paulino said.

China "opened its economy to the world, releasing the creative energy of

millions of people and carrying out a historical transformation from a

planned economy to a viable socialist market economy completely integrated

into the global economy," he said.

Paulino said one of the great occurrences of this period was the adoption

of the reform and opening up policy at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th

Central Committee of the Communist Party in late 1978.

Another event was Deng's visit to the Chinese city of Shenzhen in 1992,

in which he delivered a speech to local leaders emphasizing the necessity of

pursuing a new way to socialism with Chinese characteristics.

"Since then, China has undergone significant changes, and all who visit

China are amazed because they find a vigorous society, a people proud of

their culture and traditions and committed to the future," Paulino said.

He said the 60 years since the founding of New China has provided several

lessons. The first, there are no ready-made formulas for this development.

The second, it is necessary to have courage, not to stay tied to dogma, to

keep to the facts, and always look at the practical aspects as a criterion of

truth.

The third lesson, ideas have consequences: there can be no development

without an ideology of national development.

The fourth lesson, people are capable of making great efforts and

sacrifices to develop the country if they trust their leaders and realize

that their efforts will benefit all people.

The Brazilian professor also emphasized the role of people's initiative,

which according to him must be valued and repaid.

"The fifth lesson is that it is necessary to value the individual

initiative, to release people's creative energy, not suffocate their

entrepreneur spirit and allow their efforts to be rightfully recognized by

the society. This results in an improvement in life's conditions," Paulino

said.