Wu Yingqin: ‘Tatarstan is a pioneer in developing Sino-Russian cooperation’
The PRC’s consul general in Kazan: why the Communist Party of China and Chinese people are inseparable
The rapidly developing economy of China, improvement of Chinese citizens’ well-being facilitate the economy’s growth in different places of the world, including in Tatarstan, claims the PRC’s Consul General in Kazan Wu Yingqin in his column written for Realnoe Vremya. The diplomat hopes that more goods made in the republic would soon appear in the market of the Celestial Kingdom. The columnist of our newspaper thinks that Tatarstan is a pioneer in developing Russian-Sino cooperation. Such cooperation with the PRC’s regions is especially topical on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China, which brought its country to the world’s top leaders.
The 5th plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China took place in Beijing from 26 to 29 October at which the document the CPC Central Committee's Proposals for the Formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035 was approved. The Communist Party of China will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year.
How has the Communist Party of China turned from a small party with 50 members into the world’s biggest ruling party with more than 91 million members? How did the Communist Party of China manage to survive in extreme conditions and come to power with low food supply in the army and bad armament? How did the Chinese people leave the “economic poverty and cultural backwardness” under the CPC’s management and become the world’s second economy? Why are the Chinese people and the Communist Party of China inseparable?
Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses
After the Opium War in 1840-1842, China entered a new period in the history of society. The Qing government was rotten and incompetent, lost the road of peace development, it was poor and weak, great powers divided China into parts, while the people stuck in distress. Trying to save the nation, the Chinese people tried to follow a lot of roads, including the Self-Strengthening Movement, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a constitutional reform and bourgeoisie revolution, but all this wasn’t crowned with success.
The fate of the country began to change after establishing the Communist Party of China. The key to the Communist Party of China’s success is that it comes from the people, it is rooted in the people and always firmly sticks to the fact that everything is done for the people and everything rests on the people.
Everything comes from the people. The Communist Party of China comes from the people and was born for people. The people are the source of members of the Communist Party of China and primarily the origin of the deep-seated belief of the Communist Party.
Abiding ideals (convictions) supported Chinese communists over a distance of 25,000 li (12,500 kilometres) of the Long March, helped stay strong and survive being surrounded by the enemy.
Everything is for people. The Communist Party of China unchangeably focuses on close contact with the people. “Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses” became an iron rule for the communists. The CPC has taken on an important task of making the Chinese people happy and reviving the Chinese nation as its “initial objective” since its foundation.
Everything rests on people. Mao Zedong based on the Chinese reality and analysed that peasants who were the majority of the population were the most reliable force of the Communist Party of China. They founded countryside revolution bases, put effort to pursue a strategy for surrounding cities with villages, won the Great Victory in the War inexorably resisting Japanese aggressors, won a victory over Kuomintang in unequal conditions and founded New China. The Communist Party of China was deeply rooted in the people and received firm support in the masses.
5,000 years of history and 1,4 billion people
In November 1924, initiator of the Chinese Revolution Mr Sun Yat-sen was ill but took a boat to Guangzhou and got to Beijing making detours. He died because of the disease not achieving the goal of saving the Homeland. Before his death, he urged the people: “The revolution hasn’t yet achieved success, colleagues still have to work hard”. His deathbed will was fulfilled by members of the Communist Party of China.
Today it takes just 8 hours to cover 2,400 kilometres from Guangzhou to Beijing on a high-speed railway at a speed of 350 km/h, which approximately exceeds the distance from Moscow to Saint Petersburg four times. In 2020, the total length of high-speech railways of China has reached 39,000 kilometres. China confidently occupies first place around the world. The speed of high-speed railways is a personification of China’s rapid development.
The longest speed highway, the longest sea bridge, six out of 10 tallest buildings in the world, one world record after another demonstrates the prosperity and energy of China’s development. China is the world’s second economy, the world’s largest industrial country, the world’s biggest commercial power, the world’s biggest country with gold reserves and country with the biggest number of international patents. In 2020, China’s GDP will top 100 trillion yuan (US $15 trillion). The Chinese people with 5,000 years of history of the civilisation have created one miracle after another precisely under the Communist Party of China.
In 2020, per capita income in China is a hundred times higher than in 1980, the world’s biggest social security system with basic health insurance covering over 1,3bn people and basic pension insurance covering nearly a billion people was created. 1,4bn Chinese not only solved the problem of providing satiety, heat and clothes but also enriched their spiritual and cultural life. In 2019, the number of Chinese tourists who travelled abroad reached 169 million people, while overseas costs went above US $270 billion.
Taking everybody into consideration
The construction of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020 is the first goal of the “two centuries” set by the Communist Party of China. “A moderately prosperous society means all peasants began to feel good”. The total eradication of poverty is a milestone indicator this task has been performed.
Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping said: “The greatest difficulty of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is precisely in poor areas, especially in very poor areas. No matter how hard this nut is, we have to crack it. No matter how tough the fight is, we have to win. And we shouldn’t forget any people and any family on the road to common well-being”.
In 2015, China had over 70 million poor families, especially in the Central and Western regions, which almost comparable to half of Russia’s population and more than all France’s population. To stably achieve the goal of liberating the poor rural population from worries about food and clothes, guaranteeing compulsory education, basic health insurance and safe housing, the Communist Party of China pursues a strategy of targeted help for the poor. So more than 50 million poor people got out of poverty with the support of the industry, a transition of workplaces, resettlement, support for education, medical advice and other measures. A policy of social security is followed for the rest of poor people who are completely or partly unable to work to get them out of poverty.
An ancient Chinese proverb puts “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. To prevent the people who got out of poverty from falling into the same state, support methods for the needy pay special attention to the transition from “blood donation” to “blood forming” and strengthening the inner drive. This includes teaching poor people management skills and holding seminars, for instance, helping poor regions to sell produce on Alibaba and other e-commerce sites without paying fees.
The fight against poverty had an epic scale and was grandiose, its result drew the whole world’s attention. 55,57 million rural poor people got rid of poverty. According to the international poverty standard fixed by the World Bank, which is US $1,9 per person a day, China has got over 800 million poor men out of poverty in more than 40 years of reforms and openness. Under the CPC, the Chinese people created the “Chinese miracle” in the history of the reduction of the poverty scale on a territory of 9,6 million square kilometres.
“To beat both tigers and flies” and “the people above everything, life above everything”
The Communist Party has firmly considered since the 18th party session in 2012 that “tigers” and “flies” are beaten at the same time, they have not only decisively investigated cases of violation of discipline and law by executives and punished them but also solved the problem of illegal actions and corruption in the masses. More than 200 officials at provincial, ministerial levels have been brought to justice after the 18th session of the Party, which effectively restrains corruption.
In 2020, China has faced the coronavirus epidemic for the first time. The Communist Party of China firmly and decisively considers that “the people are above everything, life is above everything”. At the same time, it is bravely and steadfastly competing and pitting its strength against the demon of the disease. It took a bit more than a month to make the first steps to keep the epidemic from spreading. It took nearly two months to start counting the daily local growth of new cases of the disease in one-digit numbers. Decisive results of the defensive war in the city of Wuhan and Hubei Province were obtained approximately three months later, then several battles to eradicate concentrated epidemics in some regions followed, after that, very significant results in the fight against the epidemic were achieved across the country.
China is making its contribution to a victory over the epidemic around the world. As of 20 October, China had provided anti-epidemic aid to 150 countries and seven international organisations, exported more than 179bn masks and 1,73bn protective suits, 543m COVID-19 test kits.
On festive days on account of the creation of the People’s Republic of China, Chinese went on a trip and took 637 million trips across the country where the situation with the pandemic is already under control. The Communist Party of China made an excellent response in the fight with the epidemic again.
International double cycle — opportunities for Tatarstan
To create its own talents, benefit the world. In the course of its history of development, China has deeply understood that the country can feel good when the world feels good. When everything is good in China, the world begins to feel better. From a country receiving support to a donor country, from poverty and backwardness to examples of reducing the level of poverty. China never forgets to pay tribute to the international community, this is why China makes the community’s concept of humankind’s one fate a reality and offered an initiative of joint construction One Belt — One Road.
At the recent 5th plenary session of the CC of the Communist Party of China, it was offered to accelerate the formation of a new development model with an internal cycle as a priority, internal and international cycles of development will help each other in this model. A larger scale, a wider range of activity and greater openness to the external world will certainly provide more markets and opportunities to all countries of the world.
1,4bn people who became rich turned China into the world’s second-biggest consumer market. In 2017, the Chinese purchased nearly 25,7m cars and 389m mobile phones. Growing demand for high-quality agricultural produce opened opportunities for agricultural produce exports from Tatarstan for Russia. We hope very much that we will once see much more high-quality agricultural produce from Tatarstan in the Chinese market.
Under the strategic management of the two countries’ leaders, Sino-Russian relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration entering a new era continue developing. At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the PRC’s Chairman Xi Jinping noted that China and Russia mutually support each other accordingly their national conditions of choosing development roads and pay great attention to each others’ politics in protecting both countries’ key interests.
In 2017, Kazan hosted the 6th session of United Russia Party — Communist Party of China Dialogue dedicated to New Ways of Party Building and Measures Taken to Strengthen Ruling Parties. Managers of different departments of the CC of the CPC and corresponding subdivisions of United Russia had a detailed exchange of opinions on such themes as organisational building, intra-party control, fight against corruption, staff training and other special topics. The Chinese delegation visited Kazan Federal University and got acquainted with Tatar cuisine and culture in Tatar Mansion.
Tatarstan, in fact, is a pioneer in developing Sino-Russian cooperation, actively participates in events within the Council of Cooperation between the Upper and Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River and Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation. Chinese companies such as Haier and Didi Chuxing successfully invest in Tatarstan. The development and reinforcement of the material infrastructure of Sino-Russian interregional cooperation and reinforcement of the internal dynamics of bilateral relations meet the basic interests of both countries and their people. The prospects of interregional cooperation between China and Russia are as wide as the Yangtze and Volga rivers.