The recent celebration of the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of Chinaserved to remember and vindicate the profound changes that Chinese society has experienced in recent years, especially since 1978 when the country undertook the great journey of reform and opening.
It is necessary to know that the reform and opening policies not only counted on the efforts of the Chinese people, but also on the participation of many foreigners who witnessed the impulse that these measures injected into the modernization of China.
A good example is the case of Werner Gerich, a renowned German engineer who in 1984 traveled thousands of kilometers to the Wuhan Diesel Engine Factory (Wuchai), to become the first “foreign factory director” of New China.
As soon as he assumed his duties, Gerich joined the Wuchai workers to implement a series of innovations in management and production programs, which in a short time allowed them to achieve their objectives of revitalizing the entire industrial process.
The improvements achieved in the quality of the product allowed us to open exports to seven countries in Southeast Asia and for Gerich to begin to be called “Mr. Quality”, in recognition of their work, by the factory staff.
In 2018, the late Gerich was awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal, for his great contribution to the country’s socialist modernization. In an interview, his son stated: “There is no country in the world like China that has achieved such amazing development achievements in just a few decades, which is inseparable from China’s reform and opening up. “China will continue the reform until the end, which must be what my father would like to hear most.”
Gerich’s valuable work in China is just one of thousands of stories that defined the period of reform and opening up.
From the “attraction of wisdom” and entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), to the new era of manufacturing, services and finance, among other areas, openness has facilitated the deepening of reforms and has helped China successfully push forward and expand its Chinese-style modernization.
China has created the miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stabilityhas become the world’s second largest economy and the largest trader of goods, has contributed more than 30% to the world’s economic growth on average every year, has built a high-speed railway network, highway network and world’s largest 5G network, has solved the problem of absolute poverty that has plagued the nation for thousands of years, built a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, and embarked on a new journey to build a modern socialist country in all aspects.
President Xi Jinping noted that “Chinese-style modernization is a modernization that follows the path of peaceful development, benefiting the Chinese people while promoting modernization in the rest of the world.”
In July this year, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made the historic decision to continue to deepen reforms in a comprehensive manner, in addition to promoting Chinese-style modernization.
China will continue to adhere to the basic state policy of opening up to the outside world and build a new open economic system at a higher level. This will not only provide a strong guarantee for Chinese-style modernization, but also promote the construction of an open world economy.
As China’s population of more than 1.4 billion moves towards modernization, the continued promotion of high-quality development and high-level opening-up will make greater contributions to the global economy and provide new opportunities to all countries in the world. world, including Argentina.
This year marks 52 years of diplomatic relations between China and Argentina, and a decade since the establishment of the “comprehensive strategic partnership” between both countries. Faced with a series of complex and severe challenges such as the overflow of geopolitical conflicts in the world, the countercurrent of economic globalization and the rise of unilateralism and protectionism, the concept of a community with a shared future of humanity raised by President Xi Jinping has become increasingly relevant for its value and significance in the current era.
That is why in this new starting point of the second decade of the China-Argentina Comprehensive Strategic Association, China is willing to continue being a good friend of Argentina and a good partner in the development processsharing opportunities, expanding cooperation in various fields, responding to people’s aspirations and deepening bilateral relations to provide increasingly more certainty and vitality, for the sustained benefit of the two countries and their peoples.
Chinese Ambassador to Argentina
Source: Ambito
