OpinionConfucius called it xiaokang, and it is worth celebrating in a well-off China

With the goal of xiaokang likely achieved, the party will turn its sights to building up China as a ‘powerful socialist country’ by 2049

Chinese people are living a life that could have only been dreamed about one or two generations ago

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President Xi Jinping is expected to declare in the coming days that China has built up a comprehensive well-off society. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 7:27pm, 28 Jun 2021Updated: 10:39pm, 28 Jun 2021

President Xi Jinping is expected to declare in the coming days that China has built up a comprehensive well-off society – one of the two “centenary goals” of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

It is an achievement that is hard to overestimate. That a huge society of 1.412 billion people is officially no longer poor, but rather “moderately prosperous” – i.e. xiaokang – is wonderful news for the world. By every economic and social-development indicator, China has progressed substantially. Chinese people, as a whole, are living a life that could have only been dreamed about one or two generations ago.

While there is no denying China’s development in the past, there are various arguments about why China has been able to achieve it. Beijing attributes the achievement to the leadership of the Communist Party. As the argument goes, it is the leading party that offers the vision which holds the country together.

For some critics, however, the answer could be different. It is the party’s relative retreat from China’s social and economic lives, following the death of Mao Zedong and the rise of Deng Xiaoping, that has unleashed creativity among the populous. China’s private sector, which has contributed the bulk of growth and jobs, emerged without much intervention from the party. It was also a “modest” China that won the trust of the international community, notably Washington, and paved the way for China to integrate into the global economy, as the argument goes.

The implications derived from these arguments can be very different.