This year's sessions of the 13th National People's Congress and the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, known as Two Sessions, send a clear message to the rest of the world. Following the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity, China is set to inject more vigor into the global economy.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has been committed to realizing its Two Centenary Goals: to turn China into a well-rounded moderately prosperous society by the centenary of the CPC in 2021, and to create a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the time the People's Republic of China celebrates its centenary in 2049.

Consequently, 2021 clearly marks a historic juncture. After eliminating absolute poverty in 2020, China this year embarks on its latest journey toward becoming an overall moderately prosperous society.

Standing at a crucial crossroads, the focus of this year's Two Sessions was finalizing the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for national economic and social development as well as the long-range objectives through the year 2035.

The CPC has divided efforts to achieve its second centenary goal into two stages: the first, basically attaining the level of socialist modernization by 2035 and the second, hitting the overall goal in 2049.

China's contribution to the world during the past decade, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, China's supply of COVID-19 vaccines as a global public product, its active response to climate change and its commitment to carbon neutrality, demonstrates that China's development has been generating unprecedented opportunities for the rest of the world to benefit from.

With the world thrust into the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic, China, partially thanks to its efficiency in controlling the coronavirus, is the only major power to have hit positive economic growth in 2020. Recent years have seen China become an increasingly important protagonist in international economic development; its drive toward modernization is thus bound to bode well for the rest of the world. 

(Print Edition Title: Historic Juncture)