Vision China speakers note CPC crucial to nation's success

Zhou Shuchun, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, said it was a move to look back at the Party's history and forward to the future.

Starting from Jiaxing, the CPC has been uniting and leading people on a great journey through brambles and thorns to save and revitalize the Chinese nation, he said.

"To understand today's CPC, we need to start from the Red Boat again. Without the CPC, there would be no new China, and one cannot read and understand China without knowing and understanding the CPC," Zhou said.

Zhang Bing, Party secretary of the CPC Jiaxing Municipal Committee, said since its start from the Red Boat, the CPC has remained committed to seeking happiness for the people and pursuing rejuvenation for the nation.

Now Jiaxing, which has achieved remarkable social and economic progress over the past years, is also an important window to observe and understand China's development and the Party's vitality in the new era, he said.

In a video speech at the event, Marcos Cordeiro Pires, a professor at the Political Economy Institute of São Paulo State University of Brazil, said the CPC has experienced a long journey marked by "many sacrifices, much struggle, and many achievements".

Few countries have managed to overcome scientific and technological backwardness and match the world's greatest powers like China, he said, mentioning the country's progress in space exploration, 5G and artificial intelligence technologies.

Pires said the determination and resilience of the Chinese people and the leadership of the CPC are the reasons for China's achievements.

"The Red Boat sailed with the Chinese people down its revolutionary path, equipped them with a powerful spiritual force that has helped to make China achieve remarkable progress, overcome challenges and defeat dangers and to achieve the impossible," said Gert Johannes Grobler, former senior diplomat at the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

The CPC ensured the Chinese people have truly become the masters of their country and have taken control of their destiny, he said.

According to Grobler, with its successful growth path, China is also a potential role model for African countries to explore development models that suit their own national conditions.

Martin Jacques, former senior fellow of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, said in his video speech that the West does not understand China because the West, having dominated the world for 200 years, believes that ultimately it's the destiny of every society to adopt the Western model.

But the reality is that the CPC is the most successful political party of modern times, he said.

"What the Chinese Communist Party has been remarkably good at is moving with the times, understanding change, understanding the dynamic of society and moving with it. And, therefore, being able to change when it needed to change," he said.

Jacques also listed in his speech other reasons behind the CPC's success, including a great deal of support from the Chinese people, its extraordinary reforming capacity, and concern about State competence.

He advised the West to try to study the CPC "instead of demonizing it for propaganda purposes".