People fighting for a better future driver of growth

Editor's note: Despite facing headwinds in recent years, China's economy has been booming, with innovation-driven transition and upgrading realized in various fields and sectors, prompting some to wonder what is the secret of China's economic resilience. In his personal WeChat account, Qin Shuo, a former media practitioner, comments:

China's so-called economic resilience is actually a dynamic process of changes, which means that China is still a developing country. One may think that China's first-tier cities look more developed than New York and London, but China's vast rural areas are still underdeveloped, with some people yet to be lifted out of poverty. From undeveloped to developing and developed, such basic forms of development still coexist in China, with modernization yet to be fulfilled. So, whenever possible, Chinese people want to make changes and march toward a more modern state.

People in different circles have different understandings about the meaning of modernization, but such differences will gradually narrow. When most of China becomes relatively developed, many Chinese may think like those in developed countries that they don't need to work hard any more to get wealthy. By that time, what people would think is how to feel more at ease and live a more comfortable life. But before that time, the dominant thinking of most Chinese people will still be how to work harder. Even if some feel they have already got rich and don't want to work hard, there are more who think otherwise. As long as the latter category exists, China will not lose its economic dynamism.