Beyond GDP – Focusing on a Key Moment in China's Development

Author: Zhang Jianhua, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
Features: Development is the hard truth, GDP is the hard indicator. These are the two goals China has become most familiar with and deliberately pursued since the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s. However, from the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee to the Third Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee, from "letting some people get rich first" to "common prosperity," from the advanced development of certain industries to coordinated economic and social development, our government, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens have become wiser and more mature, with a longer-term perspective. From the government to experts to the public, they are pursuing a new development philosophy—one that emphasizes the coordination of quantity and quality, the symbiosis of speed and efficiency, the harmony of humans and the environment, and the synchronization of central cities and remote western regions. Its core is to grasp GDP while transcending it. At a critical juncture in China's economic development, we are undergoing a major ideological transformation. Beyond established achievements and interests, we recognize the challenges and perils ahead; with a third eye observing economic development, we prepare for difficulties yet to come. This book is not an interpretation of the documents from the Third Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee, but it is guided by the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Several Issues Concerning the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economy. It is a historical reflection and academic insight from a grassroots academic research group. The members of this group come from various departments and conduct research based on different disciplines. Since 1997, breaking through the limitations of profession, region, age, and status, they have gathered to jointly explore important issues in the current reform. In recent years, the group has successively published works such as China's Urgent Issues, Solving—Again China's Urgent Issues, After Joining the WTO—Focusing on China's Urgent Issues, and After the Sixteenth Central Committee—Focusing on China's Urgent Issues, which have achieved good market effects and academic influence. This time, the group has selected 10 important issues China is currently experiencing or facing in the critical juncture of economic development. Attempting to think from both a professional research perspective and the mindset of an ordinary Chinese, they offer advice for China's reform and enlightenment for the general public. Beyond GDP consists of ten independent chapters. In the chapter "Coordinated Urban and Rural Development: The Second Takeoff Point for China's Social Modernization," the author points out that whether urban-rural coordinated development can be achieved is related to social stability, the coordinated development of the entire national economy, and the realization of the goals of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and achieving socialist modernization. In the chapter "Coordinated Advancement of East and West: The New Theorem of China's Economic Development," the author points out that the gap between the developed eastern economic regions and the underdeveloped central and western regions, especially the western regions, continues to widen. It is absolutely necessary not to suppress the development speed of the developed regions, but it is also essential to pay more attention to and support the development of the underdeveloped regions, including accelerating the implementation of the Western Development Strategy and revitalizing the old industrial bases in the northeast. Achieving coordinated regional development is not only beneficial to the unity and stability of all ethnic groups and regions but is also crucial for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and so on. The entire book elaborates on the necessity of transcending GDP and establishing a sense of comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development from the perspective of the "five coordinations."