MOST recently China has celebrated the 90th anniversary of the victory of the “Long March” a remarkable revolutionary feat achieved under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is based on firm revolutionary, resolution, resistance and resilience human traits having dauntless courage and a spirit of struggle, sacrifice, service and submission, truth-seeking, strict discipline and unity, and close ties with the people. It promoted national endurance, unity, social harmony and political consultative and coordinated system at the gross-root turning crisis into opportunities, poverty into prosperity and mediocrity into modernization celebrating its 77 National Day on October 1.
Obviously, both events give the messages of certainty, stability, peace, productivity, constructive competition, economic globalization and international cooperation through Xi Jinping’s concept of global shared prosperity and Global Initiatives of development, security, civilization and governance transforming lives of millions of people living around the globe. Thus, both successfully separate development from domination. Certainly, it is a living miracle evolving spirit for the new era which has changed the DNA of Chinese people choosing faith over despair, unity over division, and collective dedication over personal gain. It is not a distant, static historical story but a living belief that shapes modern China.
Definitely, it has been a gravitational force of Chinese social responsibility, revitalization of rural communities and innovation moving forward amid external barriers. It lives in tech pioneers breaking limits, rural people reshaping their futures, and ordinary individuals choosing collective progress over personal comfort. Hence, it is a powerful, ongoing force driving China’s new-era development and offering precious spiritual wisdom for the entire world. While delivering a keynote speech in the reception of national day, the Chinese President Xi Jinping proudly showcased the extraordinary achievements of New China and pledged the bright prospects of Chinese modernization.
It has been a success story of the CPC’s eternal spirituality, successive leaders’ economic insight, people’s centric development model, constant structural reforms and people’s firm belief gearing towards qualitative life, a dream which has now been achieved. Interestingly, the Chinese macro-economy has achieved economic sustainability, export diversity, innovative industrialization and high-quality development despite internal readjustments and external geopolitical and geo-economic pressures clearly demonstrating its economic resilience, national resistance and vitality.
During these long years, China has invested in humanity, built human values and promoted harmony in the world and saved millions of people from diseases, destructions, calamities, conflicts, hungers and poverty. Right from the beginning, it initiated people’s centric policies and invested in human capital. In 2025, China’s gross higher-education enrolment rate exceeded 61.3 percent. According to Chinese statistics, its higher-education system is the largest in the world in terms of scale.
In 1949, average life expectancy in China was approximately 35 years. By 2020, it had reached 77.93 years, an increase of nearly 43 years. By the end of 2025, approximately 1.334 billion people in China covered by basic medical insurance which has become a role model for the global public health care system. Analytically, during this long journey China has developed essential capabilities in science & space, 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics, super-computing, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, and missions to the Moon and Mars showcasing real strength of its smart economy and massive drive towards modernization, digitalization and AI.
Obviously, China has now become a major global power in industry, trade, infrastructure, science and technology, and the world economy. It has now become the world’s second-largest economy and a model of development that has compressed centuries of progress into a matter of decades. Comparative studies of China’s official statistics revealed that the country’s GDP was only 67.9 billion Yuan in 1952. By 2025, it had exceeded 140 trillion Yuan (approximately $19.5 trillion USD). Between 1952 and 2023, China’s GDP increased 223-fold at constant prices. From 1979 to 2025, China recorded an average annual economic growth rate of 9 percent confirming its economic self-reliance/resilience, export diversity and institutionalized qualitative industrialization.
It is pertinent to mention that over 77 years, China moved from an agrarian and relatively under-industrialized economy to a comprehensive industrial system. By 2025, China’s manufacturing sector had actually remained the world’s largest for 15 consecutive years, having extended its streak that began in 2010. By 2025, China’s GDP had surpassed 140 trillion yuan (about 19.6 trillion U.S. dollars), accounting for about one-sixth of global GDP, while the country continued to contribute roughly 30 percent of global economic growth.
Tremendously, economic growth has translated into higher incomes and longer lives. Per capita disposable income increased from just 49.7 yuan in 1949 to 43,377 yuan in 2025 which is a miracle. The country has eliminated absolute poverty pulling out more than 850 million people from extreme poverty and established the world’s largest systems for education, social security and healthcare. Over the past decades, China has undergone one of the world’s largest and fastest urbanization processes.
China’s 15th Five Year Plan regional as well as global consequences aiming to lay the groundwork for doubling per capita GDP from its 2020 level by 2035, while accelerating breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields. It also emphasizes raising average years of schooling among the working-age population to 11.7 years and life expectancy to 80 years, while further strengthening China’s soft power. In summary, the Long March is not merely an episode of historical interest, but is an inspiration for the spirit of profound commitment to the struggle to build a new socialist China, carrying on the heroic efforts of the past in the new era of the 21st century. The writer hailed the “Long March” as a guiding light, encouraging all of us to persevere even in adverse times, to remain devoted to the path of socialist development and the fight for a bright tomorrow. Thus, it has become gravitas of socio-economic prosperity, connectivity and mutually beneficial propositions for all.
—The writer is President, the Centre for Knowledge and Public Policy, Regional Expert: China, CPEC, BRI & World Affairs.