Editor's note: The process of reform and opening-up over the past 40 years has never been plain sailing, rather it has been sailing against the current, comments columnist Zhuo Ji in a recent post. Excerpts:

Over the past 40 years, China's gross domestic product has increased from 8 percent that of the United States to 63 percent. But behind this remarkable statistic has been the liberation of people's minds.

A public debate in mid 1977 concluded that we should seek the truth through practice, which later became a social consensus inspiring the people to cross the river by feeling the stones.

Economic reform followed suit, breaking through a number of regulatory and institutional restrictions in various fields. Private property ownership was protected and people were encouraged to strive for better lives and realize their personal dreams, which used to be based on the improvement of collective well-being before.

It took considerable courage and foresight for a country, which had worried about Western influence and the influx of foreign capital and thinking for decades, to open its door to the developed countries in a short time. But the experiences of the past 40 years prove that the decision was of strategic importance to not only China but also the world.

China's foreign trade volume rocketed from $14.8 billion in 1977 to $4.1 trillion in 2017. China has integrated into the process of economic globalization, which provides it with a shortcut to catch up with the developed economies and build up its learning curve to transform made in China to made by China. China has already built its strengths in some emerging technologies and industries.

The country's development comes from the Chinese people's hard work. It has about 360 million workers and each year more than 8 million students graduate from universities. More importantly, the quality of the working population has been constantly improving, which will stoke China's industrial upgrading and economic restructuring for further development.