Over the past few years, thanks to the transformation of the development model, China has put an end to its previous growth model featuring large inputs and heavy pollution based on cheap labor force and resources. In the process, the country is making all-out efforts to bridge the regional development gaps and people's income gaps, and to modernize its governing system and capacity.

Governments of various levels are being urged to attach more importance to the quality of growth than to the speed of growth. This means that more resources should be directed to boost industrial upgrading and economic restructuring, and the integration of innovation, green development, opening-up and sharing should be promoted.

The central authorities have provided a road map for local governors to follow in their pursuit of high-quality development. Innovation is defined as the No 1 development driver, and the country is trying its best to realize independence in core technologies and supply chains so as to always hold the initiative in its own hands.

As its negative list for foreign investment becomes shorter and shorter, China is opening up wider to the outside world, and its business environment is improving. The advancing of regional integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and other areas, as well as the opening of the Hainan free trade port and other free trade zones are leading the way in taking the country's opening up to a higher level. The country's joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement as well as other multilateral and bilateral trade and investment pacts, and the success of the China International Import Expo all testify to China's resolve to further integrate into the world economy.

Vowing to peak its carbon emissions before 2030 and realize carbon neutrality before 2060, the country is leaving no stones unturned in its efforts to make sustainable and green development defining attributes of its high-quality development.

As the only major economy to register positive growth last year and one of the few countries to have largely tamed the novel coronavirus, the Chinese economy is assuming an increasingly important role in the world, as evidenced by the soaring of its foreign trade with almost all of its trade partners in recent quarters.

All these positive changes point to the fact that China has already laid its foot on the new journey of building a modern socialist country. And all the hardships and challenges it overcomes will only make it stronger.