In a short span of seven decades, People’s Republic of China transformed itself from a poor and backward country into the world’s second-largest economy, largest manufacturer, largest trader in goods, second-largest consumer and second-largest destination of foreign capital with its foreign exchange reserves ranking first for many years in a row and GDP accounting for 15.2 percent of the world’s total.

And for the past several years, China has contributed to over 30 percent of global economic growth.

In sharp contrast to the rise of Western powers who once waged wars of aggression or plundered resources from others, peace is the greatest highlight of China's progress. Through peaceful development, it has managed to enormously improve people’s wellbeing within a short period of time.

Reviewing modern and contemporary history, we can find that the rise of major Western powers was always amid turbulence, wars, violence and bloodshed. Wars ravaged Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, leaving people in the abyss of death and misery.

Some European countries enhanced their military, scientific and technological strengths as well as abilities of military mobilization through these wars, and established by way of overseas expansion and bloody colonization, global markets of capital, goods and raw materials.

In a word, they got the first bucket of gold for industrialization through wars and colonial loot.

Spain in the 16th century and the UK in the 19th century were both colonial empires of global hegemony. Their rise and fall were both stories of aggression and plunder to themselves.

What happened in the American continent was not much different. The colonists ripped off land, resources and wealth through wars and persecution of Indians. The Indians were expelled to so-called reserves, and many killed without mercy.

The second Industrial Revolution, marked by electrification, in the middle and latter half of the 19th century further fueled Western countries' scramble for overseas markets and land of raw materials.

Rich mineral resources made Africa fall into the misery, and the situation worsened since new colonial powers rushed into the contention. By the end of the 19th century, the scramble of Africa was completed.

The sharp contrast between China and Western countries in their rise shows that what China has achieved over the past 70 years really did not come easily. Raw materials are purchased at market prices; goods are sold following international contracts; and since China's per capita resources are limited that all resources are either developed by itself or acquired on fair terms with other countries, China's cost of industrialization is rather high.

What’s more, China needs to address all social disclocations associated with its rapid industrialization within China rather than exporting them abroad as major Western powers did in the past.

China's path of peaceful development is determined by the nature of its socialist system. It is China's unremitting goal to seek development and harmony within the country and pursue cooperation and peace in the international community. This has already become the will of the state, and has been embodied in national development plans and guidelines and implemented in practice.

The Chinese Communist Party’s designation of our times as an era of Peace and Development is crucial for China's peaceful development and promotion of win-win cooperation with other countries.

China exports no revolution or ideology, engages in no arms race or value-oriented diplomacy, and does not intervene into the domestic affairs of other countries. China does not identify a circle of friends based on ideology and transcends the cold-war zero-sum game mentality of either friends or foes, either alliance or confrontation. Instead, it's committed to a path of win-win cooperation and a partner network of global reach is taking shape.

China's participation in the World Trade Organization, the world's largest multilateral trading system, has enormously enhanced win-win cooperation between China and the world, facilitated free flow of production factors in the world, helped China become the world’s biggest trader in goods and made it possible for China and other countries to benefit from the dividend of China’s peaceful development through free and fair trade.

China is both a contributor and a beneficiary of economic globalization. The essence of the Western-propelled globalization over these years is the globalization of neo-liberalism. It is both economic and political, and includes liberalization, privatization, marketization and democratization. Of course, the double-edged sword of globalization, if properly handled will bring wellbeing to people, but if mismanaged will lead to disaster or even obstruct China’s development. Therefore, China has taken an approach of drawing on advantages and avoiding pitfalls to opening up.

China has set a clear definition for globalization: it’s economic, not political. Instead of abandoning socialism, China uses the strengths of socialism to harness the globalization driven by Western countries. This has made China stand out in the international stage and made most the Chinese beneficiaries of economic globalization. In contrast, some countries ran into crisis after crisis after they embraced globalization, as instead of utilizing foreign capital, their economies were totally controlled by foreign capital. In some worst cases, wealth was all robed by foreign financial titans. Some even fell into conflicts and civil wars.

A key reason why China could keep peaceful development is that it has relied on endogenous development. As a super-sized country, China faces population, environmental and social development pressure. But to cope with these pressures, China has had to rely on domestic economic, social and political reforms to constantly emancipate and develop productivity. This forms a sharp contrast to some Western countries which exported their own crisis to others. In many ways, socialism with Chinese characteristics means finding Chinese solutions to various difficulties, including Chinese-style industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization.

Facts have proved that China’s peaceful development is a journey of constantly overcoming challenges of all kinds. China’s current efforts of industrial and consumption upgrading have transformed its previous export-driven economy to a internal consumption-driven one, and China is fast becoming the world's largest consumer market. This has allowed China to handle international trade frictions with a mind of ease and vigorously promote the new-type globalization as embodied by the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Chinese love and cherish peace, and there is a profound historical and cultural tradition in this nation of peaceful development. For most part of the past 2,000 years, China was the world’s largest economy with a far larger and more sophisticated economy than the West of the same epoch. The fleet of Zheng He’s overseas expeditions in China's Ming Dynasty of the first half of the 15th century was 100 times bigger than that of Columbus' when he "discovered" the America. But what China promoted then was only international trade, rather than expansion nor colonization. China has adhered to its age-old motto that a warlike country, however powerful, is doomed for self-destruction.

President Xi Jinping stresses that the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization has always upheld peace; the pursuit of peace and harmony is deeply rooted in the spiritual world of this nation and runs in the blood of its people. The Chinese nation has always advocated precious harmony, peace for the whole world and good neighborly and friendly relations. A century of Western invasion and humiliation in China's modern history have given an acute and deep understanding of the value of peace. Therefore, the PRC, from day one, has made solemn pledges that China will never seek hegemony even when one day it becomes powerful. Indeed, China's success embodies Chinese cultural genes and sense of modernity. China's cultural legacy has been brought into life by reform and opening-up, and has become a major source of inspirations for China's development.

Zhang Weiwei is director of the China Institute, Fudan University and a board member of China National Think Tanks Council.

All rights reserved. Copying or sharing of any content for other than personal use is prohibited without prior written permission.