Five years on: The steady strides of the Chinese path to modernization

The Tangshan Port in Hebei Province, a major port in north China, January 19, 2026. [Photo/Xinhua]

By Qian Haoqi

The past five years have not been easy. A sluggish global economy, mounting geopolitical tensions and complex domestic structural adjustments have tested the resilience of every major economy. Yet China has delivered a performance that defied expectations.

From 2021 to 2025, despite headwinds, the country's GDP climbed from 110 trillion yuan ($17.3 trillion) to 140 trillion yuan – with an average annual growth rate of 5.4%. Per capita GDP exceeded $13,000 for three consecutive years. Throughout this period, China contributed roughly 30% of global economic growth, underscoring its role as a stabilizer and reliable engine for the world economy.

Economic strength reaches new heights

The story, however, is not just about scale; it is about structural evolution. The upgrading of the industrial structure has driven the coordinated growth of producer services, including information technology, modern finance and business services. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), the digital economy core industry expanded from about 8.1 trillion yuan to over 14.7 trillion yuan, with its share of GDP rising from 7.8% to 10.5%.

In 2025, value added from high-tech manufacturing above designated size accounted for 17.1% of all large-scale industrial enterprises, contributing 26.1% of industrial growth. Reform and opening up continued to deepen, with steady progress in building a unified national market.

These efforts have not only counteracted the adverse impacts of a changing external environment but also anchored the economy and cemented its foundation for future growth.

A production workshop of the ABB Robotics Mega Factory in Shanghai, east China, April 2, 2026. [Photo/Xinhua]

Innovation emerges as a powerful engine

China has become one of the world's fastest-rising innovation economies. Research and development intensity hit 2.8% in 2025, surpassing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average for the first time. Advanced manufacturing has seen intensive breakthroughs: The C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first domestically-manufactured large passenger jet, entered commercial service; the first domestically built large cruise ship, Adora Magic City, was delivered and entered commercial service; and the "Hualong One" and "Guohe One" nuclear power units now generate over 10 billion kWh annually per unit. China has become the only country in the world with complete construction capabilities for all three top-tier ship types – aircraft carriers, large cruise ships and large liquefied natural gas carriers.

Innovation, however, is not confined to laboratories or cutting-edge frontiers. It is being translated into productivity gains and tangible improvements in daily life. In 2025, new energy vehicles surpassed 50% of domestic auto sales penetration for the first time – a milestone that signals not just technological prowess but also the reach of Chinese modernization into every household.

The deployment of new scenarios such as "5G+", "artificial intelligence (AI)+", and "Industrial Internet+" has been accelerated. Chinese enterprises such as DeepSeek and Unitree are making their mark in emerging AI fields like large language models and embodied intelligence.

Shared prosperity: No one left behind

The 14th Five-Year Plan period also marked a critical transition from consolidating poverty alleviation gains to comprehensively advancing rural revitalization. By the end of 2025, China had identified and provided targeted assistance to over 7 million vulnerable individuals, steadily eliminating their risk of returning to poverty. Access to compulsory education, basic medical care, housing security and safe drinking water for those once impoverished continued to improve. New quality productive forces have reached deep into agriculture.

China has built over 666,000 square kilometers of high-standard farmland, and the contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress reached 63.2% by the end of 2024.

Xihaigu, a mountainous area in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China – once synonymous with entrenched poverty – is a vivid testament to how the Chinese path to modernization delivers real change on the ground. More than 800,000 people here have escaped poverty and the region has transformed from a "dry sand beach" into a "golden beach."

Ecological civilization, a distinctive Chinese innovation in practice

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China's ecological and environmental quality has continued to improve. The proportion of days with good air quality in cities at the prefecture level and above has approached 90%, and the proportion of surface water with good quality exceeded 90%. While building the world's largest carbon emissions trading market, China has entered a new historical stage of "synergizing pollution reduction and carbon reduction."

To advance the "Beautiful China" initiative, the 14th Five-Year Plan period introduced and implemented an ecological environment zoning control policy, a major exploration in institutional innovation to boost new quality productive forces. This is a vital pathway to realizing the vision that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets."

Five years ago, the Chinese path to modernization was articulated as a vision. Today, it is a lived reality measured in GDP milestones, patent filings, transformed villages and cleaner skies. China today stands at a critical juncture in achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The achievements of the past five years prove that this path is viable and stable. The Chinese path to modernization is not only China's story, it is a global one.

The breakthroughs made in economic development, technological innovation, shared prosperity and ecological civilization offer valuable experience for countries around the world, including those in the Global South. Modernization is not a single template. There are multiple paths, and China is steadily forging its own.

Qian Haoqi, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor and associate dean at the Institute for Global Public Policy, and an assistant director at the MOE Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance under the Fudan University.