On November 28th, Chinese Ambassador to Jamaica Tian Qi contributed an signature article entitled Seize Historic Opportunity to Build a Bright Future for China-Jamaica Relations to Jamaica Observer, introducing the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The full text is as follows:

The sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was convened in Beijing from November 8 to 11, 2021. At the session, the Central Committee considered and adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century, and decided to convene the 20th National Congress of the CPC in the second half of 2022 in Beijing.

This session is an important meeting held at an significant juncture marking the CPC’s centenary and the convergence of China’s two centenary goals. At the session, the historical significance of the CPC’s endeavors over the past century was highlighted as follows: they have fundamentally transformed the future of the Chinese people, opened up the right path for achieving rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, demonstrated the strong vitality of Marxism, produced a profound influence on the course of world history, and made the CPC a forerunner of the times. It was stated at the session that the CPC has accumulated valuable historical experience over the past century, which covers the following ten aspects: upholding the Party’s leadership, putting the people first, advancing theoretical innovation, staying independent, following the Chinese path, maintaining a global vision, breaking new ground, standing up for ourselves, promoting the united front, and remaining committed to self-reform.

It was stressed at the session that the CPC has established Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and defined the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. This reflects the common will of the Party, the armed forces, and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, and is of decisive significance for advancing the cause of the Party and the country in the new era and for driving forward the historic process of national rejuvenation.

The Resolution summarized the historic achievements and shifts made by the Chinese people under the leadership of the CPC in the new era in 13 aspects, namely upholding the Party’s overall leadership, full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, economic development, reform and opening up, political work, comprehensively advancing law-based governance, cultural advancement, social development, eco-environmental advancement, national defense and the armed forces, safeguarding national security, upholding the policy of One Country, Two Systems and promoting national reunification, and foreign affairs. Through tenacious struggle, the CPC and the Chinese people showed the world that the Chinese nation has achieved the tremendous transformation from standing up and growing rich to becoming strong.

Since its founding in 1921, the CPC has made seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation its original aspiration and mission. The CPC is also a political party that strives for the advancement of humankind and has made making new and greater contributions to its mission. Over the past century, the CPC has always persisted in closely associating the future of the Chinese people with that of other peoples of the world, held high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and win-win results, promoted the shared human values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom, and stood on the right side of history and on the side of human progress. China has been providing its solutions to common challenges faced by humankind, putting forward its proposals for building fair and reasonable international order, and contributing its wisdom to building a better world.

The major achievements and historical experience of the CPC over the past century and the development history of some other countries has proved that it will not work for one country to just copy the political systems and development paths of other countries. Every country should find political system and development path suited to its own national conditions. China’s whole-process people’s democracy shows that democracy is not an exclusive patent of Western countries and every country has the right to choose its own way to realize democracy, which provides valuable reference for other developing countries to explore their democracy pattern suited to their national situations. China’s road to modernization shows that modernization is not equivalent to Westernization and diversifies the approaches to realize modernization, which provides new option for those countries and ethnic groups seeking accelerated development while maintaining their independence. China’s peaceful development shows that a major country can find a new path of being strong while not seeking hegemony, which could rewrite the story of a strong country necessarily becoming hegemonic in the past and thus inject more momentum into world peace and stability.

Since its independence 59 years ago, Jamaica has endeavored to explore and find a development path suited to its national conditions. Jamaica has formulated and is implementing the Vision 2030 Jamaica, and has yielded positive progress in many fields. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 49 years ago, China and Jamaica have been maintaining sound bilateral relations and continuously strengthening cooperation in various areas, making positive contributions to promoting the socioeconomic development of the two countries and enhancing the well-being of the two peoples. In recent years, Jamaica established strategic partnership and signed cooperation plan on jointly promoting the Belt and Road cooperation with China, which injected new and strong impetus into bilateral relations and cooperation.

2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Jamaica and the 60th anniversary of the independence of Jamaica, and the CPC will also convene its 20th National Congress in 2022, which provides important historic opportunity for strengthening China-Jamaica relations. China stands ready to keep close communication and cooperation with Jamaica to strengthen exchange of experiences in governance, enhance synergy among each other’s development strategies, continuously pursue high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and jointly implement the Global Development Initiative with the aims to build a bright future for China-Jamaica strategic partnership, enlarge broad space for mutually-beneficial China-Jamaica cooperation, jointly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve early economic recovery and development, and bring more benefits to our two countries and two peoples.