CPC's achievements offer valuable insights for global governance today

Xinhua

Nearly 200 scholars from home and abroad participated in the 9th World Forum on China Studies in Shanghai.

The two-day forum is an open, high-level platform that reflects on the latest trends and research findings in contemporary Chinese studies to facilitate exchanges of innovative ideas between China and the rest of the world.

The forum is themed on "The Communist Party of China, China and the World" to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China this year.

In his keynote speech, Jiang Jianguo, the deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, said that only from CPC's one hundred years of glorious struggle and its achievements can one account for the Party's past successes, thus affording important and beneficial insights into the global governance today.

He expressed the hope that scholars, guided by the basic facts about the Party's governance practice, would stay up-to-date about China's progress and contribute positively to the betterment of the world.

Gong Zheng, the deputy secretary of CPC Shanghai Committee and the mayor of Shanghai, said that over the past one hundred years the Party has fundamentally changed China, and the city of Shanghai. He expressed the hope that international academia could, through the important window of Shanghai, get to know and study China better. Gong pledged further efforts to make the city a China studies center with global influence.

Former president of Serbia, Boris Tadi?, explained the many-layered connotation of modernization, suggesting that "China is offering a role model to the world that has been stuck for a long time in a trap where the traditional Western meaning of modernization does not respond to contemporary challenges anymore."

He said that, compared to what China is doing today, the term modernization sounds outdated.

"That means that China is, by its example, giving a lecture to the world that is struggling with the consequences of what once was thought as modern and prosperous," the former president said.

In the afternoon session on Monday, the forum announced the winners of the Award for Distinguished Contribution to China Studies. It was followed by the winners' acceptance speeches.

The awards this year went to Michael Loewe, a fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Joseph W. Esherick, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, USA, and Chia-ying Yeh, director of Institute of Chinese Classical Culture, Nankai University.

The World Forum on China Studies is a Shanghai-based academic event sponsored by the State Council Information Office and the Shanghai Municipal Government, and jointly organized by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Information Office of Shanghai Municipality.