Photo: Xinhua

This year's two sessions, China's most important annual political events, will convene on May 21 and May 22, according to an official announcement made on Wednesday.

On the same day, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei announced they would lower their emergency response to the COVID-19 epidemic from the top level to the second one. Beijing will also remove quarantine requirements for visitors from low-risk parts of the country. The successive announcements are milestones, showing that China has firmly controlled the epidemic and ushers in a new era to fully resume economic and social activities while making prevention and control work normal. 

The two sessions will finally convene in Beijing after being postponed by more than two months. It means thousands of deputies and representatives from all over the country will gather in the capital city to attend the country's largest legislative and political consultative conferences since the outbreak of the epidemic. This is the best signal that China has brought the epidemic under control and demonstrates the capabilities and confidence of the country with a population of 1.4 billion. 

Witnessing the earlier outbreak of the coronavirus in the world, China is one of the first few countries to explore ways to tamp down the epidemic as well as to end economic shutdown and resume production. China has made great efforts to reduce the number of infections to zero in strict accordance with the epidemiological requirements, and scored a success. It has also strictly guarded against imported cases and domestic rebounds, which has sustained its anti-epidemic results from the first stage. 

The outside world lacks knowledge about China's situation. As the pandemic rages on in the US and Europe, people there can't imagine what China has been doing. The number of infections in the US exceeded 1 million hours before China's decision to fix the dates for the two sessions. Globally, there are more than 3 million confirmed cases. Against this backdrop, China's achievements are particularly prominent. 

Washington, which is shirking its responsibility for its failures in handling the pandemic for political reasons, accused China of covering up infection and death figures. It also claimed China "falsified" its anti-epidemic results. The best answer to the smear is to steadily normalize daily life in China.  

No country can fabricate the recovery of businesses, the relaunch of tourism and resumption of traffic during rush hours, nor can it falsify people's consumption enthusiasm after the epidemic and the leisure group chats on social media. It's easy to tell whether a city has resumed normal life or if it is still struggling. 

China has made a solid step from fighting the coronavirus to recovering its economy. Each decision was not impulsively made, but carefully planned. Although there are many ways to curb the epidemic, China's approach will definitely be evaluated by history as one of the most successful. Lies about China's endeavors against the pandemic will eventually be crushed by facts. 

The pandemic is far from over. The people's fight against the coronavirus is still in the early stage and a graver situation may come next winter in the northern hemisphere. China needs to stay on high alert and cannot and should not lessen its prevention and control work as life returns to normal. It's firmly believed that Chinese people agree on this. China's prevention and control has become a new normal. It is constantly scanning every corner of the society and is ready to cut any new infection chains. 

Normalizing economic and social life will provide China with abundant capital to handle international affairs. No matter how the pandemic fight changes, China will take the initiative. It will have plenty of opportunities to smash US attacks. No challenge can crush us as long as we continue to properly manage ourselves, maintain one of the highest production resumption rates and prevent the rebound of the epidemic.