The view of Suzhou Industrial Park Photo: VCG

Early on Friday morning, a charter flight carrying a business delegation, organized and sponsored by the Suzhou government, took off for Europe. This was the first charter flight carrying an economic and trade group departing for France and Germany since the outbreak of COVID-19. So far, provinces including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Guangdong and Fujian have organized similar activities. It is generally expected that more provinces and cities will join the trend of going overseas to seek business. Racing against time, grabbing more orders and opportunities … these are the most crucial tasks the Chinese companies took on when boarding the plane. It makes the world see the strong endogenous impetus of the Chinese economy.

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held a meeting on December 6, which emphasized the need to unleash society's vitality for initiative, so as to ensure that officials and enterprises dare to make decisions on their own while local authorities and residents dare to blaze new trails. The term "dare" sends the strongest signal - being united and working hard to open up a new horizon and greater space for China's high-quality development with a proactive fighting spirit. It can be said that successive delegations going abroad echo and implement the spirit of the central government, and has set a model for better promotion for sustainable economic and social development in different regions.

In the past three years, China, through united efforts and the strength of the whole country that the outside world can barely imagine, has tenaciously withstood the strongest impact of the COVID pandemic, effectively protected the lives and health of its people while maintaining the overall smooth operation of society and the economy. It has achieved the maximum result of COVID prevention and control at the minimum cost. This is the fundamental premise and condition under which the economy and society can gradually resume normal operations. Today, we took the initiative to confront COVID. With more and more optimized prevention and control measures, the energy of Chinese society, which has been accumulating for a long period, will be continuously released. For this country of more than 1.4 billion people, such energy is enormous.

Daring to fight, to venture, and to confront hardships, this is the general impression the world has of Chinese people. Since reform and opening-up, Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, where people once carried goods on their shoulders and made their living in trade markets with rattle-drums in their hands, has been the starting point of numerous international trade channels linking the entire world. From the time when people set up stalls to do business, to the current high-level opening-up, China's economic status in the world is not what it used to be, but the energy remains the same.

The endogenous power comes from Chinese people's pursuit of better lives. Striving for happiness has long been a common consensus and belief in Chinese society. Over the past years, some people in the US and the West have failed in their attempt to badmouth China's economy, and one important reason is that they did not understand Chinese society or the character of the Chinese people.

People noticed that after the outbreak of COVID-19, the US and some Western countries paid a huge price in terms of human life. Large-scale resignations were seen in countries like the US and the UK after being forced to "open up."

However, an overall scene of "rolling up the sleeves and working hard" and "racing against time" is being witnessed in China, after the country withstood the strongest impact of the virus. The phrase "lying flat" will never be found in the dictionary of China's economic and social development.

For this very reason, in the past three years, despite the multiple impacts of the epidemic and international uncertainties, China's foreign trade has continued to go against the trend and grow, hitting new highs and becoming one of the highlights of the Chinese and global economies.

Many local governments have taken the initiative in the "going overseas to grab orders" surge. When enterprises had concerns about going out due to the epidemic, some local governmental departments took the lead, giving active signals to enterprises. This two-way push from the government and enterprises is one of the "secrets" behind the success of the Chinese economy. In Chinese-style modern economics textbooks, the position of the government is not superior to that of the market, instead there is a unity of an active government and an efficient market. Therefore, we believe that in the process of going overseas, local governments can coordinate development and security, take into account the market and the rule of law, avoid swarms of followers, and be precise in accordance with the situation, which is also the meaning of high-level opening-up.

The vicissitudes of life show a hero's true qualities. Presently, the overall recovery of the world economy is weak, and the haze of the epidemic has not yet completely dissipated. China also faces many challenges. But only when a crisis strikes can we see who the real hero is. We hope that entrepreneurial vitality will be inspired when officials and enterprises dare to make decisions on their own while local authorities and residents dare to blaze new trails, as the new era is the era of those who strive.