China's success proves that socialism is not dead. It is thriving. Just imagine this: had socialism failed in China, had our communist party collapsed like the party in the Soviet Union, then global socialism would lapse into a long dark age. And communism, like Karl Marx once said, would be a haunting spectre lingering in limbo.

Chinese socialism, if you like to call it that, seeks above all else to preserve the birthrights of the individual. No state can be great and prosperous unless the people are contented.

If the Chinese people want to realize the great revival of the Chinese nation and change the Western model of modernization through which the West has dominated the world, providing late-developing countries with the ‘China solution’ to modernization, they must engage in uncompromising struggle. ... "History looks kindly on those with resolve, with drive and ambition, and with courage; it won’t wait for the hesitant, the apathetic, or those who shy from a challenge" [Xi Jinping]. The former is the master who achieves victory through struggle, while the latter lacks the courage to struggle, and will necessarily suffer the fate of a slave.

China could only resist foreign aggression and develop its industry by instituting democracy and unifying the country.

The capitalist road was tried and found wanting. Reformism, liberalism, social Darwinism, anarchism, pragmatism, populism, syndicalism - they all were given their moment on the stage. They all failed to solve the problems of China's future destiny. It is Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought that guided the Chinese people out of the darkness of that long night and established a New China; it is through socialism with Chinese characteristics that China has developed so quickly.

I have already referred to Chinese socialism, for our political compass shows our ship of state ploughing in that direction. Nevertheless, some people are alarmed at the very word ‘socialism,’ much as a timid horse shies away from its own shadow. Actually, though not called by that name, socialism has influenced national thought in China for decades, even amid the confusion caused by civil unrest and the present war. But it does not have any affiliation with communism. The Chinese do not accept the much-mooted theory of enriching the poor by dispossessing present owners of their wealth, nor do they believe such a step would give any prospect of an enduring alleviation of poverty and human misery.

This experience and the historical experiences gained by the Party since its founding can be summarized as follows: Our Party must always represent the requirements for developing China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. These are the inexorable requirements for maintaining and developing socialism, and the logical conclusion our Party has reached through hard exploration and great praxis.

The only way out for China is to eradicate feudal relics and achieve freedom and equality.

Unless China takes certain steps to save itself, nothing will prevent it from collapsing.

[W]e can... do our best to rise above... sensationalism, stereotypes, and es. Only then can we engage with China in a measured... effective way, critique... and ask good questions. Until we do... we will... get China wrong... when... common purpose has become crucial to addressing... existential threats...

… only mass social movements can save us now. Because we know where the current system, left unchecked, is headed. We also know, I would add, how that system will deal with the reality of serial climate-related disasters: with profiteering, and escalating barbarism to segregate the losers from the winners. p. 450

Today's world, as we all know, is faced with multiple threats. From whichever angle I look at this menace, I always come to the conclusion that salvation can only come through a profound awakening of man to his own personal responsibility, which is at the same time a global responsibility. Thus, the only way to save our world, as I see it, lies in a democracy that recalls its ancient Greek roots: democracy based on an integral human personality personally answering for the fate of the community.

At the time of the victory of the democratic revolution China was extremely and backward in economy, with the proletariat accounting for only a tiny portion of the population and the peasants for more than 80 per cent. Was it possible for a big country in such circumstances to switch over immediately to the socialist revolution upon the victory of the democratic revolution? More than a few people, at home and abroad, inside our Party and outside, expressed their doubts or simply thought it impossible.

Beginning in the late 1970s, China overcame centuries of stagnation precisely because Mao’s successors understood that they had to decentralise the People’s Republic, giving economic if not political power to the people. If western commentators are right, Xi Jinping wants to go in the opposite direction. If the Chinese are lucky, he will turn out to be an enlightened absolutist, like Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. If they are unlucky, he will be just another emperor who fondly dreamt of controlling a fifth of humanity.