TAO Tao: How to Understand Chinese Modernization with a Large Population

Among the five major characteristics of Chinese modernization, “large population” is the foremost feature. From a global and historical perspective, Chinese modernization with a large population can be summarized in the following four aspects:

1. Unprecedented Scale

In the history of modernization, the population base of Chinese modernization is without precedent. Modernization on a massive scale with a population of over one billion is an unprecedented and grand process in human history. It is destined to create a new chapter in global modernization and inaugurate a new epoch for human development.

2. Gradual and Sustained Progress

At the initial stage of China’s modernization process, China’s population size had already far exceeded that of any other country that has completed modernization. Over more than 70 years of development since then, China’s population has continued to grow, exhibiting the characteristic of “maintaining an enormous absolute scale while experiencing a gradual slowdown in growth rate”.

3. Institutional Advantages

Chinese modernization is socialist modernization, with all people sharing in its achievements. It has created the world’s largest poverty alleviation miracle, established the largest social security network, built the largest education system, and developed the largest healthcare system in the world.

4. Risks and Challenges

Chinese modernization aims to bring happiness to people of all age groups, promote the common prosperity of all ethnic groups, ensure urban and rural residents share development achievements, support the coordinated development of both the resident and migrant populations, and advance the well-being of marriage and family life. Given the diverse needs within such a large population, the process of Chinese modernization will inevitably face numerous challenges.

(The above content is excerpted and translated from the monograph “Chinese Modernization with a Large Population” by TAO Tao, Research Fellow at the National Academy of Development and Strategy and Professor at the Center for Population and Development Studies, Renmin University of China, published by Renmin University Press.)

Original article link:http://www.crup.com.cn/Book/Detail?doi=4cbfd04e-efae-4da7-8036-e8ecfccadf48&urltype=0

Translator: ZHANG Yuqing

Web Editor: ZHANG Jingjing