Xinhua Insight: "Xi political economy" renews China's modernization drive (2)

that is, to promote coordinated economic, political, cultural, social and ecological progress -- has been proved effective over the past four years.

The world economy is troubled by a sluggish recovery, flagging international trade, some backsliding on globalization and weak growth momentum in major economies.

In contrast, China's economic growth, although in a slowdown, is still one of the highest in the world and continues to power global growth.

China aims to quadruple its GDP from 2000 levels by 2020. In constant prices, the country's GDP last year was about 4.22 times that in 2000, which means that it met the 2020 goal in advance, Hu Angang said.

Chen Dongqi, an economist with the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission, said, "It's more important that this was achieved through China's voluntary structural adjustment and forceful promotion of supply-side structural reform, so it means it is of higher quality."

There will be about 440 million middle-class households in China after the country realizes its goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, Chen estimated. "There is great consumption potential to be tapped in China."

In terms of political development, efforts have been made to introduce new rules and systems to advance the rule of law, reform administrative institutions, improve the people's congress system -- which is China's fundamental political system -- and promote socialist consultative democracy.

Moreover, China has built the world's largest modern public cultural system covering the largest population.

In 2015, the country's broadcasting and TV programs covered more than 98 percent of its population. Its public libraries, cultural centers and museums received nearly 2 billion visitors.

Chinese people's quality of life has markedly improved, with the average growth rate of per capita income of urban and rural residents standing at 7.7 and 9.6 percent respectively between 2011 and 2015. The average life expectancy in China reached 76.34 years in 2015, compared with 74.83 years in 2010.

In a major ecological achievement, China is gradually decoupling its economic growth from heavy resource consumption and pollution.

In 2015, its industrial water consumption dropped 7.8 percent from the figure in 2010, while its agricultural water consumption was 1.8 percent lower than the peak year of 2013.

It cut energy use per unit of GDP down to 7.007 megajoule in 2015, which is close to the average level of middle- and high-income countries.

"China's overall approach to modernization has made major achievements since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, lifting comprehensive national strength to a new level," Hu said. (mo