On 10th July, acting Consul General Miao Miao’s article “A Key to Understanding China’s Governance Achievements”, was published in major South African media outlets the iol website. The full article reads as follows:
In discussions about development, people often look first at visible results: roads and railways, factories and ports, schools and hospitals, poverty reduction and rising living standards. These are important signs of progress. But they also point to a deeper question: how can a country turn long-term national goals into steady improvements in people’s lives?
This question is shared by many countries of the Global South. Modernisation is not a ready-made formula, nor does it follow only one road. It is shaped by history, culture, institutions, resources and the choices of each people. No country can simply copy another’s path. Yet countries can learn from one another in the search for effective governance, sustainable development and a better future.
China’s experience is one contribution to this wider conversation. As a large developing country with more than 1.4 billion people, China has faced complex challenges in pursuing development, maintaining stability and improving livelihoods. Its achievements were not produced by one policy or one moment. They were built over time, through the ability to keep a clear direction while adjusting methods in light of changing circumstances.
This is a meaningful moment to reflect on that experience. On July 1st, China celebrated the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. For more than a century, the Communist Party of China has led the Chinese people in achieving remarkable progress admired around the world and in making historic contributions of lasting significance. This year also marks the beginning of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan period, covering 2026 to 2030. The world is also moving closer to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. For developing countries, development remains urgent, practical and closely connected with people’s daily lives.
Continuity and Adaptation
One way to understand China’s governance achievements is to look at the relationship between continuity and change. Development requires patience. Infrastructure, education, healthcare, industrial upgrading, poverty reduction, rural revitalisation and environmental protection all take years of coordination and investment. A country must be able to look beyond short-term pressures and remain focused on long-term tasks.
China’s Five-Year Plans reflect this emphasis on continuity. In practice, they are strategic roadmaps. They set priorities, guide resources and provide policy direction, while allowing room for local exploration and adjustment. Their value lies not only in planning itself, but in connecting planning with implementation. Goals must be translated into concrete tasks, and policies must be followed through at different levels.
Continuity, however, does not mean refusing change. Reform has been central to China’s development. Since reform and opening up, China has advanced through trial, experience and adjustment. Many important measures began as pilot programmes, local experiments or sectoral reforms before being expanded more widely. This approach has allowed China to test solutions in real conditions, learn from practice and improve policies step by step.
This is why China’s governance should not be understood as a fixed model. It has been an evolving process. From special economic zones to industrial parks, from rural reform to digital governance, from poverty alleviation to green development, China has often moved by combining national direction with practical experimentation. In a changing world, governance must provide stability while remaining capable of renewal.
Development for the People
Another part of China’s experience is its people-centred approach. Economic growth is necessary, but growth is not the final measure of development. The real test is whether people live better lives and have greater opportunities.
China’s campaign against extreme poverty illustrates this approach. Rather than applying one formula everywhere, China identified poor households, studied local conditions and adopted targeted measures, including better infrastructure, local industries, education, healthcare and relocation where necessary. The significance of this experience is not only the scale of poverty reduction. It also shows that effective governance must reach real people in real places.
National averages are important, but they cannot replace understanding the actual conditions of households, villages and communities. This people-centred approach continues to shape China’s emphasis on employment, education, public health, social security and rural revitalisation. Modernisation should be measured not only by cities, industries or technology, but also by whether more people can share in development.
Green development offers another example of China’s continuing adjustment. As a developing country, China has had to balance growth, industrialisation, energy security and environmental protection. This is a difficult task for any country. Yet China has made major progress in renewable energy, electric vehicles, battery technology and green infrastructure. For the Global South, the green transition must be fair, practical and supportive of development.
Diverse Paths, Shared Learning
China’s governance experience also has a wider meaning. For a long time, modernisation was sometimes presented as if there were only one path. China’s journey shows that development paths can be diverse. A country can learn from the world while remaining rooted in its own conditions. It can open itself to cooperation while preserving the right to choose a path suited to its own people.
This is also the spirit in which China approaches cooperation with Africa. China does not seek to export a model, nor does it believe that one country has all the answers. Cooperation should be based on equality, mutual respect and mutual learning. China’s cooperation with African countries has focused on practical areas such as infrastructure, trade, investment, agriculture, education, public health and people-to-people exchanges, because development is the foundation of peace, dignity and stability.
China and South Africa are both important members of the Global South. The two countries share a long-standing friendship, strong political mutual trust and broad space for cooperation. Here in KwaZulu-Natal, exchanges in trade, investment, clean energy, skills development, tourism, the digital economy, education and local-level cooperation can help bring partnership closer to communities and daily life.
Such cooperation is not about one side teaching the other. It is about drawing on each other’s strengths, learning from each other’s experience and creating opportunities suited to local conditions.
A Practical Key
The key to understanding China’s governance achievements is not a mystery. It is to see how a large developing country has sought to combine continuity with reform, planning with implementation, national development with people’s well-being, and domestic progress with openness to the world.
Governance, in the final analysis, is about whether a country can turn its vision into reality. China’s journey shows that development is built step by step, through long-term effort, practical action and constant learning. This may be one useful key to understanding China’s experience, and also one contribution China can share in the common pursuit of development among countries of the Global South.
https://iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/2026-07-09-understanding-chinas-governance-key-achievements-and-lessons-for-the-global-south/