In ancient times, China was founded on agriculture, and its agricultural civilization has long been at the world's leading level. During the Han Dynasty, China's population exceeded 60 million, and the land reclamation exceeded 800 million mu. In the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an City covers an area of more than 80 square kilometers, with a population of more than 1 million, the palace is splendid, the Buddhist temple pagoda is towering, and the east and west cities are very prosperous. The poet Cen Shen has the verse "Millions of families in Chang'an City". During the Northern Song Dynasty, the country's tax revenue peaked at 160 million guan, making it the richest country in the world at that time. At that time, the population of London, Paris, Venice and Florence was less than 100,000, while there were nearly 50 cities in China with a population of more than 100,000.

After the Industrial Revolution, we began to fall behind, and Western countries developed. After the Opium War, China's self-sufficient natural economy gradually disintegrated, and the opportunity of the industrial revolution was not seized, although the national industry also had some development, and foreign capital also had some entry, such as Shanghai's "Ten Mile Foreign Field", Tianjin's industry, and Wuhan's military production were also famous, but on the whole, the country was poor and backward, war-torn and left behind in the advancing trend of the times. This state lasted for more than 100 years.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, our party led the people to begin large-scale industrialization. Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that our task "is to settle down so that we can build our country's modern industry, modern agriculture, modern scientific culture, and modern national defense." In the 50s of the last century, remarkable results were achieved in national construction. Later, due to the "leftist" mistakes in the guiding ideology, the 10-year catastrophe like the "Cultural Revolution," and our lack of in-depth understanding of the laws governing socialist construction, large-scale industrialization could not be smoothly continued.

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee ushered in a new historical period of reform and opening up. For more than 30 years, despite all the difficulties, we have created the miracle of the longest period of rapid economic growth in a country after the end of the Second World War. China's economic aggregate ranking in the world was 11th at the beginning of reform and opening up; In 2005, it surpassed France to rank fifth; In 2006, it surpassed the United Kingdom to rank fourth; In 2007, it surpassed Germany to rank third; In 2009, it surpassed Japan and ranked second. In 2010, the scale of China's manufacturing industry surpassed that of the United States, ranking first in the world. In a few decades, we have completed the development process that developed countries have gone through for hundreds of years, and created a miracle of world development.

——Speech at the Seminar on the Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (January 18, 2016)

Further reading:

The Han and Tang dynasties are not only forever engraved in the collective memory of Chinese, but also occupy an important position in the history of human civilization, representing the peak of world civilization at that time.

At its peak, the Tang Dynasty stretched from the Korean Peninsula in the east, the Aral Sea in Central Asia in the west, Hue in Vietnam in the south, and Lake Baikal in the north, with a total area of 12.51 million square kilometers. When it comes to the Tang Dynasty, we can always think of its graceful and gorgeous atmosphere, the openness of all rivers, the civilization of courtesy and exchange, and the self-confidence of calmness. At that time, Chang'an could be said to be an international metropolis, where merchants from Central Asia, South Asia, Japan, Arabia and other countries and regions gathered, especially the "Hu merchants" from Central Asia, Persia and Arabia. These "foreign" businessmen not only did business in Chang'an, but also were able to marry wives and have children, settle down and start a business, and even enter the court as officials. According to some data, 29 of the prime ministers of the Tang Dynasty were foreigners, and as many as 3,000 were foreigners. Wang Guowei's poem "Reading History": "The merchant ships of the South China Sea came to eat, and the Xijing Zoroastery built Persia." People from afar are like home, knowing that it is the heyday of the Tang family. It can be used as a portrayal of the strength and openness of the Tang Dynasty.

China's development and prosperity continued during the Song Dynasty, and the world-famous "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" records the prosperity of industry, commerce and urban development in the Song Dynasty. However, since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Western countries have gradually embarked on the road of industrialization, while China's feudal dynasties have become increasingly rigid and conservative, closed off from the country, and missed the opportunity for modernization. In modern times, the Westernization Movement and the Industrial Salvation Movement have all pursued industrialization, but they have all failed because they have not found the right path. Since the founding of New China, especially since the reform and opening up, the Chinese people have found the correct path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and along this road, they have promoted the transformation of an ancient agricultural country into industrialization, let an ancient civilization system draw new branches of modern civilization, and completed the unprecedented feat of combining the scale of 1 billion people with modernization, which has never been seen in human history.

History is the best textbook and the best sobering agent. Xi Jinping attaches great importance to historical comparison, and in his speeches, he often goes up and down 5,000 years and tens of thousands of miles, observing reality and thinking about the future with a broad historical vision. He traces the brilliant achievements of ancient China on the axis of time, focuses on the backwardness and humiliation of modern China, analyzes the curves and overtaking of contemporary China, and shows a picture of China's development from ancient times to the present. From the historical figures, historical details, and historical footage at our fingertips, we can feel the strong pulse of history and clearly understand the historical orientation of the current era.

In Xi Jinping's grand vision, 5,000 years of splendid agricultural civilization, more than 100 years of ups and downs of humiliating history, and more than 30 years of passionate reform and opening up constitute the historical coordinates of the Chinese nation. "The more you know, the more you do." Xi Jinping placed the new development concept in the context of history, in order to more clearly demonstrate the truth power and significance of the new development concept in the examination of time and space, in the observation of history and reality, and in the dialogue between the times and the past, and make it a spiritual force and practical guide for transforming the objective world.