Didl Tang Beijing in The Times told of Xi Jinping's dream: "China will be world leader by 2050".
When war broke out in Yemen in 2015, a Chinese frigate docked at the port of Aden and, under armed escort, evacuated hundreds of Chinese citizens to Djibouti. The success of the military operation showed the world how far China had come. It was once a backward country struggling to feed its people and would never be able to carry out a complex rescue mission for its citizens who live thousands of miles away.
So said Zhang Zuohe - who had worked in Yemen for a state-owned company - about the rescue: "When the ship approached, with the loudspeaker saying: Chinese compatriots, we came to take you home, everyone was cheering and shouting: “Long live China". The operation inspired two blockbuster films, one of which, Wolf warrior 2, which grossed $ 608,6 million at the box office. Seven decades after its founding, the People's Republic of China has become a tightly controlled economic power with military expansion and growing technological capability. President Xi has promised that his country will become a "global leader" by 2050. "The greatest dream for the Chinese nation is to realize its rejuvenation"Xi said in a speech last October, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the domination of the Communist Party. Although China's economic expansion has slowed down this year, it is expected to surpass the United States in the next decade to become the world's largest economy. Xi Jinping, 66, also hopes to reshape the world order with the help of the controversial initiative Belt and Road, which connects China with Africa and Europe through land and sea networks, increasing its geopolitical weight, as well as trade and economic growth.
When in 1996 a group of nationalist authors wrote a successful book, China Can Say No, the title seemed an unattainable dream, but today it is no longer. This year, the Chinese president refused to give in to pressure from Washington during a trade war on the latest proclamation. There is now a slowdown in tensions between the US and China.
Radical changes have not been registered in the social field. The population in China is no freer than it was 10 years ago. State control has increased. Testimony is the detention of over one million Uyghur Muslims in "re-education camps".
Since 2012, China has experimented with a high-tech social credit system that echoes the Communist Party's file system, which kept a file on every citizen. Surveillance is pervasive. Using big data, artificial intelligence and high-resolution surveillance, a social credit score is created for every citizen that evaluates all aspects of a person's life. These high-tech tools support administration. They save energy, keep an updated list of organ donors, allow you to pay taxes and bills in real time and follow the flow of traffic in the metropolis.
Anyone on the blacklist will have restrictions on travel, access to loans, work and even the education of their children. Prison is certain for criminals: Chinese courts boast a conviction rate of nearly 100%. In the economic sphere, China's results are undeniable. Decades of strong growth have transformed China from a poor country to an upper-middle-income country.
Its GDP reached $ 13 trillion in 2017, compared to $ 20 trillion in the United States and $ 18 trillion in the EU. China's GDP was about one-tenth of that of the United States in 1996. Life expectancy has increased from 35 in 1949 to 77 today.
Now China has the third most powerful military force after the United States and Russia. The navy recently commissioned its first entirely in-house aircraft carrier, adding two aircraft carriers to its fleet. A third is under construction, equipped with advanced electromagnetic catapults for launching fighters. In October along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Beijing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Communist Party showed all its military power with 580 weapon systems, including drones and missiles, Among them was the DF-41, a nuclear-powered missile that can reach the United States in 30 minutes. This year China became the first country to land on the far side of the moon and built the largest radio telescope in the world: the five hundred meters wide spherical radio telescope (FAST). China has also created numerous "super projects", including the world's largest high-speed rail network and the longest sea bridge, the Hong Kong Zhuhai-Macau of 55 km.