Sustainable development to be future goal of China, according to experts
China has lifted more than 700 million people
out of poverty in the past decades and the Chinese people have enjoyed a better
standard of living, which is the biggest achievement since the founding of the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, said Yongjing Zhang, associate
professor of economics in the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public
and International Affairs.
China has also made great achievements in pollution
control, forest coverage, desertification control, and garbage and sewage
treatment, Zhang said in a recent interview with Xinhua before the 70th
anniversary of the founding of the PRC.
“People in Beijing and Shanghai are seeing more days of
blue sky, like this in Ottawa today,” Zhang said.
Zhang added China is still on the direction of Deng
Xiaoping, the architect of China’s reform and opening up since the late 1970s.
“China wants its people to improve their lives.”
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, In
2018, 121 of the 338 cities at and above the prefecture level met the ambient
air quality standards, accounting for 35.8 percent, an increase of 14.2
percentage points over 2015. The average number of good days in 338 cities was
79.3 percent, an increase of 2.6 percentage points over 2015.
Zhang said that when people reach a certain level of
development, they start to care more about the environment.
A garbage agency was established in Shanghai
recently to handle recyclable garbage and other kinds of garbage with the use
of different bins. "That's a social progress," Zhang said. "With
time going people realize the importance of the environment and the government
realizes it."
"This improvement in air quality didn't
happen by accident. It was the result of an enormous investment of time,
resources and political will," the scholar said, noting that sustainable
development will be the goal of China in the future.
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