Firm foundations

Maintaining priorities

China must also continue to focus on its people to maintain its development path, she says.

"The well-being of people in a peaceful world should remain the central social and political goal of a country. This includes ensuring the most important necessities of life, a fair social and educational system, sustainable protection of the environment and averting the climate catastrophe. This can only be achieved by working together. The maximization of profits for individuals, the exploitation of natural resources and human labor for the benefit of the few stand contrary to these goals," Leutner says.

"It is important to continue to reduce social inequalities and injustices, to bring all people in urban and rural areas along through convincing policies, in order to continue to ensure stability. Stability is important for China itself, but also in international relations and in the global context. Ensuring peace in the world and the need for global multilateral cooperation is essential for all mankind."

The CPC's approach, including its ability to adapt to changes, puts it in good stead to face those challenges, she says.

"Since 1978, the CPC has been shaping China's development strategy, always adapting it to the changing new national and international conditions, and also mastering difficult challenges. This adaptability and mastering challenges to ensure the well-being of the people, such as now in the coronavirus crisis, are important moments of the CPC's success."

Strengthening ties

Moving forward, continued dialogue and exchange, such as those between her country and China, will become even more important, Leutner says.

"German-Chinese relations have developed intensively and very fruitfully for both sides, especially since the 1990s. This applies to all areas: the economy, politics and also science. Both the pandemic and global tendencies toward protectionism and separation pose new challenges for relations, which must be resolved through dialogue in the interest of the well-being of the people in both Germany and China," she says.

"Instead of relying on cliches and negative images of China in Germany that date back to colonial times and the Cold War period, the focus must be on mutual acceptance, dialogue and exchange on an equal footing, and strengthening cooperation in order to solve the world's major problems: the pandemic crisis, the threat of a climate catastrophe, the global security problems, the food crisis emerging in a number of countries-these are tasks that can only be solved together. Germany and China can also make a joint contribution here."