What They Say

William Brown

William Brown was a young airman in the United States Air Force when he became interested in China. Driven by curiosity, he moved with his family to Xiamen in 1988, where for three decades he has witnessed the changes since reform and opening-up began. He won the Touching China's 2019 Person of the Year award.

The Chinese dream embodies the shared ideals-and all people share that same dream-of a peaceful and moderately prosperous life for their families and children. This is why people around the world admire China for its consistency in fighting poverty for 70 years, and not just at home, but abroad as well.

In 1994, our family drove 40,000 kilometers around China in three months to see how reforms had affected life, even in remote areas of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Xizang. Some places were so poor that UNESCO said they were hopeless. But UNESCO was wrong. Thirty years ago, China's strategy was "roads first, then riches".

This was simple and pragmatic, but as I found 25 years later, it was very effective.

In 2019, with the help of Xiamen University's School of Management and New Channel International Education Group, I drove around China again, but thanks to new roads it was only 20,000 km and 32 days. And even the people in supposedly hopeless areas like Ningxia were prospering, with new homes and concrete roads right to their doorsteps.

And in remote Tibetan valleys, the nomads prospered with e-commerce, thanks to the world's most extensive internet system.

And, as in the 1950s and 1960s, China continues to help other poor nations with the Belt and Road Initiative-which is basically exporting China's successful "roads first then riches" strategy.

My son Matthew and his wife, who do volunteer medical and social work in Africa, said that even the most remote areas have Chinese working hand in hand with Africans to build the roads, highways, dams and ports that will help them lift themselves from poverty.

No wonder my African friends are so grateful to China, and the UN secretary-general said in 2017 that the world's only hope for ending poverty was China's precise poverty alleviation.

Thank you, China, for allowing me to witness the Chinese dream fulfilled, and I look forward to it becoming the world's Dream as well-peace and moderate prosperity shared by all peoples.