China offers "new path for modernization" for others - US scholar

China has made great achievements in building a modern socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), offering "a new path for modernization for other countries," a leading US expert on China has said.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, has closely followed China's development over the past 30 years. He told Xinhua that he had watched the live broadcast of the opening session of the 20th CPC National Congress, where General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a report.

The description of Chinese modernization "to me is a very significant part of the report," Kuhn said.

Xi's report said that building a human community with a shared future is one of the essential requirements of Chinese modernization, which shows China's readiness to share its global responsibility, said Kuhn.

The U.S. scholar has visited more than 100 cities and villages in China and witnessed tremendous changes across the country.

"The concept of people-centered philosophy is indeed the foundation of how the CPC sees its mission," he said, adding that to build a human community with a shared future is to bring China's people-centered concept to the world.

The world has been fragmented and the fragmentation has caused many different problems that no country can tackle on its own, said Kuhn.

The "overarching concept" of the vision is "an international community with a common future," and it is a shared future for the people and for humanity, he said.

The vision of building a human community with a shared future is a great vision of improving global governance, "bringing a Chinese way of thinking, and bringing peace and prosperity to the world," Kuhn said.

Kuhn noted that building a human community with a shared future is "not just another political phrase," because China has initiated three great programs to help make the vision a reality -- the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Security Initiative (GSI).

Kuhn and his team have spent three years to complete a documentary titled "Voices From the Frontline: China's War on Poverty," which documents the poverty alleviation plan in China.

The documentary provides a textured and intimate portrayal of China's poverty alleviation by following six cases that highlight China's strategy and the systems as well as the organization needed to implement it.

Kuhn has conducted an in-depth study on how China shares its poverty alleviation experience with other countries.

"The poverty alleviation campaign is a very important part of that because most of the countries have poor people and I've spent a lot of time looking at how you transfer China's experience to other countries," said Kuhn.

"It's not simple ... It's a whole approach. Not only does the GDI have to bring people out of poverty and provide health-care, education, but it also needs to help local industry develop as well," said Kuhn.

In addition to the international system with the United Nations at the core, Kuhn said, diverse multinational organizations like BRICS (the acronym for an emerging-market bloc that groups together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have contributed to global security, and their role is now broadening.

"China's view is to have these multilateral organizations, so that different nations can work together and have a very specific objective of having real dialogue," said Kuhn.