BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China rang in the new year on Thursday, closing an extraordinary year widely seen as pivotal for the country's development.
2025 marked the successful completion of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, a period during which the country posted notable gains in economic strength, scientific and technological capabilities, defense capabilities, and composite national strength, pressing ahead with its modernization drive.
Economic performance stood out. China's gross domestic product is expected to have grown by around 5 percent in 2025, keeping it among the fastest-growing major economies, while total output is projected to reach roughly 140 trillion yuan (about 20 trillion U.S. dollars).
Summarizing 2025, President Xi Jinping noted that China's economy had "pressed ahead under pressure and advanced toward new and higher-quality growth."
Despite escalating global trade tensions and the convergence of domestic cyclical and structural challenges, the world's second-largest economy faced significant tests but demonstrated greater resilience than many anticipated.
That resilience rests on a clear strategy. "It is imperative to confront the uncertainty of rapid external changes with the certainty of high-quality domestic development," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
In April, the United States announced "reciprocal tariffs" on all trading partners, which quickly escalated into an unprecedented tariff war. Under Xi's leadership, China responded with calm resolve and effective measures.
Xi held four phone calls with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, reiterating that the two countries can help each other succeed and prosper together. Chinese and American teams held multiple rounds of consultations, yielding substantial progress. This injected much-needed stability into the turbulent global trade landscape.
Innovation, in Xi's telling, is the way forward -- a theme woven through his speeches and inspection tours throughout the year.
In April, Xi visited a fast-growing large-model incubator in Shanghai, China's AI hub. The tour came days after a CPC leadership study session on artificial intelligence, at which he called for AI-driven technological innovation, industrial upgrading and applications. Xi has repeatedly framed AI as strategically vital if China is to seize the next wave of scientific and industrial transformation.
China's decade-long push for innovation is paying off. In 2025, it entered the top 10 of the Global Innovation Index. China is one of the economies with the fastest-growing innovation capacity, Xi said in his 2026 New Year message delivered on Wednesday.
"Many large AI models have been competing in a race to the top, and breakthroughs have been achieved in the research and development of our own chips," Xi said.
Besides innovation, reform and opening up -- long seen as an engine powering China's miraculous economic rise -- remain key to unlocking fresh potential. In November, Xi visited the southern island province of Hainan, just a month before it implemented island-wide special customs operations in the Hainan Free Trade Port.
"We have stayed on the path of reform and opening up with Chinese characteristics, step by step, to reach where we are today," he said during the trip.
Turning Hainan into a special customs supervision zone -- allowing freer entry of overseas goods, broader zero-tariff coverage and more business-friendly rules -- marked a key step for China to open wider to the rest of the world.
Over the past year, a series of reform measures came into force. China enacted a law promoting the private sector and revised its anti-unfair competition legislation. The negative list for foreign investment was shortened further. Access was widened in services such as telecoms and healthcare. Visa rules were also eased, with unilateral exemptions for nearly 50 countries alongside expanded visa-free transit schemes.
"As Chinese modernization has advanced through reform and opening up," Xi has said, "it will embrace broader horizons through further reform and opening up."
BLUEPRINT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
While 2025 tested resilience, it also heightened the focus on what lies ahead. In October, the CPC Central Committee adopted recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan at a key Party plenum, charting the country's development path from 2026 through 2030.
The upcoming five-year plan carries unusual weight, as only 10 years remain before 2035 -- the milestone year by which China aims to "basically achieve socialist modernization." This marks the first goal in Xi's two-step blueprint for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects by mid-century.
"Socialist modernization can only be realized through a historical process of gradual and ongoing development," Xi told the plenum. "It requires the unremitting hard work of generation after generation."
In the months leading up to the meeting, Xi toured factories and communities to refine priorities for the next five years. From a steel mill in Liaoning to a bearing plant in Henan, he stressed that the real economy remains the backbone of national strength, calling for greater self-reliance in core manufacturing technologies.
The recommendations put "building a modern industrial system and strengthening the foundations of the real economy" first among a dozen priority areas.
Security features just as prominently. Early last year, Xi told senior Party leaders that both development and security are vital. In Jilin Province, he underscored northeast China's responsibilities in safeguarding national defense, food, ecological, energy and industrial security. In Henan Province, he emphasized food security.
The October plenum elevated "ensuring both development and security" to a core principle for 2026-2030 development, calling for consolidating security alongside development and pursuing development in a secure environment.
The well-being of 1.4 billion Chinese has always been the centerpiece of China's modernization drive.
Over the past year, Xi visited grassroots households across the nation. In mountainous Guizhou Province, he chatted with villagers about incomes; in the border province Yunnan, he spoke with shopkeepers about business. Alongside this, he has pushed a people-centered urbanization drive, calling for cities that are innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, culturally vibrant and smart.
Accordingly, the recommendations highlighted "promoting well-rounded human development" in the guiding philosophy for China's development over the next five years, calling for greater investment in human capital and more inclusive public services.
"When the happy hum of daily life fills every home, the big family of our nation will go from strength to strength," Xi said in his New Year message.
RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY
In 2025, global turbulence deepened as the specters of Cold War mentalities, hegemonism and protectionism continued to haunt the international landscape.
Against this backdrop, Xi put forth the Global Governance Initiative at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in September. This came after Xi announced three global initiatives on development, security, and civilization in prior years.
"I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system," he said.
Xi always walks his talk. In April, after attending a central conference on neighborhood diplomacy, Xi began his visits to three Southeast Asian countries. Over the past year, his itinerary stretched from there to Russia, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea (ROK), weaving a dense web of regional engagement. He likened these visits to "calling on relatives," stressing that "helping our neighbors succeed is helping ourselves."
At a time when calls for decoupling, severing industrial chains, and putting self-interest first were prevalent, these trips yielded substantial gains in cooperation, bringing much-needed stability and long-term hope to the region amid volatile international landscape.
Under Xi's leadership, China also fostered positive interaction and coordination with major countries in 2025, helping anchor global strategic stability. Xi and Trump held their first meeting in six years in Busan, the ROK, in October.
"China and the United States can jointly shoulder our responsibility as major countries, and work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world," Xi said.
In 2025, Xi also hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, held in-depth discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron beside a millennia-old dam in southwest China, and collaborated with EU leaders to chart a brighter future for relations over the next 50 years. "Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and with a greater sense of responsibility," he has said.
During his November visit to China, King Tupou VI of the Kingdom of Tonga planted Juncao grass at a university in eastern Fujian Province.
Over the years, the versatile Chinese technology for food production, livestock feed, and ecological restoration has delivered tangible benefits for Pacific island nations and many developing countries. Xi has said that the modernization China pursues is "not for China alone."
Today, over three-quarters of the world's countries have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, and China-Europe freight trains have logged 120,000 trips. China hosted international expos on imports, supply chains, and consumer goods to expand win-win opportunities.
Over the past year, Xi championed women's development at the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women in Beijing, launched initiatives with Latin American and Caribbean countries, pushed for a zero-tariff treatment to 100 percent of tariff lines for 53 African countries with diplomatic ties to China, and announced China's new Nationally Determined Contributions in his video remarks at the UN Climate Summit.
"China always stands on the right side of history, and is ready to work with all countries to advance world peace and development and build a community with a shared future for humanity," Xi said in his 2026 New Year message.
FORGE AHEAD TOWARD GRAND GOAL
Peace and development were also central themes that Xi underscored at a grand commemoration in September, held in Beijing's Tian'anmen Square to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
The event drew 61 foreign heads of state and government, senior representatives of relevant countries, leaders of international organizations, former political leaders, and other dignitaries.
The victory eight decades ago marked China's first complete triumph against foreign aggression in modern times. This historic turning point carried the nation from the depths of crisis toward rejuvenation.
Xi called on his countrymen and women to carry forward the spirit forged in the resistance war and stay united in advancing modernization. "The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is unstoppable," he said.
As Xi said in his 2026 New Year message that only a strong CPC can make the country strong, he has placed great emphasis on strengthening the Party over the years.
Alongside a relentless crackdown on corruption, Xi in 2025 moved to reinforce a code of conduct, widely known as the eight-point decision on improving Party and government conduct, to remove the conditions that allow corruption to take root.
"The tasks of advancing Chinese modernization entrusted to our Party are extremely challenging, and the governing environment is unusually complex. We must pull the string of self-reform tighter," he said.
Unity, Xi has repeatedly stressed, is essential to China's rejuvenation.
On Wednesday, addressing a gathering of China's top political advisory body to usher in the new year, Xi urged his fellow Chinese to stay united and work hard to achieve great undertakings.
"With the blueprint in place, now is the time to forge ahead," he said. ■
