Chinanews, Beijing, Feb. 28 – For a long time to come, China will remain in the primary stage of socialism and China is still a developing country. It will take a long historical period for China to strengthen and develop its socialist system, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in an article released recently.

 

In his article titled "Several Issues Regarding China’s Historical Tasks in Its Primary Stage of Socialism and China’s Foreign Policy", Premier Wen says when China embarked upon the socialist period, its productivity was far below that of developed countries and China will take a long historical period to realize industrialization and modernization. After the foundation of New China in 1949, especially after it carried out the opening-up policy, China's social productive forces and comprehensive national strength have been greatly enhanced, and Chinese people are witnessing a historic transformation from a basic-living-security society to a well-off society.

 

Despite this, Premier Wen points out, China is still a country with a huge population and weak economic foundation. The development in urban and rural areas is uneven and China’s underdeveloped productive forces have not experienced any fundamental change.

 

For a long time to come, China will remain in the primary stage of socialism and a developing country. With regard to China’s long-term development, Premier Wen says that such development had already been accurately described by Deng Xiaoping in a speech he made during his inspection tour of China’s southern region in 1992. At that time, Deng Xiaoping said that China needed to experience a long historical period to strengthen and develop its socialist system. We should be fully aware of the fact that the task should be fulfilled with the continuous efforts of the people through generations, or even a much longer time than that, said Deng Xiaoping.