Pursuing modernization for the well-being of people

The Communist Party of China has been pursuing modernization and seeking happiness for the people since its founding more than a century ago. Given that the vast majority of workers and peasants in China lived in dire conditions and extreme poverty when the Party was founded in 1921, the Party tried to first improve the lives and living conditions of the poor people through struggle. Up to 1949, the Party's efforts to improve people's livelihoods focused on solving the basic living problems and improving the living conditions of the ordinary people in terms of food, clothing, housing, healthcare and education.

Comrade Mao Zedong had visionary thinking and planning for China's modernization at an early stage. On the eve of the nationwide victory, he proposed the steady transformation of China from an agricultural country to an industrialized nation after the revolution's success, aiming to build China into a great socialist country. Under the leadership of Mao, China went from a state of extreme poverty and backwardness, where "we couldn't even produce a car, an airplane, a tank, or a tractor" at the beginning of the establishment of the People's Republic of China, to the establishment of an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system. China achieved breakthroughs in cutting-edge defense technologies such as "two bombs and one satellite" and nuclear submarines.

The First National People's Congress held in 1954 proposed the four modernizations as the main goals, which included industry, agriculture, transportation, and national defense.