Theory Construction Concerning the Special Economic Zones and China’s Development Path

Abstract

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China initiated China’s Development Path towards modernization in the new period. For more than 30 years, China has made tremendous achievements in political, economic, cultural and social construction, and China’s economic aggregate has exceeded that of the UK, France, Germany and Japan, making China the new engine for the world’s economic development and the second largest economy in the world. These great achievements reflect the superiority of China’s development path towards development and prove that the path to China’s development is correct, its theories are scientific and its institutions are rational. This is China’s greatest confidence in its path in more than 30 years. In this regard, the Report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China states that we should have confidence in the path, theories and institutions under socialism with Chinese characteristics, and this requires us to enhance the theoretical self-consciousness and the theoretical innovations on the basis of this confidence. The special economic zones are the starting point and touchstone for China’s Development Path, thus how to lay the theoretical foundation for China’s Development Path, build the theoretical framework for it, and propose the corresponding explanation of the model on the basis of the practice in the special economic zones is of very important significance; moreover, it is the inevitable requirement for building up confidence in China’s Development Path and theories as well as a theoretical self-consciousness.