China is a civilization of over 5,000 years of history; but 70 years ago, a new China was born, an epic renewal and a major turning point that completely changed China's miserable fate of being poor and weak and being bullied and humiliated in over 100 years since the advent of modern times. This point was clearly made by Chinese President Xi Jinping in a speech to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding the People's Republic of China.

Indisputably, central to the founding of the People's Republic of China and the inspiring change in her contemporary narratives of sustainable and inclusive development, in which majority of Chinese people were ferried to better lives and unprecedented prosperity, is the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its unified central leadership. The Party, through the utmost exertion of its inexhaustible energy derived from the historic mission to serve the people, continually opens new vistas both in theoretical explorations and policy guidance that have driven the world's most admired modernization effort and has lifted more than 800 million out of poverty. President Xi correctly pointed out that "right at this moment, Chinese people of all ethnic groups and all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation at home and abroad take pride in and give our best wishes to our great motherland with great joy."

President Xi, who is also the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, was very firm and unequivocal that the future of China will have even better prospects as it stays on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and fully implements the Party's basic theory, line and policy. And while maintaining that no force can ever shake the status of China, or stop the Chinese people and nation from marching forward, he nonetheless stressed that the country will stay on the path of peaceful development, and pursue a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up.

China at 70 is certainly an enigma that turned inside-out the established and conventional theories of development which offer only one path and assume that Western tutelage is unavoidable for development. China in the past 70 years, and more importantly, in the over 40 years of reform and opening up, has turned the tide on conventional wisdom and showed conclusively that history is not at its end, but rather history is an endless pathway, that those with the right navigational compass of scientific theory, political integrity and unique insight can consistently explore the limitless opportunities it offers. China in contemporary times not only generously offers its fruits of endeavors to the rest of the world, but also stands as a powerful example of what can happen to any people who take their fate in their own hands, and then dare to explore and even walk a path that is unexplored.

China is a metaphor of modern courage to think differently, but with an abiding confidence in its own.

(The author is director of Center for China Studies in Abuja, Nigeria)