The delegation included members of Friends of Socialist China, the Progressive International, the Black Alliance for Peace, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Communist Party of Britain, the Young Communist League - Britain, the Black Liberation Alliance, Workers World, Bronx Anti-War, and others.

Delegates attended the 4th Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning Among Civilisations, and visited a range of historic revolutionary sites, museums, and state-owned firms to witness and deliberate the rapid development made possible by the enduring project of Chinese socialism.

This report was prepared collectively by the participating organizations.

Overview

The delegation’s 10-day journey through China traced a remarkable arc of transformation — from the humble beginnings of revolutionary struggle to the latest achievements of contemporary socialist construction. The visit followed the Communist Party of China's (CPC) evolution from a group of thirteen participants meeting in a small Shanghai room in 1921 to a governing force that has fundamentally reshaped not only the world's most populous nation — but also the world beyond it.

The trip began with a journey from Xi’an to Yan’an — a quick trip by express train that less than a century ago would have taken days of travel along dangerous and ragged mountain roads. Yan’an is a cradle of Chinese socialism. It is where the Red Army concluded its heroic Long March in 1936. Here, living in yaodong cave dwellings and equipped with rudimentary arms and thin cotton uniforms, the fighters of the CPC crafted their victory over Japan, while Mao Zedong penned some of his most notable theoretical works in a simple mud-brick house.

The wide rift between these austere conditions — all just one lifetime ago — and the achievements of Chinese modernization today remained a theme throughout the visit. This gap illustrated the profound scale of China's revolutionary transformation. In Yan’an, the delegation saw where the building blocks of Chinese socialism were laid. Here, the modern CPC developed its ideological foundations, established institutions like the Party School, and developed the prototypes for the first institutions of the socialist state.

The thread connecting revolutionary struggle to China’s contemporary advancements became clear as the delegation visited Gansu province, a vast region — among China’s poorest — between Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. In Jiayuguan, a former desert outpost transformed into China's fourteenth-largest steel producer, the delegation witnessed how strategic planning could reshape entire regions. The remote desert town, established in 1958 around around the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Corporation (JISCO), came to underpin a remarkable process of high-quality development that continues to this day. Delegates noted how the level of development in the city — with its clean streets, modern infrastructure, high-quality public housing, and abundant parks — easily surpassed that seen in most towns in the United States and United Kingdom.

In Gansu province, the delegation also witnessed the critical advancements in China’s green technology. The Dunhuang Molten Salt Tower plant, featuring 12,000 heliostats channeling desert sunlight into a groundbreaking technology that liquifies salt, enables solar power to continue generating electricity even at nighttime. The AI-powered Smart Grid and Localised New Energy Consumption Demonstration Project, developed by JISCO to manage energy distribution within Jiayuguan, has enabled decreasing energy consumption even as living standards and industrial outputs increased — an achievement of decoupling energy use from growth that many experts in the West have longed deemed impossible.

The delegation concluded its trip in Shanghai, where the CPC held its 1st National Congress. The contrast between the the modest room where thirteen revolutionaries held that first meeting and the sprawling metropolis outside it speaks to the scale of the transformation that China has seen in just a little over a century since the CPC was established. Delegates were impressed by the visible quality of that development — one that prioritizes the common good rather than individual profit, and builds cities that are green, affordable, walkable, and livable, in stark contrast to many of the cities that the delegation travelled from in their home countries. China offers a model of development that is attractive to people around the world, and demonstrates the continued vitality of socialist construction in the 21st century.

As a teacher from Jiayuguan told the delegation: “China not only learned from the experiences of the Soviet Union. China saved socialism. Looking at what has been achieved, I am satisfied, and I am proud.”

The delegation is grateful to our hosts at the CNIE for the experience, which deepened our collective understanding of the enduring process of Chinese socialist construction, inspired us within our own struggles, and left us hopeful for the future.

Detailed Itinerary

Shaanxi Province

Xi’an: The Eastern Frontier of the Silk Road

The delegation began its trip in the city of Xi’an, home to the Terracotta Army and the starting point of the old Silk Road.

The itinerary began at the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum, which houses the Terracotta Army. The delegation visited the Shaanxi History Museum, with a collection of historical artifacts spanning multiple dynasties across thousands of years. From Tang Dynasty pottery and Buddhist sculptures to Han Dynasty jade and bronze vessels, the exhibits demonstrated Xi'an’s central role as a hub in the old Silk Road.

The day ended with a tour of the Xi'an City Wall, one of the most complete ancient fortifications in China. The Ming Dynasty structure, meticulously preserved and restored, offers panoramic views of a city that has radically transformed in recent decades — revealing China’s efforts to modernize while preserving its cultural heritage. Below the ancient ramparts, modern skyscrapers rise alongside traditional courtyard houses, and bustling commercial districts operate alongside centuries-old temples and markets.

In 1937, when foreign visitors sought to understand the process of revolution taking place in China, they embarked on the long journey to the revolutionary town of Yan’an, which is found approximately 300 kilometers north of the city of Xi’an. The city was then under the control of the KMT, which sought to sabotage these visits, and the trips took days — traversing ragged mountain roads and enemy checkpoints.

Yan’an: The Cradle of Chinese Socialism

On 28 May, the delegation visited Yan’an, a small city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province in northern China. Yan’an holds a central place in China’s revolutionary history. It marked the endpoint of the heroic Long March, in which some 100,000 members of the Red Army marched 10,000 kilometers from bases in the south to establish a new command post in the north. The Red Army reunited in Yan’an in 1936, formally marking the end of the March. From there, they would command both the war against Japanese aggression and, from 1946 to liberation in 1949, the civil war against the KMT.

The early fighters of the Red Army fought in immensely challenging conditions. They made cannons from wooden logs held together by metal wire. They would set off firecrackers to mimic the sound of gunfire and intimidate enemy forces. They lived in earth dwellings, wore light-blue uniforms made of thin cotton, and ate ground millet.

It was here that Mao Zedong wrote one of his most famous poems, Snow. The old emperors, Mao wrote, “were lacking in literary grace.” Others “[h]ad little poetry in their souls”. And Ghenghis Khan knew only how to draw his bow and shoot eagles. He saw the truly singular historic moment that lay ahead: “All are past and gone! / For truly great men / Look to this age alone.”

In 1939, the CPC Central Committee formally moved its base to Yan’an. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fronts of the Red Army were reorganized as the 8th Route Army as the CPC and KMT came to collaborate for a second time in the war against Japanese aggression. 46,000 troops carried out eastward expeditions across the Yellow River to fight the Japanese. It was at this time that Mao synthesized the experiences of the Red Army in his work “On Protracted War”, which would help guide the war effort.

Literary and art workers descended on Yan’an to support the war. They held meetings with the peasants in the dining hall of the revolutionary base. Here, the cooperative basis of production was established through land, rent, and other economic reforms.

The Japanese surrendered in August 1945. Mao Zedong then met with Chiang Kai Shek to negotiate, but the leader of the KMT insisted on resuming the civil war, having fought alongside the CPC as part of the Second United Front against Japan. The KMT had had a major numerical advantage over the CPC — in many areas, it outnumbered the communists threefold. But Mao was confident that that the “reactionaries are paper tigers” and the CPC soon defeated the KMT, forcing its retreat to Taiwan.

In Yan’an, the Party began to establish institutions of governance, including courts and the Senate: the highest body and the direct precursor of the National People’s Congress. Senators were elected by the masses, and those who could not read cast their votes by putting beads in bowls representing their preferred candidate.

It was in Yan’an that the modern CPC took shape, developing the ideological foundations and institutions that continue to guide its development today. In 1943, the Party School was established, and Mao declared that communists had to “seek truth from facts”. In these years, Mao would often be seen wearing shoes with holes in their toes. He refused a car and travelled on foot or horseback.

The 7th National Congress took place in a small assembly hall in Yan’an, on the eve of victory over Japanese fascism. It was called a Congress of Unity and Victory and was held 17 years after the previous National Congress. The average age of delegates was 36.5 years old. They represented the various revolutionary bases, and travelled far and wide to get to Yan’an. It was a dangerous journey. Liu Shaoqi, who would later become China’s head of state, travelled for nine months and had to cross 103 enemy blockades to arrive from Central China. Southern delegates travelled some five thousand kilometers through over 10 provinces to get to Yan’an.

The congress represented the maturing of the Party. It established the political, economic, and cultural policies that would mark the early years of revolutionary China, including the policy of industrialization. Mao Zedong Thought was enshrined in the Party — and a process of localizing Marxist thought was initiated, as was the rectification movement.

Mao lived and worked in a mud-brick house at the side of the hill. Here, he wrote some of his key works: ‘On New Democracy’, ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune’, ‘Rectify the Party’s Style of Work’. Mao lived in Yan’an for six years, sleeping on a simple wooden bed with white linens, surrounded by books. It was here that he welcomed many of revolutionary China’s early foreign guests, including Edgar Snow, and Anna Louise Strong. When foreign visitors arrived in Yan’an from Xi’an, they had to travel some 250 miles over rough, pot-holed dirt roads and flooded rivers. In the late 1930s, the journey took days. Today, the city a short express train ride away, traversing steep green hills dotted with solar panels.

Gansu Province

Dunhuang

On 30 May, delegates visited the ancient town of Dunhuang and joined participants from across the globe for the Fourth Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning Among Civilisations.

This gathering, held in China's Gansu province, brought together several hundred international participants in a conference that aimed at deliberating and deepening China's Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI). The GCI is a foreign policy program launched by President Xi Jinping that seeks to counteract the logic of zero-sum politics in the international system and build a foreign policy grounded in dialogue, mutual respect, and shared learning.

The event was chaired by Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, and kicked off with remarks from prominent figures including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, alongside representatives from Botswana, Laos, Nepal, and other nations.

The formal proceedings concluded with a performance, Rhythm of Dunhuang, which drew inspiration from the legendary Mogao Caves, whose Buddhist artworks have survived from the 4th through 14th centuries as testament to cultural exchange along the Silk Road, and told the story of the region’s rich tradition of exchange and cooperation.

At the end of the visit to Dunhuang, the delegation took part in the Dragon Boat Festival — one of the main festivals in China. 10,000 people gathered on the Gobi Desert sand dunes to watch an audiovisual show projected onto the dunes opposite.

The festival reflected the immense achievements of the Chinese state in making culture open to the people. Here, in this small, recently-impoverished desert town, a dazzling festival was made freely available to the town’s residents. High quality-infrastructure — including free public toilets, shops, affordable transport, good sound equipment, and a range of family activities — made the event accessible to all. Food and drink were available on site, and were equally affordable: a bottled drink cost under a US dollar.

Delegation participants noted the stark contrast between the celebration of festivals and public holidays in China with those in the capitalist West, where infrastructure is lacking and prices make participation prohibitive for working class people.

Dunhuang 100MW Molten Salt Tower CSP Plant

In the Gobi Desert, on a major route of the old Silk Road, China made a breakthrough in renewable energy. The Dunhuang 100MW Molten Salt Tower CSP Plant is configured with 12,000 solar panels, also known as heliostats, each measuring 115.5 square meters — the largest array of this size in the world. The mirrors on the heliostats are three millimeters thick.

The heliostats channel sunlight onto a proprietary material at the top of a 260 meter tower, which heats up to as much as 1,000°C. The material heats up salt to over 600°C, which turns into liquid. 30,000 tons of the molten salt are then channeled through a system of pipes that heat water and generate steam. The steam powers a generator turbine before passing through a cooling system and returning to be reheated.

Because the salt stays hot for 11 hours, the system continues to generate electricity at night — and the environmental impact is negligible as both the salt and water are fully recycled.

Additional molten salt solar power plants are being developed in Qinghai, Gansu, and Xinjiang provinces, where land and sunlight are abundant.

Jiayuguan

On 1 June, the delegation travelled to Jiayuguan — a desert city founded around a steelworks — at the threshold of the Gobi Desert and near the snow-capped Qilian Mountains.

The Jiuquan Iron and Steel Corporation (JISCO) was founded in 1958 after significant iron ore deposits were discovered there. It became the fourth steel industrial base planned by China after Anshan, Wuhan and Baotou. The establishment of the plant was part of China's broader industrialization efforts during the late 1950s — and was initially developed with significant support from the Soviet Union.

Located at the western end of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), in Jiayuguan city, the plant was built in what was historically an important Silk Road outpost. Before the 1950s, there was virtually nothing in this outpost apart from the westernmost tower of the Great Wall. Then the iron ore was discovered, and the government began construction works on the JISCO steel factory.

With 63 years of construction and development, JISCO has begun to take shape as the earliest and largest diversified modern enterprise in northwest China. The company has evolved far beyond its original steel production mandate, and now makes dairy products, wine, and other items, while managing the local grid through the Smart Grid and Localised New Energy Consumption Demonstration Project (Smart Grid).

The steel plant would reshape the local administrative structure. In 1965, parts of Jiuquan County and Sunan Yugur Autonomous County (Including Jiuquan Iron and Steel Works) were marked out to establish the County-level Jiayuguan City, which is under the direct jurisdiction of Gansu Government.

Today, JISCO operates as a major steel producer with modern facilities. Gansu Jiu Steel Group Hongxing Iron and Steel Co Ltd is a steel plant in Jiayuguan, Gansu, China that operates blast furnace (BF), basic oxygen furnace (BOF), and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology. The company has expanded significantly, with an annual production capacity of 11.05 million tons of crude steel and a stainless steel production capacity of 1.2 million tons.

The company has continued to modernize and expand. Established in October 2005, JISCO Stainless Steel Company, the largest stainless steel production enterprise in Northwest China, is one of the key construction projects of JISCO.

By the 2020s, the city became the fourteenth-biggest steel producer in the country, representing a remarkable transformation from a remote desert outpost to a major industrial center that helped shape the development of western China's industrial infrastructure. The city of Jiayuguan is now developed at an astonishing level. Some 40% of the desert city is covered by trees. The streets are clean, green, and feature broad cycling lanes. New, high-quality apartment blocks for the city’s workers are under construction.

Despite both the advancement in JISCO’s production capacities and the rising standard of living of Jiayuguan’s residents, the staff at the Smart Grid told the delegation that energy consumption had gone down as a result of significant investments in energy efficiency. The Smart Grid is managed almost entirely by artificial intelligence, which automatically distributes energy around the city, requiring minimal human input. Furthermore, the town’s energy needs are increasingly met by renewables - currently solar power constitutes 40 percent of the energy mix, and is rising rapidly.

Shanghai

On the final days of the trip, the delegation travelled to Shanghai. There, delegates visited the museum at the Site of the 1st National Congress of the Communist Party of China — which tells a powerful story about the development of the CPC from a small group to a major governing party nearly 100 million strong. The contrast between the space in which the 1st National Congress met — a small room with a table that just about fit the meeting’s 13 participants — and the bustling streets outside are a clear sign of the profound transformation that took place over the past century.

Nearly half the cars in Shanghai are electric, and the streets are silent. The residential neighborhoods are planned to feel compact — almost provincial. Walking through them, you pass clusters of restaurants, cafes, shops, offices, and public spaces every 20 minutes or so, part of a plan to make the metropolis walkable. The reduced commuting distances decrease traffic. All along the riverbanks, there are stretches of lush, diverse vegetation, providing cover for a cycling path, a padded jogging path, and a long promenade that, taken together, form a 120 kilometer connected “greenway” that runs throughout the city. There are pristine, free public toilets within a short walk of anywhere.

These are not the accidental byproducts of the operation of the market. They are the deliberate impacts of urban planning practices guided by the Communist Party of China and its goal of turning Shanghai into “a modern, socialist and international metropolis with global influence [that plays] a leading and exemplary role in advancing Chinese modernization.”

The plans are set out in detail at the six-story Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. Among the aspirations: the creation of a humane, ecological, and advanced city that addresses public health and leisure; preserves historical context; coordinates industrial and urban development; and transforms empty spaces into zones of community-building, for example through the construction of spaces for sport or cultural activity in residential neighborhoods.

Plans are drawn up for five, ten, twenty, thirty years — and gradually tested, refined, and implemented fully across the city. By 2035, Shanghai hopes to limit the population of the city and new construction to move towards a “de-growth economy” that combats the symptoms of “big city disease”: congestion, pollution, and a shortage of public services. Many of the plans and projects on display could be seen in the streets of the city. Five new “ecological cities” — with geothermal heating infrastructure, advanced recycling, smart roads, green spaces, and so on — are currently under construction on Shanghai’s periphery.

The result is that Shanghai, among China’s most market-oriented cities, is developing in a direction that feels qualitatively different to other major metropolises. It is greener, less congested, more accessible, and seems to have a markedly higher quality of life. At 83.7, Shanghai’s average life expectancy is already higher than that of London or New York City.

It has also become the site of major technological development. The delegation visited a state-run artificial intelligence and robotics hub, which showcased some of the country’s latest developments in the field. It visited the Lenovo Shanghai Future Center, a facility of one of the world’s largest computer companies, which also contributes actively to the CPC’s goals. Technologies developed by Lenovo are deployed in fields as diverse as farming, where they measure the precise water and nutrient content of the soil to allow for optimum crop growth, and education, where remote learning tools give children from rural communities access to high quality education.

The delegation also visited the Zhangjiang Robot Valley, an industrial park and key zone for intelligent manufacturing, to learn about the latest advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence in Shanghai. The visit showcased a range of achievements — from high-end medical treatment tools to industry and service robots — which aim at boosting China’s sovereign technological capacities in robotics.

Cover photo: The CNIE delegation at the site of the 7th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which consolidated the CPC’s ideological work and set the foundations for China’s modernization.