Chinese scientists agree with President Xi Jinping’s speech at the gathering commemorating the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening-up policy, vowing to pass on the spirit of reform and opening-up and strive for a better future.

China’s achievements in the past 40 years did not come from the sky or other people’s donations, but from the hard work, wisdom, and courage of the Chinese people, who have created a miracle for humanity, President Xi said at the grand gathering on Dec. 18 in Beijing.

file pic of Jiaolong, China's manned submersible

Yang Desen, a 61-year-old academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was one of the students who attended the first gaokao, or college entrance examination, after the system was restored in 1977. “In the past 40 years, multiple rigid systems have been unshackled and I’ve witnessed people’s passions and vitality generation after generation. Individuals can realize self-fulfillment along with the nation’s rapid development,” Yang said with gratitude, echoing President Xi’s remarks.

Reform and opening-up has witnessed China’s manned submersible technology rise from obscurity to popularity. Chinese science and technology has realized a great leap forward in some areas where the country used to lag behind other countries and can now take the lead in those areas, observed Ye Cong, a manned submersible expert who was honored at the gathering for outstanding contributions.

Ye personally led the Chinese manned deep-sea research submersible Jiaolong in its dive to 7,062 meters below the sea in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean in 2012.

“It’s generations of science workers who adhere to the spirit of reform and opening-up that turn the impossible into possible,” Ye said.

The spirit has also traveled beyond China.

“Chinese wisdom also benefits other countries, offering successful experience for many other developing countries to take a path of modernization,” Zhang Yong, a rice expert dispatched to assist Cote d’Ivoire, noted.

Zhang and his agricultural team have cultivated more than 10 rice species for Cote d’Ivoire to meet local demands.