Editor's Note: Many people from overseas have made a contribution to China's development over the years. As China celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, China Daily looks at the lives and contributions of these friends from afar, who've not only witnessed, but also participated in, the country's transformation over the years.

China's dramatic progress in lifting up its people over the decades attests to the Communist Party of China's role as the backbone of the country in driving economic development, according to an international relations expert in Pakistan.

Talat Shabbir, director of the China-Pakistan Study Centre at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, points to achievements such as poverty alleviation as underscoring the Party's credentials.

"Under (the leadership of the) CPC, China is by far a better-governed country, and a more peaceful and prosperous country," Shabbir says.

Noting that the CPC has been pursuing a policy of strengthening the development of China by transforming and reforming it, Shabbir says the CPC is playing "a very important role" in China's achievements. "China is a huge country and the CPC is the backbone of China," he says.

"From standing up, growing rich to becoming strong, China has realized great leaps one after another under the leadership of the CPC (and) has become the world's second-largest economy."

He also points to the transformation of China's major cities, which have achieved world-class levels in science and technology.

However, he notes the Communist Party has been the subject of false accusations.