The past year was one of challenges and achievements for China.

In 2022, it witnessed an arduous battle with the novel coronavirus and the attendant efforts to maintain the world's second-largest economy on the right track.

Since COVID-19 struck, China has put the people first and put life first all along. Following a science-based and targeted approach, it has adapted its COVID response in light of the evolving situation.

The Chinese economy has remained the second largest in the world and enjoyed sound development. China's GDP for the whole year is expected to exceed 120 trillion yuan ($17.4 trillion).

The year ahead, as President Xi Jinping said in his New Year address, will see the country demonstrate its strong resilience, tremendous potential and great vitality and consolidate its good long-term fundamentals.

The effects of the challenges of 2022 will continue to be felt in 2023, calling for good governance and risk management not only on the part of China, but all countries.

That's why President Xi calls on the whole nation to "charge at the toughest and aim at the farthest". It means, as he said, to take on the biggest challenges and go after the most ambitious goals.

Long as the journey is, China will reach its destination if it stays the course; difficult as the task is, it will get the job done if it keeps working at it. As long as the nation has the resolve to move mountains and the perseverance to plod on, as long as we keep its feet on the ground and forge ahead with its journey by making steady progress, it will turn its grand goals into reality.

The challenges have only served to make the people realize what is the most important and what should be stuck to, and it has strengthened the country’s resolve to always stand on the right side of history, as the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in October, made clear.

An ambitious blueprint has been drawn for building a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, sounding a clarion call of the times for us forging ahead on a new journey.

As the past year has highlighted, numerous touching stories of people sticking together in face of adversity or even sacrificing their lives to help others in distress, there are always some backstage heroes, such as medical workers and couriers, who through their own actions instill in people hope of better times ahead even in desperate situations.

Likewise, there are always countries, such as China, that are stalwart upholders of peace and stability, and who stand up for the interests of those being bullied and exploited.

As President Xi said, the pandemic will ease, the global upheaval will calm down. But the unyielding struggle of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation will continue, and the country will continue to undauntedly face the biggest challenges head on and pursue its ambitious goals.