Newsman: Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sunday vowed to steer China through grave challenges toward national rejuvenation, advancing a nationalistic vision that has put it on a collision path with the West. Laying out broad directions for the next five years, Xi said China would focus on “high quality education” and innovation to “renew growth” in the country’s crisis-hit economy. China will “speed up efforts to achieve greater self-reliance in science and technology,” he said.
Speaking at the opening of the 20th Party Congress, where he is poised to secure a norm-breaking third term in power, Xi Jinping highlighted China’s growing strength and rising influence under his first decade in power.
The Chinese leader Xi Jinping also vowed to speed up efforts to build the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a “world-class military,” pledging to improve the PLA’s ability to safeguard national sovereignty and build strategic deterrence. He also urged the PLA to strengthen its training and improve its “ability to win.”
“The wheels of history are rolling on towards China’s reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Complete reunification of our country must be realized,” Xi said to thundering applause.
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Xi Jinping underscored the “rapid changes in the international situation” — a thinly veiled reference to the fraying ties between China and the West, which have been further strained by Beijing’s tacit support for Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said China has “taken a clear-cut stance against hegemonism and power politics” and “never wavered” in opposition to unilateralism and “bullying” — in an apparent jab at what Beijing views as a US-led world order that needs to be dismantled.
Jinping also repeatedly underscored the risks and challenges the country faces.
Describing the past five years as “highly unusual and extraordinary,” Xi said the ruling Communist Party has led China through “a grim and complex international situation” and “huge risks and challenges that came one after another.”
The very first challenges Xi listed were the Covid-19 pandemic, Hong Kong and Taiwan — all of which he claimed China had come away from victorious.
The Chinese government, Xi said, had “protected people’s lives and health” from Covid, turned Hong Kong from “chaos to governance,” and carried out “major struggles” against “independence forces” in the island of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own territory despite having never controlled it.
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Xi’s speech was peppered with the Chinese term for “security” — which was mentioned about 50 times. He called national security the “foundation of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and urged enhancing security in military, economy and “all aspects,” both at home and abroad.
The week-long congress kicked off on Sunday morning amid heightened security, escalated zero-Covid restrictions and a frenzy of propaganda and censorship.
The Communist Party’s most consequential meeting in decades, the congress is set to cement Xi’s status as the China’s most powerful leader since late Chairman Mao Zedong, who ruled until his death aged 82. The meetings will be mostly held behind close doors throughout the week. When delegates reemerge at the end of the congress next Saturday, they will conduct a ceremonial vote to rubber stamp Xi’s work report and approve changes made to the party constitution — which might bestow Xi with new titles to further strengthen his power. It will also have a profound impact on the world, as Xi doubles down on an assertive foreign policy to boost China’s international clout and rewrite the US-led global order.
The delegates will also select the party’s new Central Committee, which will hold its first meeting the next day to appoint the party’s top leadership — the Politburo and its Standing Committee, following decisions already hashed out behind the scenes by party leaders before the congress.
