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Thursday, 19 October 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Text and Pix by Ashwin Hemmathagama in Beijing
President Xi Jinping laid out a far-reaching plan yesterday, kicking off the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), promising to have “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era” continuing the steps of the “one country, two systems” principle enriched with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the theory of Three Represents.
Calling for national rejuvenation, President Xi labelled his last five years as a period of “remarkable progress” where China has changed. “Our party, our people, our forces and our nation has changed in ways without example,” he said from the Great Hall of the People while delivering the ceremonial address to inaugurate the different verticals of weeklong meetings scheduled to take place among the top brass of the CPC.
Telling all party members to develop a good grasp of the essence and rich implications of thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, Xi urged members to apply them fully and faithfully at work.
Ensuring party leadership over all work, committing to a people-centred approach, continuing to comprehensively deepen reform, adopting a new vision for development, seeing that the people run the country, ensuring every dimension of governance was lawful, upholding core socialist values, ensuring and improving living standards through development, ensuring harmony between humans and nature, pursuing a holistic approach to national security, upholding the absolute party leadership over the people’s forces, upholding the principles of ‘one country, two systems’ and promoting national reunification, promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and exercising full and rigorous governance over the party were the key areas the President identified to underpin their efforts to uphold and develop Chinese-style socialism.
“The world is changing with every second, every moment, and China too is changing with every second, every moment. We must ensure our theory evolves with the times, deepen our appreciation of objective laws, and advance our theoretical, practical, institutional, cultural and other explorations. Comrades, the era is the mother of thought, the practice is the fount of theory. If we respond to the call of our times and have the courage to uphold truth and correct errors, the Marxism of 21st Century China will, without a doubt, emanate a mightier, more compelling power of truth,” said Xi Jinping in an address before more than 3,000 delegates and guests which was televised locally and internationally.
However, clearing doubts allowing China to fully embrace Western-style changes, President Xi promised that the country would not be allowed to “mechanically copy the political systems of other countries. And no one should expect China to swallow anything that undermines its interests.”
Applying a new vision of development and developing a modernised economy to deliver on the two centenary goals, he highlighted the importance of a Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, and steady improvement of the lives of its people and called to unleash and develop productive forces, continue reforms to develop the socialist market economy, and promote sustained and sound economic growth.
According to him, China’s economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development.
“This is a pivotal stage for transforming our growth model, improving our economic structure and forecasting new drives of growth. It is imperative that we develop a modernised economy. We must put quality first and give priority to performance. We need to raise total factor productivity and accelerate the building of an industrial system that promotes coordinated development of the real economy with technological innovation, modern finance and human resources,” he said, giving prominence to furthering supply-side structural reforms, making China a country of innovators, pursuing a rural vitalisation strategy, implementing the coordinated regional development strategy, accelerating efforts to improve the socialist market economy and making new ground in pursuing the opening up of all fronts.
“China›s GDP rose from 54 trillion to 80 trillion yuan (about $ 8.2-$ 12.1 trillion) over the past five years and more than 60 million people have been lifted out of poverty. The Communist Party of China will take a two-step approach to build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the middle of the century,” he pledged.
Even though Xi did not touch upon sensitive topics, including the growing tension between its ally North Korea and the United States, he stated that China’s «international standing has risen as never before” and went on to list the country›s accomplishments, including with the South China Sea, where China has reclaimed land, turning reefs and sandbars into military bases.
