China’s Xi talks up security as congress opens
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for accelerating the building of a world-class military as he kicked off the Communist Party Congress.
About 2,300 delegates from around the country gathered in the vast Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square amid tight security for the week-long congress which kicked off on Sunday morning.
Xi, 69, is widely expected to win a third leadership term at the conclusion of the congress, cementing his place as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.
Xi described the five years since the last party congress as “extremely uncommon and abnormal”, during a speech that lasted less than two hours.
Xi called for strengthening the ability to maintain national security, ensuring food and energy supplies, securing supply chains, improving the ability to deal with disasters and protecting personal information.
“We must strengthen our sense of hardship, adhere to the bottom-line thinking, be prepared for danger in times of peace, prepare for a rainy day, and be ready to withstand major tests of high winds and high waves,” he said.
In his decade in power, Xi has set China on an increasingly authoritarian path that has prioritized security, state control of the economy in the name of “common prosperity”, more assertive diplomacy, a stronger military, and intensifying pressure to seize democratically governed Taiwan.
Analysts generally do not expect a significant change in policy direction in a third Xi term.
Zero-COVID strategy
China has repeatedly emphasized its commitment to Xi’s zero-COVID strategy in recent days, dashing hopes among countless Chinese citizens as well as investors that Beijing might begin exiting anytime soon a policy that has caused widespread frustration and economic damage.
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Xi said little about COVID other than to reiterate the validity of a policy that has made China a global outlier as much of the world tries to coexist with the coronavirus, which emerged in central China in late 2019.
“We have adhered to the supremacy of the people and the supremacy of life, adhered to dynamic zero-COVID … and achieved major positive results in the overall prevention and control of the epidemic, and economic and social development,” Xi said.
On the economy, he restated support for the private sector and allowed markets to play a key role, even as China fine-tunes a “socialist economic system” and promotes “common prosperity”.
China’s relations with the West have deteriorated sharply, worsened by Xi’s support of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Xi did away with presidential term limits in 2018, clearing the way for him to break with the precedent of recent decades and rule for a third five-year term, or longer.
The congress is expected to reconfirm Xi as party general secretary, China’s most powerful post, as well as chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Xi’s presidency is up for renewal in March at the annual session of China’s parliament.
In the run-up to the congress, the Chinese capital stepped up security and COVID curbs, while steel mills in nearby Hebei province were instructed to cut back on operations to improve air quality, an industry source said.
The day after the congress ends on Saturday, Xi is expected to introduce his new Politburo Standing Committee, a seven-person leadership team.
Zainab Sa’id
