Vows to improve people’s wellbeing; GDP growing to114tr yuans
President Xi Jinping hailed China’s rise as a global power and demanded unity around his leadership on Sunday, launching a Communist Party Congress.
In an opening address to 2,300 delegates gathered at the Great Hall of the People, Xi promoted and defended a range of signature policies — including zero-Covid and his anti-corruption drive that has taken down rivals in the party.
“Unity is strength, and victory requires unity,” Xi said after walking onstage to a thunderous reception from the attendees who will vote during the week-long Congress on the party leadership for the next five years.
Xi Jinping said China had seen a historic rise in its economic strength in the past decade with its GDP growing to 114 trillion yuan (about $16 trillion) from 54 trillion yuan in the past decade.
In a report delivered to the congress on behalf of the 19th CPC Central Committee, Xi pledged to improve the people’s well-being and quality of life.
The president said “China’s international influence, appeal and power to shape the world has significantly increased”.
During his 100-minute “work report” on the past five years, Xi also focused on two of China’s most sensitive security and sovereignty issues in relation to Hong Kong.
He lauded Hong Kong’s transition from “chaos to governance”, while his vow to “never commit to abandoning the use of force” on the self-ruled island of Taiwan drew rapturous applause.
Xi said the anti-corruption campaign had eliminated “serious latent dangers” within the Communist Party, the military and the state.
“The fight against corruption has won an overwhelming victory and has been comprehensively consolidated,” he said.
In a speech that mostly focused on domestic issues, Xi also told the delegates that China would “actively participate in global governance on climate change”. Xi reiterated that China opposed a “Cold War mentality” in international diplomacy.
If picked as party leader for another five-year term as expected, he is almost certain to be elected president at the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress in March.
In the highly choreographed, the delegates will pick members of the party’s roughly 200-member Central Committee, which in turn selects the 25-person Politburo and its all-powerful Standing Committee. Xi said the past decade marked three major events of great immediate importance and profound historical significance for the cause of the Party and the people.
“We embraced the centenary of the Communist Party of China, we ushered in a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and we eradicated absolute poverty and finished building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, thus completing the First Centenary Goal,” he said.
Xi said CPC will be to lead the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in a concerted effort to realize the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects, according to CGTN.
The CPC aims to basically realize socialist modernization from 2020 through 2035 and build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful from 2035 through the middle of this century.
