China’s 20th Party Congress: Outcomes can Impact India in a Variety of Ways
Asia News Agency
In a two-hour-long work report – essentially a speech – Xi Jinping, at the 20th Party Congress, gave a rare insight into his thinking about China’s future direction.
‘From now on, the central task of the Communist Party of China [CCP] is to unite and lead the people of all ethnic groups in building a strong socialist modernisation country in an all-round way, achieve the second centenary goal, and comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese style modernisation,' said Xi Jinping in the speech on 16 October.
Xi on national security
Xi Jinping mentioned national security 50 times in his speech this year, though the term appeared fewer times compared to his 2017 speech. Nevertheless, writes Adil Brar (columnist and a freelance journalist; was previously a China media journalist at the BBC World Service) “given that the length of this one was half of what he verbalised at the previous Party Congress, the term was prominently placed in the party discourse.”
Xi said ‘The five years since the 19th National Congress have been extremely unusual and extraordinary. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has made overall plans for the great rejuvenation strategy of the Chinese nation and the unprecedented changes in the world in a century, made major strategic arrangements for the development of the Party and the country, united and led the whole Party, the whole army and the people of all ethnic groups to effectively respond to the severe and complex international situation and the enormous risks and challenges that followed, and continued to advance socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era with a spirit of striving and making progress’.
Xi, ‘core of the party’
Significantly, Xi’s role was recognised as the ‘core of the party.’ This, writes Brar “reaffirms his role of driving China’s destiny where he feels fit.” Twentieth Party Congress spokesperson Sun Yeli told reporters about revisions to the governing constitution, which will enshrine Xi’s ideology into the Chinese constitution. So far, there are few details about what that would really mean, says Brar.
