Xi's vision for 'new era'

China is poised to become the world's largest economy in the not too distant future, and this found its best expression in Chinese President Xi Jinping's 210-minute speech at the Great Hall of the People. He declared that China's will be the "most modern" military by the middle of this century and that China will never allow Taiwan to separate from it. Xi believes that socialism "with Chinese characteristics" has crossed the threshold into a new era. "No country can alone address the many challenges facing mankind; no country can afford to retreat into self-isolation," Xi said this was in apparent reference to US President Donald Trump's "America first" policy through which he has withdrawn his country from the Paris Agreement on climate unilaterally and threatened to annul the Iran nuclear deal, whose signatories include China and Russia. Xi's criticism of the Trump administration, however mild the tone, was followed by a wild US accusation that China is undermining international order.
Xi, who has been widely described as a leader who is on the right track to be the "next Mao" of the Middle Kingdom because of his growing authority, has unveiled an impressive agenda of the Communist Party of China in its ongoing congress that spells out a more prosperous nation and its role in global affairs, its reiteration of its crackdown on corruption, checks on growing industrial capacity, reduction in income inequality and pollution. According to Xi, his country will relax market access for foreign investment, expand access to its services sector and deepen market-oriented reform of its exchange rate and financial system, while at the same time strengthening the debt-laden state sector. Xi appears to be fully mindful of the growing concerns of foreign investors who have expressed their anguish over China's repeated commitments that Beijing would open the door wider and treat all companies equally.
In its reaction to Xi's speech, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said that European companies operating in China continue to suffer from "promise fatigue." In his first term (Xi is widely expected to get a second term as well), he is said to have disappointed many foreign investors who had expected him to usher in more market-oriented reforms, especially in debt-laden state sector. Over 80 percent of the Chinese banking system's NPLs, for example, are linked to thousands of state-owned enterprises.
Those who have been attending this highly critical congress include former President Jiang Zemin, the successor to Deng Xiaoping. However, it is not known whether or not Jiang's successor and Xi's immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, who is credited with a successful handling of the Tibet unrest even he assumed the office of president, and later a deft response to the global financial crisis of 2008 to insulate China against the economic contagion, is also among the 2,000 delegates.
Xi appears to be quite satisfied with his country's present political system regulated by the Communist Party of China. Therefore, he argues that "we should not just mechanically copy the political systems of other countries. ...We must unwaveringly uphold and improve party leadership and make the party still stronger." In this regard, he showcases the party's successes, particularly those relating to the anti-graft campaign.
Rated as the most powerful leader after Chairman Mao, mainly because of the fact that millions of people, including his opponents, have been punished and jailed over corruption since he succeeded Hu, Xi has pledged to transform his country into a "modern socialist country" that will be "proudly Chinese" and steadfastly ruled by the party but open to the world. Seen through the prism of many Sinologists, the "proudly Chinese" phrase constitutes how the country looks at the outside world. The entire West and other non-Chinese parts of world, for example, are inhibited by people who in Chinese imagination are "barbarians." As once aptly put by Mao himself: "Infighting among barbarians always augurs well for the Middle Kingdom". Xi, who is set to become "Chairman" - a title which would put him at par with Chairman Mao himself, knows well how to compete with "barbarians" in the global economic-military arena.