President Xi’s Speech
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a nearly three-and-a-half hour speech to open the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) 19th National Congress, a pivotal week-long (Oct. 18–24) political summit in Beijing.
The CPC holds the Party Congress every five years to review the prior five years, to set forth its priorities for the forthcoming half-decade, to fill leadership positions, and to craft constitutional changes. The most important constitutional change at the 19th National Congress was a powerful endorsement of President Xi’s vision and a de facto expansion of his political mandate.
Most powerful leader since Mao: By a unanimous decision of its 2300 delegates, the CPC voted to include the amendment “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” into the party’s constitution. Essentially, Xi’s vision now permeates the official state doctrine, reflecting a consolidation of authority which should enable the president to expand his economic and military power.
The only other living president the CPC added to the constitution was Mao Zedong, who ruled until his 1976 death. Thus the constitutional recognition of Xi underscores great support from within the party, enabling Xi to potentially seek a third term, breaking from the recent two-term tradition, into the indefinite future.
Xi’s ‘Report’
President Xi boldly heralded a “new era” for China in which the nation will exert active leadership in the international order economically, militarily and environmentally. He identified the current time as a historic juncture in which a stronger, rejuvenated Communist Party will be positioned to achieve the “China Dream.”
Xi Jinping Thought is a 14-point strategy to guide the transformation of China into a modern socialist nation with a prosperous economy, a people-centric development, a world-class military and new type of international relations predicated on a shared future. The 14 points can be read here.
Sino-centric world order: Xi’s speech also articulated that China intends to engage in a more expansionist foreign policy. While the expansion is advertised to be non-hegemonic, Xi made sure to emphasize that China would not let its interests be jeopardized.
“China will never pursue development at the expense of others’ interests, but nor will China ever give up its legitimate rights and interests. No one should expect us to swallow anything that undermines our interests…China has actively developed global partnerships and expanded the convergence of interests with other countries. China will promote coordination and cooperation with other major countries and work to build a framework for major country relations featuring overall stability and balanced development.”
Center to this growth is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi’s signature development strategy aimed for China to foster a collaborative economic agenda and to exert a positive role in global governance. The BRI is a large-scale infrastructure plan devised to establish increased connectivity and trade with 64 nations in Eurasia, Oceania and Northern Africa.
The BRI seeks to increase international influence and to integrate Chinese institutions and initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. It would also complement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a proposed free trade agreement widely viewed as a regional alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the United States withdrew from earlier this year.
And potentially referring to President Trump, Xi warned that “No country can address alone the many challenges facing mankind; no country can afford to retreat into self-isolation,” and implored “the people of all countries to work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind, to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.”
The bottom line: In the future, this speech might be viewed as a historical and geopolitical turning point. That President Xi now sees opportunity for China to emerge as a rival superpower in the world and to develop an alternative political model for other developing nations to emulate in no ways lacks for significance, particularly at a time when the American president, and a majority of the American people, favor an anti-internationalist posture for the United States, a retreat from complex international agreements and institutions, and an America First mantra.
