“The practices of reform and opening up in the past 40 years have shown us that the Chinese Communist Party leadership is the fundamental character of socialism with Chinese characteristics … east, west, south, north, and the middle, the party leads everything,” he said....
Xi stressed that China would stick to its own chosen path, namely socialism with Chinese characteristics.
“To push forward reform and opening up in a country with 5,000 years of civilisation and a population of 1.3 billion, there are no textbooks containing golden rules or teachers who can be arrogant to the Chinese people,” he said....South China Morning Post (Singapore)
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Tuesday for the unswerving implementation of reforms on Beijing’s terms, saying no one could boss it around, but offered no new measures in a speech marking 40 years of market liberalization.…
Xi’s emphasis on the need for “top-level design” suggested he is not willing to significantly reduce the state’s role in the economy, Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said, noting that the trade war had already hurt the economy.Reuters
“He is talking about the need for a strong government, big and powerful state-owned enterprises and large-scale investment. It seems his thinking on this has not changed,” Zhang said....
Jack Ma, the head of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) and China’s best-known capitalist, is a Communist Party member, the official Party newspaper said on Monday, debunking a public assumption the billionaire was politically unattached.Cue sound of heads exploding.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always said the country will never copy the political systems of other countries, in particular the Western notion of democracy. But under Xi—the most powerful Chinese leader in four decades—China’s own one-party system is one that is ready to be exported to regimes everywhere.Throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the international liberal order.
When asked whether China is deviating from its self-avowed policy of noninterference in other countries’ affairs, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said yesterday (March 8) that China will “participate more proactively” in reshaping global governance and solving international crises.Both Russia and China are asserting themselves as great powers, bringing back the era of great power geopolitics, challenging the Western liberal order under America leadership that has been dominant since WWII and especially since the collapse of the USSR.
During the 19th Party Congress last month, Yang was asked about the anti-corruption drive and how to achieve a balance between human rights and party discipline. Yang replied that, having worked in the Tibet Autonomous Region for many years, human rights was an “interesting question”. He recounted a conversation he had with a US assistant secretary of state where he likened Abraham Lincoln freeing slaves in America to China’s actions in Tibet.“I said in the hearts of Chinese people, Lincoln is a hero, because he freed the slaves.
On this point the Chinese people and the American people have the same understanding – this is a human rights issue.
In turn, we freed the serfs in Tibet, how come American friends cannot understand this? From Lincoln’s perspective, he should have supported China’s overturning of the serfdom in Tibet.”
No matter that the Central Tibetan Administration, usually called the “Tibetan Government in Exile” has a starkly different view….This is really the crux of the issue between capitalism and socialism.
Overall, the prognosis for Xi Jinping and his successors being able to deliver on the monumental promises made in today’s speech, seem surprisingly doable. China has shown the world that it can make the difficult happen with speeds that shock many sceptics and with an exactitude that confounds students or previous rising economic giants.
In this sense, it is not at all beyond the scope of reality that a 3.5 hour speech, may shape the next 100 years of Chinese and world history.Marx and Lenin get the last laugh?
Economic planning and societal control: The digital transformation is changing the rules of the game in the global systemic competition. China's determined pursuit of a "digital Leninism" presents a major challenge to liberal market economies and democratic political systems.
Sebastian Heilmann is the founding president of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and professor for the political economy of China at the University of Trier (currently on leave). Heilmann also conducted research at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center, the University of Oxford China Centre, and the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He has published extensively on China’s political system, economic policy making, and international relations.
Heilmann has years of experience providing advice to the German federal government and EU institutions. From 2010 to 2013, he was the principal investigator of a project group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research examining the industrial and technology policies of the People’s Republic of China. In 2014, he was appointed as one of 15 German representatives to the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum, which fosters non-governmental exchanges and bilateral confidence-building.
Communist Party members should study contemporary capitalism but must never deviate from Marxism, Chinese President Xi Jinping said...
“If we deviate from or abandon Marxism, our party would lose its soul and direction,” Xi said. “On the fundamental issue of upholding the guiding role of Marxism, we must maintain unswerving resolve, never wavering at any time or under any circumstances.”
Xi said the party should better integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with the “reality of contemporary China and learn from the achievements of other civilizations to create and develop Marxism”, Xinhua said.
“Xi also asked Party members to study contemporary capitalism, its essence and patterns,” the report added....
Relentless efforts should be made to adapt Marxism to China, to the era and to the public, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said on Friday.…
Xi said that as a party upholding Marxism, the CPC should make sure its theories keep up with the times.
Drifting away from or betraying Marxism will lead to the Party's losing its soul and direction as it moves forward, Xi added.
Marxism is unsurpassed in achieving great heights and having a huge influence, he said....
Since China has undergone remarkable changes following its reform and opening-up, Chinese are most qualified and capable of unveiling the lessons and natural laws behind such changes and of making original contributions to the development of Marxism, Xi said.
Party members should be self-conscious about and confident in the theory, focus on what they do, listen to what the people think, respond to actual needs and fully sum up the practices of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Xi said.
Additionally, the Party should continue improving its capabilities in analyzing and tackling issues by using Marxism, and continue strengthening its capabilities in addressing major challenges, risks, resistance and contradictions, he said.
The 19th Congress is China’s most important political event since 2012, marking the beginning of President Xi’s second term. The new central party leadership will rule China over the next five years, a critical time for realising the vision of China’s development that Xi set out to achieve.
The Chinese Dream has set two centenary goals. The first is to double China’s 2010 per capita income, making China a ‘moderately well off’ society by 2021, the centenary of the founding of the CCP. The second aims to make China a ‘strong, democratic, civilised, harmonious and modern socialist country by 2049’, the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic....A hundred years sounds like a long time to Americans, where the country is less than 300 years old. But a hundred years is a drop in the bucket for China, whose history extends across millennia.
The Chinese Communist Party’s recent return to Chinese roots has brought about a new synthesis between political and cultural nationalism. China’s one-party state has not only moved away from its usual revolutionary style but it is also promoting Sino-centrism with uncharacteristic gusto. This shift has notable ramifications for China both domestically and internationally.
Chinese political nationalism, on the other hand, sought to reconstruct the political authority of the state and replace China’s cultural heritage with a new culture congenial to the state. It also served the purpose of nation building, state building or modernisation depending on the prevailing contemporary political ideology. Political nationalism dominated its much weaker opponent from the early 20th century to the late 1980s thanks to the popular belief that Chinese cultural traditions were responsible for the country’s backwardness and humiliation at the hands of Western powers.
But now, under President Xi Jinping, Chinese cultural nationalism has gained new prominence. In November 2013, he visited Qufu — the birthplace of Confucius — and the following year attended an official commemoration of the sage’s birthday. During the same period, the Ministry of Education released a set of guidelines on teaching traditional Chinese culture in educational institutions. Party officials are now required to attend ‘study sessions’ at Party Schools and State Administration Colleges. More recently, Xi has added ‘cultural confidence’ to the ‘three confidences’ that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wishes to boost, which include ‘ideological confidence’, ‘confidence in the [socialist] road’, and ‘confidence in the [socialist] system’.
This development is one manifestation of the party-state’s current movement away from Marxism and its long tradition of political nationalism. Since the reform era, the historical mission of the CCP has shifted from one of class struggle and continuous revolution to a focus on economic development, harmonious society and the ‘China dream’.
The CCP is no longer a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’ based on the alliance of the industrial proletariat and peasantry, as it is defined in the country’s constitution. Nor is it simply guided by Marxism–Leninism or Mao Zedong thought. In the new milieu, the CCP must be guided by traditional Chinese ideas, beliefs and visions. And, rather than relying on the economic performance of 1949–2013, the CCP’s legitimacy must now be derived from its conformity to traditional notions of good governance.This is huge. The European-inspired revolution is over. It has achieved its purpose, and now China can return to its business of being Chinese.
At the recently concluded Fifth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee, the “Four Comprehensives” became the grand blueprint for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). Each of the four tasks requires broad measures and pragmatic actions.
- A moderately prosperous society
- Structural reforms
- Rule of law
- Strict party discipline
In the West, one-child policy is often criticized as a “cruel Communist strategy.” In reality, most opponents of that policy were Marxists and the idea itself came from the West.China’s Demographic Future
So while Chinese citizens broadly think the transition to capitalism has been worth it, there's real anger about the rising inequality that's accompanied by it. It's a major problem for the Chinese Communist Party going forward…
In a major Party address, Xi outlines his vision for ensuring the survival of the CCP.…
In essence, Xi’s emphasis on Party management is his answer to the central question facing China today: can the CCP co-opt the major benefits of a democracy (accountability, responsiveness, and transparency) without actually democratizing?
