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Xi urges lawmakers to focus on China's stability at start of third term
He vowed to oppose foreign interference on Taiwan, a veiled reference to increasing American support for the democratically elected government in Taipei
China must redouble efforts to ensure stability and bolstering self-reliance, President Xi Jinping told lawmakers in a speech to mark the start of his precedent-breaking third term.
“Security is the foundation for development, and stability is the precondition for prosperity,” Xi said Monday to close out the annual National People’s Congress. He vowed to oppose foreign interference on Taiwan, a veiled reference to increasing American support for the democratically elected government in Taipei.
The remarks cap a yearlong reshuffle that has demonstrated Xi’s dominance over the nation of 1.4 billion people, overhauling the government and placing allies in key positions. On Friday, the NPC voted unanimously to give Xi a third five-year term, after abolishing constitutional provisions in 2018 that would’ve prevented him from staying on.
Later Monday, Xi’s one-time personal secretary, Li Qiang, will hold his first annual news briefing since being installed as premier and the Communist Party’s No. 2 official. He Lifeng, another close ally of Xi, was appointed a vice premier Sunday, signaling he could become the nation’s top economic official.
Xi has used the annual parliamentary gathering to hit back at the US for trying to prevent the country’s rise. Last week, he called on the private sector to help overcome “comprehensive containment and suppression by Western countries led by the US,” while his foreign minister warned of the risk of “conflict and confrontation.”
The US is increasingly using export controls, sanctions and other punitive measures to prevent China from obtaining technology that could give it an economic and military advantage, particularly in semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The Biden administration is working to tighten even further its restrictions on the export of chip manufacturing gear to China, Bloomberg News reported last week.
Xi called for “reasonable” growth in the economy with a focus on improving the quality of that expansion. Officials should accelerate the building of a new growth framework that prioritizes boosting domestic demand, driving innovation and self-reliance in science and technology, upgrading the industrial sector and promoting low-carbon development, he said.
“We should firmly push forward high-quality development,” Xi said. “We should strive for the effective improvement in the quality of the economy and the reasonable growth in its quantity.”
In line with that strategy, the government set a modest target for gross domestic product growth this year of around 5%, signaling there won’t be any major monetary or fiscal stimulus to spur the recovery. Authorities are shifting focus to tackling risks in the financial sector and plan to beef up oversight with a new powerful regulator for the industry.
Xi’s speech recounted the ruling Communist Party’s narrative as having helped orchestrate the Asian nation’s revival after a “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers. China had “stood up, grown rich and become strong,” Xi said, repeating an oft-used slogan.
The nation’s “great rejuvenation” was irreversible, he declared to the thousands of party members in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing who frequently applauded during Xi’s pauses.
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