Xi Jinping’s speech was longsighted, but most importantly thoroughly doable, based on China’s impressive track record
ADAM GARRIE
Chinese
President Xi Jinping has addressed the opening session of the 19th
Communist Party Congress. Thus far, the most ubiquitous comments about
the speech relate to its monumental
length, which ran over three and a half hours.
While
enduring such a lengthy speech is not particularly easy, in hindsight,
Xi’s speech represents a markedly succinct summary of China’s
contemporary achievements while offering
an easily understood road-map for China and indeed her partners, for
the remainder of the 21st century. When trying to condense and
synthesise over 100 aggregate years of past successes and future
planning, listening to three and an half hours of a speech
is actually far briefer than the copious policy documents and analysis
that one might otherwise have to read in order to garner such essential
information.
Because
of this, many western mainstream media outlets have decided to hide the
full speech, blaming its length for the fact that in reality, many such
“journalists” do not
wish to confront China’s rise to its position as a foremost superpower
in the modern world.
Here,
you can watch the full speech. Below the video I shall illustrate what I felt were the most important points:
Xi
Jinping’s address was framed by the theme of his Presidency: the
further development of Marxism with Chinese characteristics. This
essentially means embracing traditional
Chinese cultural and socio-economic habits within the context of the
market socialist economic pioneered by Deng Xiaoping who was Chin’a
paramount leader from 1978-1989.
The
most revolutionary aspect of the speech included a commitment to build
on China’s industrial, infrastructural and financial progress to make
China an ever more prosperous
country internally. While words like “luxury” still carry some stigma
in the context of a Communist Party, in reality, Xi was promising just
that.
As
Chinese workers have laboured tirelessly to transform China from a
struggling agrarian economy to a thriving economy that will soon fully
overtake the US in terms of total
economic power (in many other areas, China has overtaken the US some
time ago), Xi illustrated that now it is the time for Chinese men and
women to enjoy more of the benefits of the wealth they created.
To
achieve this, Xi spoke of several stages of developing “great modern
socialism”, the natural outgrowth from the market socialism of Deng.
Practically,
this will require two things. First of all, One Belt–One Road will help
to connect the Chinese model of economic growth with other dynamic and
growing economies
throughout multiple global regions. The outward looking concept behind
One Belt–One Road is critical to Xi’s idea of a China that will be not
only open but more open than ever before. By sharing the Chinese
experience with others and linking economies of the
world, China is creating a world in which developing countries can
enhance their productivity while crucially maintaining full political
independence. Secondly, Xi has a wide ranging programme designed to
pivot China’s internal investment from primarily infrastructure
based projects to projects which improve the micro-management of daily
life. In many ways, such programmes at an urban level, are already well
under way.
China’s
reticence to intervene in the political issues of foreign countries was
in fact a recurring theme of Xi’s speech. This was designed to reassure
China’s new partners,
but it also is part of a wider declaration that in the Chinese
dominated 21st century, this will be an organic economic dominance and a
dominance in terms of available resources, but not one of
imperialistic, political nor ideological dominance. In many ways,
there is no better place to assure partners of China’s lack of interest
in exporting ideology than during a Communist Party Congress. In this
sense, it was made clear that China’s ideological dialectics are meant
only for China and not partners. In a single
phrase, one could summarise this as: “Great modern socialism in
one-state and One Belt–One Road for all independent partners”. To put it
another way, “Many political systems, one common goal of prosperity”.
Between
the present day and the year 2020, China will work to solidify economic
and social gains for the last decade, something which will be
capped-off by the completion of
the modernisation project for the People’s Liberation Army in 2020, as
well as enhanced efforts to totally eliminate rural poverty and expand
modern agriculture and industrial sectors outside of China’s modern
urban regions.
Between
2020 and 2035, China will work to build a country that is “prosperous,
strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful”. In
more practical terms,
this means a country wherein real Chinese living standards continue to
increase, while conditions remain free of the peaks and troughs that
have plagued western societies in recent decades.
While
capitalists often criticise socialist countries for lacking sufficient
luxury items and leisurely pursuits for citizens and where inversely
many socialists criticise
capitalist countries for making culture inaccessible and stable living
impossible, Xi’s programme looks to offer both stability, consistently
liveable residential and working environments, while also enhancing the
ability of ordinary people to enrich their
lives with cultural activities and the new avenues of social
enhancement made possible through modern technologies which China has
both braced and pioneered.
In
this sense, China is preparing for an economic and social reality in
the age of industrial mechanisation. Where many western entrepreneurs
such as Elon Musk have advocated
a standard “living wage” for citizens, in order to cope with increased
mechanisation, Xi’s proposals effectively guarantee the shared and even
distribution of China’s immense wealth through a programme of direct
investment into people and their social environments.
In this sense, rather than pay citizens an arbitrary wage, China after
2035, will move increasingly to develop a society where wealth is
transferred across society in form of manifold investments, something
that will be enacted harmoniously with the coming
age of mega-mechanisation.
Part
of Xi’s proposals to enhance the quality of living for Chinese, is to
take care to always balance infrastructural development with ecological
protections. As the country
which industrialised more rapidly than any other in history, China has
already begun embracing green technology, particularly in the field of
energy creation, more thoroughly than any other. As China begins
exporting its green technologies, Beijing will almost
certainly become a global leader in this field.
Xi
Jinping also spoke of the need to further assure that corruption will
not implant itself in China, in spite of economic diversification and
growth. He encouraged the party
faithful to remain committed to traditional values while preparing the
development of new ways of thinking and problem solving.
Will it work?
When
taken at face value, all of Xi’s proposals are impressive. It would be
difficult for anyone other than an ideologue to disagree with the over
all scope of his lengthy
speech.
Therefore, the biggest question remaining is: will China be able to accomplish these great feats?
The simple answer, based on China’s modern precedent, is a resounding, YES.
China
has been able to create and benefit from a modern industrial
revolution, a revolution in urban planning and living, a consumer
revolution, a living standards revolution
and a technological revolution, all in a period of about 30 to 40
years.
What
remains for China is to merely build on these foundations which have
been laid at a phenomenal speed, especially when one considers China’s
large population and land mass.
Because
all of Xi’s proposals involve a combination of internal investment,
external partnerships which include new multilateral investment
opportunities as well as a commitment
to peace, the only way for China’s record of progress to become
disrupted is through the intervention of a foreign entity.
While
it is clear that the US intends to disrupt China’s external development
through One Belt–One Road, what is also clear is that the unmistakable
US attempts to do this,
have traditionally ended in failure. Washington’s pivot to India, a
clear attempt to scuttle the Sino-Pakistan alliance, has become a public
embarrassment as the US is somewhat diplomatically distancing itself
from New Dheli after it became clear that India
does not think leaping into America’s Afghan disaster is prudent. This
further limits India’s long term options, if New Delhi fails to join
Russia and Pakistan along One Belt–One Road. Although, the US came out
with some highly
pro-Indian statements on the same day as Xi’s speech, the timing
and nature of the remarks indicate that it may be more of a last gasp of
a dead-end policy than a full revitalisation.
In
terms of South East Asia, the prolonged crises in Myanmar appears as
though it is being managed internally. The danger is that the US could
still internationalise the conflicts
in Myanmar, in the hopes of creating a roadblock to China’s
partnerships in South East Asia. Elsewhere, in South East Asia though,
Philippines may soon became a joint success story for both Manila and
Beijing as early this year Xi Jinping hailed a “golden
era” of relations between the former US colony and China, something
made possible by President Rodrigo Duterte’s pivot away from Washington
and closer to both China and Russia. China is also set to build a large
new district in Manila, which will act as a
modern showcase for Philippines in the 21st century and beyond.
In
terms of the Middle East, while the US has caused major devastation,
there are now more countries willing and able to work with China than
ever before. This includes countries
as diverse as Iran and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq,
Syria and Turkey.
China’s
recent opening of a military logistics base in Djibouti ,also looks to
secure future partnerships in Africa. Furthermore, China’s warm
relationship with Russia, means
that two of the three world superpowers are on the same page, something
which is entirely unlike the Cold War period when the USSR, China and
the US had three very different agendas, each of which allowed a third
party to exploit the other two.
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.
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