Xi's report to 20th CPC Congress: A clear guide to what China will do next

Xi Jinping delivers a report to the 20th CPC National Congress on behalf of the 19th CPC Central Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct 16, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

China has laid open and clear its next moves related to its domestic and international affairs. The report presented on October 16 by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC, on behalf of the 19th CPC Central Committee and approved by the 20th National Congress of the CPC on October 22 is a clear guide to what China will do next.

The report sets forth the policies of the Party not only for the next five years but beyond that, to the middle of this century when China is to be turned into a great modern socialist country in all respects. In this sense, the report is of great importance.

The report is of paramount importance especially at the background that people around the world do not get a clue as to what the other major countries intend to do simply because most such developed countries keep their real policies secret or their activities contradict their professed policies.
With the successful completion of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, China has embarked on the path to achieve the second centenary goal of national rejuvenation and building a modern socialist country in all respects.

Reviewing correctly the achievements made in the past years, including the recent five years and since the founding of the Party in 1921 and the challenges the Party faced, the report does not only present the roadmap for the upcoming years but also some new ideas. Whole-process people's democracy, primary level democracy, harmony between human and nature are some of the new ideas put forth in the report.

The report correctly says that in the past decade, China's GDP has grown from 54 trillion yuan to 114 trillion yuan to account for 18.5 percent of the world economy, up 7.2 percentage points. China has remained the world's second largest economy, and its per capita GDP has risen from 39,800 yuan to 81,000 yuan. It ranks first in the world in terms of grain output, and it has ensured food and energy security for its more than 1.4 billion people. The number of permanent urban residents has grown by 11.6 percentage points to account for 64.7 percent of the population. China's manufacturing sector is the largest in the world, as are its foreign exchange reserves. China has built the world's largest networks of high-speed railways and expressways and made major achievements in building airports, ports, and water conservancy, energy, information, and other infrastructure.

China's peaceful rise and impressive development achievements have sent a positive and inspiring message to the people both at home and across the globe.

It is known over the world that as the ruling Party, CPC's achievements have been more solid and astounding in the last decade.

China's GDP has more than doubled in a decade and reached 18 trillion US dollars in 2021. The share of China's economy in the global economy has increased from 11.4 percent in 2012 to over 18 percent of the global economy in 2021. According to a report, China has contributed a quarter of the world's new forest area in the past decade, which means China has given utmost priority to preserving the ecology and mitigating climate change effects. The sky in China looks blue for more days now than in 2013, rivers and lakes are cleaner, and hills are greener now than a decade ago. The efforts for green development have already paid off. For example, air quality would be good only for 176 days in 2013 in Beijing but in 2021, the number of days when the air quality was good reached 288 days a year. The number of days of extreme pollution in Beijing was 58 in 2013 which has been reduced to just eight days in 2021.

With the approval of the report, it is expected that anti-corruption drive will further intensify in China and the second largest economy will try to have an international cooperation mechanism to fight corruption. Such a move will surely be welcomed by many countries so that corrupt people will have no place to hide.

One of the most important features of the report is that it has stressed on traditional culture of China and ensuring religions have Chinese characteristics and adapt to socialism.

The CPC report makes it clear that, "In pursuing modernization, China will not tread the old path of war, colonization, and plunder taken by some countries. That brutal and blood-stained path of enrichment at the expense of others caused great suffering for the people of developing countries. We will stand firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress. Dedicated to peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit, we will strive to safeguard world peace and development as we pursue our own development, and we will make greater contributions to world peace and development through our own development".

To sum up, the CPC report makes all confident that China will keep modernizing, developing by its own strength that means without exploiting other countries in this or that pretext and that the CPC will keep upholding people-centric policies for development and governance. The way peaceful, beautiful China has been stressed make it clear that China will not seek confrontation for economic gains. But, by stressing on self-defense, it has responded adequately to those who wish to contain its development and jeopardize its territorial integrity.

(The writer Tiwari is Sub Editor at The Rising Nepal.)