BEIJING: China opened a twice-a-decade Communist Party conference Sunday at the end of which leader Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term, breaking with recent precedent and establishing him as arguably the most powerful Chinese politician since Mao Zedong.
Xi was delivering a lengthy report at the opening in which he extolled the achievements of the past five years and said the party would strive to meet its modernization goals to achieve what it calls the “rejuvenation” of the nation.
“Our future is bright, but we still have a long way to go,” Xi said to the more than 2,000 delegates attending the opening, held in the massive Great Hall of the People that overlooks Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing.
“We must foster a firmer sense of purpose, fortitude and self-belief in the whole party and the Chinese people so that we cannot be swayed by fallacies, deterred by intimidation or cowed by pressure,” he said.
With Xi expected to remain, little change is foreseen in China’s economic and foreign policies, as well as in his intolerance of criticism and hardline approach to COVID-19 including quarantines and travel bans.
Xi defended the pandemic response, saying it “put the people and their lives above all else.”