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This Congress will provide a crucial window into the direction of China in the next five years or a longer period. In this election year for many countries,including that of the United States on Tuesday, where President Barack Obama was re-elected for a second four-year term, the world is now paying close attention to the CPC’s latest moves, and is curious to know how it will judge the situation, continue to lead China along the path of peaceful rise, and influence global landscapes.
At present, the world economy hit hard by the global financial crisis is still struggling to recover, and China is entering a new historical stage of transforming its economic growth model, deepening reforms, and building a well-off society in an all-round way after more than 30 years of miraculously rapid economic growth thanks to the Reform and Opening-up.
And according to the People’s Daily, the CPC’s flagship newspaper based in the capital city of Beijing, the 18th National Congress of the CPC will be a crucial event concerning China’s fate.
Over the past 30 odd years of rapid economic growth, particularly since the 16th and 17th CPC national congresses, China has gained a raft of titles such as “the world’s most populous country,” “the world’s second largest economy,” “a new member of the World Trade Organization,” “the world’s factory,” “a stabilizer of the world economy,” “a new engine for the world economic recovery,” and “the world’s largest exporter and second largest importer.” The People’s Daily said the CPC
national congresses have become the crucial links guiding and promoting China’s development and changes.
It noted that China is facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, it aims to build an all-round, well-off society by 2020, or the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Party, so the time after the 18th CPC National Congress will be particularly crucial. The CPC enjoys a solid foundation for governance and massive public support, and has continued to promote the Reform and Opening-up. China is still in the middle of industrialization, informationization, urbanisation, and agricultural modernization, and thus has huge potential for steady development and peaceful rise.
On the other hand, the country is also facing many difficulties and problems, including increased economic downward pressure. Authoritative research institutions said that China was approaching the end of the miraculous era of nearly double-digit growth. There are still certain systematic and structural problems affecting the long-term, healthy development of Chinese society and economy, and the reforms in certain key areas remain timid.
The People’s Daily newspaper suggested that, at the 18th national congress, the Party needs to figure out how it will draw on past invaluable experience, open up a path of innovation, meet the people’s needs, solve problems concerning the people’s vital interests, and introduce more suitable policies at the macro and micro levels for improving the people’s living standards.
It said China is faced with new challenges in handling relations with the big countries, developing countries and its neighbours. In the era of economic globalisation, China must map out a new strategy to continue the road of peaceful development, meanwhile, avoiding risks and seizing opportunities. Now, China occupies such an important status in the world that a slight change will impact the entire world.
In the face of new problems and challenges, as well as new situation and expectation, China will develop new measures and methods on the occasion of convening the 18th National Congress of the CPC, preparing for further development.
And people are looking forward to the convening of the 18th National Congress of the CPC because it may mean the new beginning of a great revolution to China and even the world.
China’s relation with the world and its role in the world are undergoing grand changes. Since 2010, China has become the world’s second largest economy and its active role has been more prominent. In addition to economic power, China’s political, cultural and moral powers also have the same far-reaching impact on the world.
These are some of the reasons for this huge global attention being paid to China at the moment, especially today’s convening of the 18th CPC National Congress, during which a new CPC leadership will be elected, setting a new direction for the country’s development in the near future.
IMPACT OF CONGRESS ON GLOBAL ECONOMY
Over the past decades, China has made significant achievements, but continues to face a series of challenges that need to be addressed through further reforms, and many believe this Congress will make strategic arrangements for the overall advancement of China’s reform and opening up.
Italian expert, Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, a noted professor of international relations at the Catholic University of Milan, told reporters that for a country of over 1.3 billion people, “the biggest issue is how to make the jump from developing to advanced economy, which requires increased efforts to tackle the many contradictions and disparities that undermine stability.”
The strength of China’s economy based on a wise combination of state planning and private businesses can withstand the crisis better than in other systems, Diliberto noted, calling himself “very confident” in the ability of CPC leadership to handle key challenges.
The upcoming congress will be convened under fundamental topics for the future of China, that should spare no effort in advancing the well-being of its entire people while seeking to build a conservation culture, he said.
In fact, in the current times of economic globalisation and political multi-polarization, changes in one country cannot but influence others, especially for a major country like China, said Giorgio Prodi, an economics professor at the University of Ferrara.
Prodi, who is the director of a new programme launched at Bologna University to form young managers able to build bridges between Asia and Europe, was impressed by China’s ability to “resist external pressures and foster stability over the past years”.
Meanwhile, he noted, both inner and external conditions have changed. China is not a top low labour cost country anymore, and the global economy has entered a crucial, difficult phase.
“In the present changed overall scenario, such a huge and populous country has not any historical cases to take as an example,” Prodi said.
However, China’s fundamental strong point is the awareness of being a “great country able to look at the future with confidence in a time when confidence has become a very scarce good in international markets,” he pointed out.
In his view, this thorough understanding of the experiences China has gained over past decades and the new achievements it will make can help the world’s second-largest economy plug the gaps.
“China is very capable to catch up quickly to new technologies for developing the high- quality products and service businesses its economy is in need of,” he said.
This thirst for expertise is also expected to provide new collaborative opportunities at the international level, and also for this reason the upcoming congress should matter to the rest of the world, the professor added.
China’s future steps can open up new perspectives both for the foreign companies wanting to invest in China and for Chinese businesses intentioned to develop abroad, in various fields including the cultural one, Prodi said.
DROVES OF OVERSEAS JOURNALISTS
As the five-yearly Congress draws near, reporters from around the world are congregating in Beijing to cover the most important event in China’s political life.
Their focus of interest at the Congress covers a wide range of topics beyond China’s leadership change, spanning from environmental protection to economic restructuring, from cultural reform to food safety – a fact which demonstrates foreign media’s growing and more diversified interest in China.
Almost two thousand journalists from around the world have registered to cover the upcoming 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which ‘China Daily’ said is a remarkable increase over the previous congress, showing the world’s rising attention to a rapidly changing China. Zhai Huisheng, Director of the Media Center of the congress, noted that about 1,200 overseas reporters registered to cover the last CPC Congress in 2007, and this number has risen significantly for this current Congress.
Zhai said overseas reporters this year are from more media organizations, many of them from developing economies.
“Many reporters are not based in China and they come here for the congress,” he said, adding that “it shows the huge attention of the international community to the congress.”
Meanwhile, major news and business portals in China have arranged ‘special coverage pages’ to promote the upcoming Congress.
On the website of the People’s Daily, the CPC’s flagship newspaper, a column for the congress occupies almost a quarter of the front page and is highlighted with red font.
Activity sections have also been included in the column to stimulate ‘netizen’ interaction. Activities include inviting netizens to write a prayer for the congress or to take a quiz on CPC congresses.
Xinhua News Agency’s website has also put together a full red page for a series of reports and commentaries that look back on the changes and big events that have occurred since the 16th CPC National Congress. Commercial portals based in China, including Sina, Tencent and Sohu have all made room for congress coverage in their front pages. Even mobile media have unrolled various forms and content for breaking news and activities concerning the meeting.
TV channels, such as Central Network Television associated with the state-owned Central China Television, are presenting documentaries on the Scientific Outlook on Development and the achievements made during the tenure of the current leadership.
BEEFING UP SECURITY
Meanwhile, Beijing authorities have geared up support for security and logistics ahead of tomorrow’s Congress.
The municipal government on Tuesday initiated an emergency response programme, asking relevant departments to ensure water, electricity, gas, heat, transportation and fire control services in the event of an emergency.
The programme requires emergency response teams to restore normal operations within 15 minutes in case of an emergency, such as a technical malfunction.
Vehicles carrying toxic or dangerous chemicals will not be allowed to enter the municipality from Nov 1 to 18. The valid term for permits to enter Beijing will also be shortened from seven days to three days, according to the city’s traffic management bureau.
The municipal fire department started a campaign in mid-October to check and remove fire risks at venues that will serve the Congress and the central government compound, as well as hotels, hospitals, schools, markets, stores, cinemas, clubs and Internet cafes.
Sanitation workers have also been asked to strengthen food safety and cleanliness inspections in hotels and restaurants.
“Services for every post and every section should be assured so as to ensure a successful congress,” said Guo Jinlong, secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee.
LANDMARK MOMENT
According to the Xinhua news agency, China’s urbanisation process, social development and economic growth over the past decade were remarkable and have greatly impressed the world.
It quoted a French expert on China, Pierre Picquart, who has a doctorate in geopolitics and human geography at the University of Paris, who declared that the upcoming 18th CPC Congress will be a “landmark moment.”
Over the past 10 years, China has gone through necessary reforms and emerged as the world’s second largest economy.
A large swath of regions across the country have been greatly developed and many Chinese enterprises have started to invest overseas, Picquart said, noting that China was transforming from a consumer goods producer into a world centre of design and creation.
Such achievements, for a nation with a size equalling to a continent and a population of nearly 1.4 billion, were not easy to make.
“I have witnessed the extraordinary development of the country,” said Picquart, who has made more than 40 visits to China over the past 15 years.
On the challenges China will confront, the expert said Beijing, besides dealing with economic and social challenges, will also face problems arising from both geopolitical and strategic fronts in the years to come.
After rising to an economic power, China will encounter an array of challenges, including how to steer the world strategically toward a multi-polarized direction and how to boost ties with developing countries, especially with the BRICS members, he said.
On top of that, further engagement in the international affairs and improvement of global crisis management through the United Nations are also challenges that China will have to address, he added.
Many observers believe the next decade is crucial to China, as Beijing will play an important role in such areas as financial regulation, economic governance, environmental protection and development of relations with other countries.
Speaking of China’s development model, Picquart said the country has a cultural tradition stretching back to 5,000 years ago, much longer than those of Europe and the United States.
“I don’t agree with the practice of blindly copying the experience of Europe. The United States has its own pattern. China should seek its own unique development model,” he said.
He suggested that China should build on the merits of its distinctive cultural tradition and blaze its own trail of development.
By doing so, China will provide the world with a brand-new growth model, which is more harmonious and peaceful, he said, adding that the Chinese philosophy will make state relations more balanced and the Chinese culture will offer a different perspective, the one distinct from the West perception that a superpower will dominate the world by military strength.
“I think China will create a new cooperation model,” he added.
Many Westerners are still biased against China, but they will gradually reverse their attitude as China continues to push forward the peaceful foreign policy and the opening-up initiative, the expert said.
“I think the best way to promote China’s image is to let more people go to China, see the country for themselves and keep close contact with the ordinary Chinese,” he said.
CPC MEMBERSHIP SWELLS TO 82.6 MILLION
According to statistics from the Organisation Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, China has more than 82.6 million CPC members at the end of 2011. The number is more than the population of England or France, and almost the population of Germany.
The number was 65.75 million at the end of 2001, which means nearly 17 million people joined the CPC in the past 10 years, more than one million every year.
Xin Yi, a professor of Renmin University of China, found that more people working in private and foreign enterprises, self-employed businesses and intermediaries joined the CPC since 2001, when it began to accept “those outstanding elements from other sectors of society who have subscribed to the Party’s programme and Constitution, worked for the Party’s line and programme wholeheartedly, and proved to meet the requirements for Party membership through a long period of tests.”
