In tones of presumptuous celebration, China ended political meetings on Thursday when officials praised the country’s repressive political system, welcomed its ongoing recovery from the pandemic, flexed Beijing’s power over Hong Kong and drew up plans to compete with the United States abroad, saying that “the best is still ahead of us.”
Delegates to the annual political meetings known as the “Two Sessions” endorsed the Communist leadership’s plans to exercise greater power over the Hong Kong government, indoctrinate ethnic minorities through political and Mandarin language education and surpass the US in technology. Government officials and state media have repeatedly emphasized how the way China handled the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated its superior political system and prefaced an inevitable rise above Western powers.
“China can already see the world on an equal level,” said President Xi Jinping in a speech during the meetings, which brought together about 3,000 delegates from across the country. China was the first to tame the coronavirus, the first to resume work and the first to achieve positive economic growth, said Xi.
“It came from self-confidence in our path, self-confidence in our theories, self-confidence in our system, self-confidence in our culture,” he said. “Our national system can concentrate strength to do great things.”
Following Xi’s example, many officials used dramatic rhetoric when describing “major historical changes not seen in a hundred years” – Xi’s favorite slogan, signifying the rise of China and the decline of the West.
This message is one that the ruling Communist Party is especially eager to spread, as 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the party’s founding. His reiteration during the Two Sessions in polluted Beijing came days before the first meeting between Chinese officials and senior members of the Biden government.
“For China, 2021 will be a landmark year for an era,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a news conference on Monday. “Party leadership is proven to be the greatest political advantage of Chinese diplomacy and the fundamental safeguard for continued victory.”
The party’s first century was “just a prelude,” added Wang. “The best is still ahead of us.”
The key to this vision of greatness, from Beijing’s point of view, is the party’s continued absolute control over a unified Chinese nation.
Nowhere has this been more evident this week than in Hong Kong. The National People’s Congress, one of the Two Sessions, approved a reformulation of the territory’s electoral system, giving power over the selection of the chief executive and the legislature to a special committee that would allow only “patriots” to rule.
At the same time, 47 Hong Kong citizens were put on trial in the city, accused of “conspiring to subvert state power” by participating in unofficial primary elections.
Xi also continued to push for the assimilation of ethnic minorities, emphasizing Mandarin language education and the use of state-issued books at a meeting with delegates from Inner Mongolia. Mass protests erupted in the region last year against the imposition of further Mandarin language teaching in primary schools.
“Cultural identity is the most profound form of identity. It is also the root and soul of ethnic unity and harmony, ”said Xi.
Chinese leaders continued to deny the oppression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, calling the genocide charges “rumor” and “lie”. The United States’ designation of China’s actions in Xinjiang as “genocide” is a ploy to “halt China’s development,” said Wang, the foreign minister.
It is a well-worn narrative that state media and Spanish officials repeated throughout the Trump administration – that the United States is trying to suppress China for fear of usurping the United States’ role as the world’s greatest power.
Chinese diplomats abroad often insist that Beijing does not have such plans, that it believes in multilateralism, promotes “win-win cooperation” and harmony, despite differences. “Without conflict, without confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation – this is in the interest of the people of both countries,” Premier Li Keqiang told reporters on Thursday.
But at home, officials and state media talk openly about competing to win the United States, especially in technology.
A draft of the next five-year plan announced at this week’s meetings included an increase in spending of more than 7% per year on research and development. China is expected to focus on several strategic areas over the next five years, the project said, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, integrated circuits and aerospace.
By 2035, the draft said, China should have achieved “significant advances in essential technologies” and become a leader in innovation.
Other issues discussed in the Two Sessions included domestic challenges, such as China’s aging population, post-pandemic unemployment and urban-rural inequality. China also increased its defense budget by 6.8%, to about $ 209 billion in 2021, more than its 6.6% increase last year.
Wang, the foreign minister, warned the United States on Sunday that Taiwan remains a “red line” for China. He said Washington’s support for Taiwan was “dangerous”, suggesting a possible conflict over the democratically governed island, which China claims as its territory.
In addition to a phone call on the Lunar New Year holiday between President Biden and Xi, the new US government has so far made no significant openings to the Chinese government. Instead, it emphasized human rights violations and anti-democratic practices in China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet.
Next week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan are scheduled to meet Wang, the foreign minister, and the Communist Party’s foreign policy chief, Yang Jiechi, in Anchorage. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between senior US and Chinese officials since Biden’s inauguration.
The meeting will take place shortly after Blinken and Sullivan visit Tokyo and Seoul, where they must discuss approaches to combat China. This week, Biden is also holding a virtual meeting with regional allies India, Japan and Australia.
Blinken told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that the meeting with Chinese officials would likely include a discussion of the pandemic, trade and human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Thursday that China hopes the meeting “will put Sino-American relations back on track for healthy and stable development”, but puts the burden of doing so in the United States.
“We demand that the US treat China and Sino-American relations in an objective and rational manner, abandon the Cold War and zero-sum thinking, respect China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, stop interfering in internal affairs from China and focus on cooperation, “he said.
He did not declare any potential commitment on the Chinese side.
Ziyu Yang, from The Times’ Beijing office, contributed to this report.