TraductionXI JINPING’S VISION OF ”SOCIALIST MODERNIZATION” BY 2035:
TURNING POINT IN CHINA’S DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY
The fifth plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee will take place from October 26-29 to implement Xi Jinping’s economic vision for “socialist modernization” by 2035. At this key meeting which appears to be crucial for China’s socialist system and for its leadership for the coming years amid hostile international environment and the global fight of the United States and its allies all over the world to counter the rise of China will be laid out Xi Jinping’s vision for China to “basically achieve socialist modernization” by 2035. Achieving the goals for 2035 set to serve as a stepping stone for China to become a “modernized socialist country” by 2049, when the People‘s Republic of China will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Xi’s vision of “modernized socialist country” b At the same time, Chinese ministries and local governments are rushing to announce their own blueprints for 2035, fleshing out Xi’s strategic goal.
Xi’s vision of “modernized socialist country” by 2035 was first expressed in 2017 without giving more details concerning the means to achieve this goal. Xi’s conception was nurtured in the same time by the failed experience and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the East European socialism and the revival of American and western fight to counter China’s rise and its access to global dominance.
Xi displayed his vision of “modernized socialist country” in a book republished last month in a new book containing a collection of excerpts from speeches focusing on the risks and challenges that China faces. In a speech delivered in 2015, Xi reaffirmed his deep conviction in Marxism and the prominence of the Chinese communist party and his role to rule the country stetting “All types of hostile forces both at home and abroad have always tried to force our party to change its banner and to give up the surname – it is essentially an attempt to force us to give up our belief in Marxism, socialism and communism,” Xi dismissed the “universality” of the “western values” proclaiming the Communist leadership must not be compromised in its quest for national strength. Xi insisted experiences of “socialism practices” in other parts of the world prove that a Marxist political party will “collapse and fall apart” once it gives up belief in Marxism, socialism and communism. Xi added “Some people, including some comrades throughout our party, didn’t see the trick and argue that ‘western universal values’ have gone through centuries and why can‘t we accept them? These people have unconsciously become propagandists for Western capitalism ideology”.
In May 2020, Xi acknowledged that China will face “a more unstable and uncertain environment” in the near future, but that it can continue thriving thanks to its huge production capabilities, massive domestic market of over 400 million middle-income consumers and domestic investment potential from continued urbanisation. Fuqiang, or making China a rich and powerful country, remains the central piece of Beijing’s vision, although Xi has added fairness and green development to the mix.
The meeting of the coming plenum must focus on a new economic strategy centered on the domestic market and the rejection of the “middle income” trap. Beijing’s vision of a prosperous economy has been translated into a “dual circulation strategy” to highlight the importance of the domestic market and home grown technologies. China’s growth is expected to remain relatively strong in the next decade with an average annual growth rate of 4.5 per cent, indicating China could overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy in 2030.
Chinese ministries and local governments are rushing to announce their own blueprints for 2035, fleshing out Xi’s strategic goal. For example, China’s transport ministry is attempting to double the length of the nation’s high-speed railway network to 70,000km (43,496 miles) by 2035.
In Foreign policy, Beijing will face hostile international environment radically different compared to between 1980 and 2010 when the US-led western world welcomed China’s economic rise. In its rivalry with China, it is expected the United States will set up a myriad of regional China’s anti-Alliance all over the world in order to contain Beijing and its global rising, in the Indo Pacific region, Central Asia, the Middle East, South China Sea and in Southeast Asia, South America and especially in Africa where the rivalry between the US and China is already engaged. In Europe it is expected that the European Union will resort to all means to implement the US strategy of Containment which prevailed on the wake of the WWII against the then Soviet Union in order to prevent in this time, the Balkan states from treating engaging and leaning with Beijing’s Road of Belt.
Furthermore, in the coming decade, Beijing will face the assault of “Color revolution” in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. The United States is pushing towards Sino Confrontation in the High Himalayan mountains helped by the Indian right wing government of Narendra Modi The main Challenge for China remains Taiwan after the United States dismissed Nixon’s policy.
Finally, Beijing will face ferocious trade war as the United States and its European allies will deploy all means in order to counter China’s technological and industrial rise. We have a foretaste of this trade war recently with the battle between the United States and Beijing for the United Nation Intellectual property and Patents as Washington supported a Singaporean to head the organization for the six coming years.
