Congress conveys continuity message

Country will continue its chosen path and stick to development, experts say

Continuity is the essential point of the just completed 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and the country will continue on its chosen path, experts say.

Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, said China ushered in a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the past decade, and the 20th congress focused on continuity.

The important thing in this 20th congress is "not just a reiteration that China will follow that path, but even in the harsh international and geopolitical environment that we have seen over the past five years", and in the years after the 19th National Congress of the CPC that China is not going to be deflected from that path, Gupta told China Daily.

"Even though the shadow of conflict has grown larger, both in bilateral relations and generally in international relations, development, not security, is still the priority of the Party and the government."

On Oct 22, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded in Beijing after a seven-day meeting. The central task of the CPC is to unite and lead the Chinese people to build a solid socialist modern country, achieve a second centenary goal, and promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernization.

"Chinese modernization is socialist modernization pursued under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. It contains elements that are common to the modernization processes of all countries, but it is more characterized by features that are unique to the Chinese context," said the report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC.

'Relying on its own efforts'

William Jones, Washington bureau chief of Executive Intelligence Review, described these discourses on modernization and development as "a positive message".

"China will continue on the path it has embarked on, with continued opening-up while relying on its own efforts to maintain the economic momentum, expanding a 'high-quality' Belt and Road, and working to establish more equality and fairness in international relations.

"And the rejection by China of all these attempts by the West to initiate a Cold War economic policy has no doubt won the support of most countries in the world, tired of the way the US seems willing to endanger world peace in its continued striving for hegemony," he told China Daily. "There is every intention by the Chinese government to get the economy moving again at full throttle."

China's "own path" also includes reaching out to the world, as expressed, for instance, in the Belt and Road Initiative or the proposals for a Global Development Initiative and a Global Security Initiative, he said.

From a policy perspective, Gupta stressed that the sense of the congress was a reassurance that China will continue the path it has chosen. The path is one of development "because the path of development opens up greater economic opportunities for everyone, not just in China but beyond China", he said. "The international reception to the congress has mostly been an accepting one and not an alarmist one."

Gupta said that business in Western countries, including the US, would like more rather than less reform and expects that there will be more reform down the line.

"And in fact, there's still, even with the COVID protocols and restrictions, there's still continuing foreign investment entering China. Because there is the expectation and the understanding that China will just reform and become bigger and more prosperous and that there will be more opportunities."