Xi Jinping signals growth is ‘top priority’ in speech acknowledging China’s strains

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Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized support for the country’s vulnerable elderly and young people in a New Year’s address that acknowledged some of the tensions of the 1.4 billion population.

Si:His speech comes after his economic planners have struggled over the past four years to restore consumer confidence or combat rising youth unemployment and sluggish wage growth.

In a televised address Tuesday night, the 71-year-old leader, speaking in front of the Great Wall’s grand motifs, said the issues of employment, income growth, care for the elderly, care for children, education and health care are “always on my mind. “.

Xi said the July meeting of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party was “a clarion call for further comprehensive deepening of reforms”.

“Enabling people to live a happy life is the top priority,” he said.

China’s economywhich is second in the world after the US, grew 4.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, falling short of Beijing’s official target of about 5 percent.

Weak sentiment and deflationary pressures follow a series of blows, from the pandemic and a prolonged slump in the real estate market to Xi’s reassertion of Communist Party control over large swathes of China’s business landscape.

On Tuesday, Xi also reiterated a thinly veiled warning about international support for Taiwan. China insists on sovereignty over Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force if Taipei refuses unification indefinitely.

“Compatriots on both sides of the strait are one family. “No one can break our blood ties and kinship ties, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification,” Xi said.

Xi has increasingly directed state support for high-tech manufacturing and industry, increasing investment in electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and artificial intelligence, while pursuing Chinese-made production of critical technologies.

On Tuesday, he highlighted China’s progress in technological self-reliance and breakthrough areas including computer chips, artificial intelligence and space exploration.

A series of policy easing measures announced by Beijing since September, including some property and stock market support, are seen as a sign that the Xi administration is focusing on boosting domestic demand.

Reflecting those changes, the World Bank last week revised its forecast for China’s GDP growth next year by 0.4 percentage points to 4.5 percent.

However, China has been rocked this year by a spate of mass killings and stabbings that some experts blame for increasing social tensions. Fan Weikiu, 62, was sentenced to death last week after pleading guilty to murdering a mob in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai in November. in a drive-by accident that killed at least 35 people, the worst mass killing in the country. decade.

Ahead of a series of national holidays, Beijing has begun urging local authorities to expand seasonal cash deliveries to people facing economic hardship, including unemployed youth.

Pantheon Macroeconomics economist Kelvin Lam said that while the ventures would not have a significant impact on the wider economy, they could strengthen social stability and consumption in poorer rural areas.

China’s economic outlook has been further dampened by strained relations with the United States.

Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has restricted China’s access to computer chips, clamped down on Chinese investment in the U.S. and tightened sanctions on Chinese companies in the wake of a large-scale incursion into Ukraine to trade with Russia.

Earlier on Tuesday, Xi told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that “strategic coordination” between China and Russia continues to reach higher levels under their leadership, state news agency Xinhua said in a New Year message.

Additional reporting by Wenji Ding in Beijing, Chen Leng in Hong Kong and Catherine Hill in Taipei