BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged patience as the country’s ruling Communist Party attempts to reverse a growing economic slump and says Western countries are “increasingly in trouble” because of their spiritual poverty and materialism.
Xi’s address was released by Qiushi, the leading theoretical journal of the party, hours after data revealed that consumer and industry activity declined even more in July despite official assurances to aid struggling business owners. The government chose not to provide an update on a politically sensitive rise in youth unemployment.
The country’s most powerful leader in decades, Xi, urged China to “build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion” and to put its attention on long-term objectives, such as enhancing the country’s 1.4 billion people’s access to education, healthcare, and food, as opposed to just seeking short-term material gain.
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has advocated for restoring the governing party’s position as a social and economic leader and tightening control over the economy and society.
As successful Chinese businesses are pushed to invest money in political causes like processor chip development, some reforms come at an increasing cost. The party increased its grip on the tech sector by introducing anti-monopoly and data security initiatives that destroyed billions of dollars’ worth of stock market value.
Xi insisted on steady, step-by-step advancement in his speech and added, “We must maintain historic patience.” According to Qiushi, it was delivered in February in Chongqing in China’s southwest. Speeches are frequently published in Qiushi periodical months after they are given.
From 2.2 percent in January-March to 0.8 percent in the three months that ended in June, there was a decline in economic growth. This translates to an annual rate of 3.2 percent, among China’s weakest in decades.
According to a poll conducted in June, the jobless rate for urban employees aged 16 to 24 rose to a record 21.3 percent. This week, the statistics office announced it would postpone updates until it improved its measuring. Xi emphasized “common prosperity,” a party phrase from the 1950s that he has revived.
He urged “regulate the healthy development of capital” and called for lowering China’s enormous wealth gap between a tiny elite and the poor majority, but he made no new commitments.
A crucial aspect of Chinese-style modernization that sets it apart from Western modernization is “common prosperity for all people,” according to Xi. In contrast to serving the interests of the great majority of people, modernization in the West “pursues the maximization of capital interests,” according to Xi.
Western nations are currently experiencing more difficulties, according to Xi. They cannot cure chronic illnesses like materialism, spiritual poverty, or the capitalist system’s insatiable appetite for wealth.
