Xi Jinping acknowledges pressure on China in speech, suggesting growth is ‘top priority’

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In his New Year’s speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized support for China’s vulnerable elderly and youth, acknowledging that some of the country’s 1.4 billion people are under pressure.

Before Xi Jinping’s speech, his economic planners had spent much of the past four years trying to restore consumer confidence or address rising youth unemployment and slow wage growth.

In a televised address on Tuesday night, the 71-year-old leader, who spoke in front of a large image of the Great Wall, said issues of jobs, income growth, elderly care, childcare, education and health care were “always on my mind.” .

Xi Jinping said that the Chinese Communist Party leadership meeting in July sounded the “clarion call to further comprehensively deepen reforms.”

“Letting people live a happy life is the top priority,” he said. “Every family hopes that their children can receive a good education, the elderly can receive good care and services, and young people can have more development opportunities.”

China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, grew 4.8% in the first nine months of this year, below Beijing’s official target of about 5%.

A series of blows, from the pandemic and a years-long real estate slump to Xi Jinping’s reassertion of Communist Party control over large swathes of China’s business sector, have contributed to weak market sentiment and deflationary pressures.

Xi Jinping also issued another thinly veiled warning on Tuesday about international support for Taiwan. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force if Taipei refuses reunification indefinitely.

“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family. No one can cut off our blood ties and family ties, and no one can block the historical trend of national reunification.

Xi Jinping has stepped up state support for high-tech manufacturing and industry, increasing investment in electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and artificial intelligence while pursuing the localization of key technologies.

On Tuesday, he highlighted China’s progress toward technological self-reliance and breakthroughs in areas such as computer chips, artificial intelligence and space exploration.

A series of policy easing measures announced by Beijing since September, including some support for real estate and stock markets, are seen as signs that Xi Jinping’s government is shifting its focus to stimulating domestic demand.

To reflect these changes, the World Bank last week raised China’s GDP growth forecast for next year by 0.4 percentage points to 4.5%.

However, China has seen a series of mass killings and stabbings this year, which some experts blame on rising social pressures. Fan Weiqiu, a 62-year-old man, was sentenced to death last week after he drove his car into a crowd in Zhuhai, southern China, in November, killing at least 35 people in the worst mass killing in Chinese history.

Ahead of a series of National Day holidays, Beijing has begun urging local governments to expand seasonal cash relief to people facing financial difficulties, including unemployed youth.

Kelvin Lam, an economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that while the relief payments would not have a significant impact on the wider economy, they would likely support social stability and stability in poorer rural areas. Consumption.

Tensions between China and the United States have further weakened China’s economic prospects.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has restricted China’s access to computer chips, restricted Chinese investment in the United States and stepped up sanctions on Chinese companies that trade with Russia after a sweeping invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier on Tuesday, Xi Jinping told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that under Xi’s leadership, “strategic coordination” between China and Russia continued to reach a higher level, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Additional reporting by Ding Wenjie in Beijing, Cheng Leng in Hong Kong and Catherine Hill in Taipei