THE Communist Party of China (CPC) opened its 20th National Congress at 10:00 am, Sunday morning, October 15, 2022.
I waited for the first news from the Chinese dailies Global Times and China Daily for the breaking reports, but earlier than the newspapers, Prof. Anna Malindog-Uy who is in Beijing taking up her doctorate in International Relations, already sent by WeChat some latest developments.
The first big news sent over by Prof. Malindog-Uy was that President Xi Jinping, during the opening session, said that “China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansionism.”
This is not the first time that this declaration has been made by President Xi, it has been repeated many times but spoken at this event it assumes even greater prominence.
China is rising to the peak of its power in the next decades until 2049 and the West, led by the U.S. has been paranoid and fearing that China would rise in the form that the brilliant French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte described when he saw the immensity of the nation, “Let China Sleep, For When She Wakes, She Will Shake the World.”
China has been shaking the world indeed, but in positive, constructive and beneficial ways.
For the past decade the U.S. has constantly been shadow boxing against China, when China has behaved in a totally benign and cooperative way, taking a passive pose against the aggressive behavior of the U.S.
The US started its “Pivot to Asia” in 2011 marked by the shift of 60 percent of its military forces to Asia. That was a very clear signal of offensive U.S. intentions, but China only took defensive preparations all throughout.
We will not dwell too long on the history of U.S. aggressiveness, there are many positive things to discuss from the 20th National Congress of the CPC.
Just to wrap up President Xi’s message on China’s peaceful vision, Prof. Malindog-Uy summed up:
“China stands firmly against all forms of hegemonism and power politics, the Cold War mentality, interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and double standards…
“China remains firm in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace. It has always decided its position and policy on issues based on their own merits, and it has strived to uphold the basic norms governing international relations and safeguard international fairness and justice…”
The main focus of the quinquennial National Congresses of the CPC is on prioritizing its domestic needs, ensuring constant improvement of the lives of the people first and foremost, and the plans for pushing economic and technological development and continuous modernization and innovation, and review and rectification of what may have been shortcomings of the past to face the future with more effectiveness and impact.
In his opening speech to the 20th National Congress President Xi Jinping called on all members of the CPC “to strive in unity to build a modern socialist China in all respects.”
Of course, some of the keys to China’s fantastic hyper-speed progress and development has been the meritocracy of China’s political system that is, it develops party cadres and leaders based on intellectual and idealistic goals and not on mere ambition and personal agenda as in many Western electoral systems.
Meritocracy based on the socialist ideals armed with the scientific theory to analyze social-political-economic problems and finds appropriate solutions through the changing historical periods.
Neither the U.S. nor the Philippines has such a transcendent motivating force of ideals and systematic method of analysis and problem solving that China has, and that explains the failure of the politics of the latter two countries.
More messages from Xi’s opening speech:
“The five years since the 19th National Congress of the CPC have been truly momentous and extraordinary; the past decade marked three major events of great immediate importance and profound historical significance for the cause of the Party and the people: the CPC has secured historic achievements and seen historic changes in the cause of the Party and the country over the past decade;
“China sees historic rise in economic strength; China joins ranks of world’s innovators; – CPC achieves overwhelming victory, fully consolidates gains in fight against corruption; Great transformation over past 10 years of new era marks a milestone.”
The world’s attention is focused on this 20th National Congress of the CPC because the world has experienced time and again that the CPC delivers on its vision and promises made in its past National Congresses.
Will the Philippines ever have such an effective political system and reliable political leadership as China under the CPC?
With our distorted democracy where the vast majority of votes are bought and sold by corrupt politicians and where the revolving door politics of taking in those already kicked out for corruption and non-performance, it is a hopeless cycle of incompetence and corruption that we have.