The highest level meeting of China’s ruling Communist party this week is likely to include constitutional changes to further cement the power of the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, party officials have confirmed.
Xi is expected to regain his position as leader of the CCP and its military commission at the week-long conference, setting the stage for retaining the presidency next year, after abolishing term limits in 2018.
The 20th party congress will begin on Sunday morning with a major speech by Xi, espousing the party’s achievements over the past five-year term, and outlining its plans for the next. Days of closed-door meetings and the formalisation of official reshuffles will follow, before the members of the all-powerful politburo standing committee are revealed next weekend.
At a press conference in Beijing, the party spokesperson Sun Yeli told reporters revisions of the party’s governing constitution were on the agenda. Sun did not provide specifics but said amendments were necessary to enshrine new “major theoretical views and major strategic ideas” introduced during the congress.
Amendments are widely expected to enshrine the “two establishes”, a party political term for new doctrines cementing Xi as the “core” of the CCP and his ideas as the party’s underpinning ideology.
Sun said it had been common practice for the party to make amendments to its constitution to “recognise innovations in theory and revolutions in practice”.
During a pre-vetted Q&A session, Sun also indicated China’s increasingly contentious Covid policy of “dynamic zero” was to remain for now.
He said as much as the world yearned for the pandemic to end, the reality was the virus still existed, and China’s government would continue to “put people and people’s lives front and centre” in its response.
The dynamic zero covid policy – which has resulted in sudden lockdowns and movement restrictions being imposed on buildings, neighbourhoods, or entire cities – was “a science-based approach … with minimum costs for the society and in the shortest possible time”.
He said this policy had “worked the best for our country”.
In the press conference, one of the few public events of the congress, Sun sidestepped questions about China’s economic troubles and whether the era of “high-speed growth” had come to an end. He said it was “an important yardstick but not the only one”; China had entered a new era, away from high-speed growth and towards high-quality development.
On US relations, Sun appeared to take a somewhat conciliatory tone. The two countries’ relationship has plummeted in recent years, with trade wars, diplomatic spats and the imposition of sanctions, as well as hostilities over China’s human rights abuses and crackdowns on Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, and its growing aggression in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
Sun said: “We take the view that China and the US have more common interests than differences. We don’t provoke, nor do we flinch from facing up to trouble.”
However, he said “no one can hold back the historic force of China’s national rejuvenation”, a reference to Xi’s commitment to annexing Taiwan – a democracy which the CCP claims is a Chinese province and has sworn to “unify”.
The CCP has repeatedly said it will use force to take Taiwan if necessary, most recently in a white paper released last month. Sun said force was a last resort to be taken “under compelling circumstances” and that peaceful unification was the CCP’s “first choice”.
“We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and effort, and create vast space for peaceful reunification,” he said.
“We don’t renounce the use of force … This is to guard against external interference and a small handful of Taiwan independence elements and their separatist moves. By no means does this target our fellow Chinese in Taiwan.”
Senior Chinese officials have recently increased their rhetoric over Taiwan, warning of “re-education” of citizens post-invasion, and punishment for independence advocates. Consistent opinion polling in Taiwan shows a growing majority reject the prospect of Chinese rule.
