What’s new: President Xi Jinping has hailed efforts to study and apply ideologies put forward by Deng Xiaoping in a pursuit of advancing socialism with Chinese characteristics.
China’s top leader made the remarks at a symposium held in Beijing Thursday to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng, who spearheaded the country’s economic reform and opening up more than four decades ago. Deng died in 1997 at the age of 92.
Touting Deng as the chief architect of China’s socialist reform, opening up and modernization, Xi called his contributions “an important milestone in the modernization of Marxism” at the Thursday event, according to a report from state-run Xinhua News Agency.
“The best way to honor Deng is to continue advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics that he initiated,” Xi said in the report.
The background: The Deng Xiaoping Theory, an adaptation of Marxism–Leninism to the socioeconomic conditions of China developed by Deng, guided China in making major changes beginning the late 1970s that shifted away from a focus on class struggle and a planned economy in favor of a socialist market economy.
The theory was formally recognized as one of the guiding thoughts of the Communist Party of China in 1997 and written into the Chinese constitution two years later.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com)
