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Xi Jinping article gives insight into China’s direction ahead of Communist Party congress

  • A bylined article by the Chinese president in the party’s top journal stresses revolutionary zeal and warns against complacency
  • Xi’s essay says the party must constantly self-correct to avoid fate of Soviet Union

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China’s President Xi Jinping has called the Chinese Communist Party the standard-bearer for global socialism, ahead of the 20th Party Congress in October. Photo: AP
The Chinese Communist Party is now the standard-bearer of the global socialism movement and must learn how to constantly self-correct to avoid the fate of the Soviet Union, Xi Jinping said in a recent article.
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Qiushi – the party’s most authoritative theoretical journal – published the article on Wednesday, just a month ahead of the 20th party congress on October 16, which will confirm an unprecedented third term for Xi as its paramount leader.

The article is based on an internal speech given to party cadres in 2018, in which Xi reviewed past successes but also delivered stern warnings to members, asking them to keep up the “revolutionary spirit” and be ever-ready for self-reflection and self-correction.

Short of that, “even the most powerful regime” would crumble and collapse, Xi said. He noted that the sudden collapse in the 1990s of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc had led to a period of unprecedented difficulty for the global socialism movement.

Many developing countries abandoned the socialist path to copy the Western model, he said.

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Xi said China, through its 40-year, non-stop effort of reform and rejuvenation, had achieved great success and remarkable progress.

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