On 19 October 2017, on behalf of the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi Jinping delivered a report at the 19^th National Congress. He declared that ‘it is a meeting of great importance taking place during the decisive stage in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and at a critical moment as socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era”, and “the theme of the Congress is: Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, and work tirelessly to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation”.

        Xi spent more than two hours to present his report, in which the phrases “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era” was repeated many times, as if it were the reality that needs to be maintained. However, according to A Simplified Dictionary of Political Economy edited by Xu Dixin, “socialist system is a general term of socialist economic and political system based on the public ownership of production materials”, and “to abolish private property system is to cancel human exploitation”; hence, there is no socialist system in today’s China.

        Since Deng Xiaoping advocated the policy of reform and open door, as well as capitalist market economy, to allow a minority of people to get rich first, both the public and the non-public sector of the economy competed to develop. At last, the non-public sector (i.e., the system of private property) bypassed largely the public sector of the economy. The Report disclosed that the CPC exaggerated the role of “socialist” public sector of the economy which had been implemented for a long time. However, the CPC has not yet changed. It continues to develop the non-public sector of the economy. The Report pledged “to take effective measures to prevent the loss of state assets”, but in reality, it was a failure, based on what had happened over the past years.

        The Report stated that over the past five years, there were major achievements in economic development. The gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 54 trillion to 80 trillion yuan. This kind of fast economic growth included not only the figures of the growth of state-owned enterprises and the non-state-owned enterprises, but also the figures of investment capital. It was not merely about the production value.

        According to the Cihai, a large-scale Chinese dictionary and encyclopedia, published by the Commercial Press, “Gross National Product (GNP) refers to one of the indices of national economic activities in capitalist countries. The total value of all products and services of all sectors of a country within a specific time (quarterly or annual) calculated in terms of currency” (page 27).

        This is different from the CPC’s calculation, which made the inputs of investment capital for production calculated as the outputs of production value. Hence, China’s GDP had increased sharply. Now the figure is around 6.5% to 7.8% every year, so China has maintained its position as the world’s second largest economy. This showed that the CPC liked to do grandiose things, but it turned out to be overambitious and unrealistic. 

      The Report stated that “party leadership is the fundamental guarantee for ensuring that the people run the country and governance in China is law-based”. In reality, it is the party which seizes the people’s power of running the country and of governing the country by law. Thus, there is merely one-party dictatorship.

      The Report showed off the achievements under the CPC’s leadership, particularly the booming economic development. China has adopted from the path of socialist economic development to capitalist market economy. However, China does not develop as well as other capitalist countries.

        The report claimed that “we have taken major steps in developing democracy and the rule of law. We have actively developed socialist democracy and advanced law-based governance. We have stepped up institution building across the board to make integrated advances in Party leadership, the running of the country by the people, and law-based governance; and we have continuously improved the institutions and mechanisms by which the Party exercises leadership. Steady progress has been made in enhancing socialist democracy; intraparty democracy has been expanded, and socialist consultative democracy is flourishing.”

      Actually, the so-called “the running of the country” by “the people and socialist democracy” are false, as all rights of democracy are deprived by the CPC which claims itself to be the law and implements party-based governance. For example, Hong Kong people are supposed to enjoy high degree of autonomy and democratic governance. The CPC takes charges of Hong Kong’ foreign affairs and diplomacy and sends its liberation army to Hong Kong only if necessary. Unfortunately, in recent years, the central government officials have claimed to exercise its overall jurisdiction over Hong Kong, that means to abolish its high degree of autonomy. Xi reiterated that “we have made fresh progress in work related to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. We have fully and faithfully implemented the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, and ensured that the central government exercises its overall jurisdiction over Hong Kong and Macao as mandated by China’s Constitution and the basic laws of the two special administrative regions.”

      How come such a high-ranking party member and official broke the promise? The CPC did it indeed!

      In order to address people’s discontents, the Report proposed to ensure and improve “living standards through development. The wellbeing of the people is the fundamental goal of development. We must do more to improve the lives and address the concerns of the people, and use development to strengthen areas of weakness and promote social fairness and justice. We should make steady progress in ensuring people’s access to childcare, education, employment, medical services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance. We will intensify poverty alleviation, see that all our people have a greater sense of fulfillment as they contribute to and gain from development…”

        The roots of people’s poverty are exactly the policy of the CPC: the implementation of capitalist market economy led to social polarization. The poor people are getting poorer and the number of the poor is increasing. A bit of alms is better than none. The state owns a tremendous financial surplus. It can donate billions of money to foreign countries, in contrast, the funding for poverty alleviation is only a few hundred millions. A drop in the ocean. Previously, a news report said that due to living in dire poverty, a village family with five members committed suicide together. A tip of iceberg.

        Therefore, the claims to improve people’s livelihood is a kind of rhetoric. It only shows that the government is perfunctory.

        In order to create Xi Jinping’s individual cult, the central government has recruited a lot of writers who are good at eulogizing the ruler’s virtues and achievements. They spent a lot of time to fabricate a masterpiece with more than twenty thousand words. The goal is to carry out dictatorship same as Mao Zedong. This is the ultimate agenda of the Report. A very calculative and remarkable device!            20 December 2017