China could face its slowest economic growth in almost 30 years, and President Xi Jinping urged the ruling Communist Party to embrace a fighting spirit and prepare for a long-term struggle.
Xi’s spoke at a cadre training course on Tuesday in Beijing ahead of an Oct. 1 military parade, one of many activities planned to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
His speech included numerous war-like metaphors, Bloomberg reported. Chinese state media have stepped up propaganda efforts around Xi recently. Official news reports have started describing him as “the People’s Leader” — a title previously reserved for Mao.
Xi listed his concerns — the economy, defense, Hong Kong and Taiwan — as the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump advances. Xi encouraged party officials to “be both commanders and combatants, and cultivate and maintain a strong fighting spirit, have tenacious will and superb fighting skills.”
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In China, the cadre system refers to public officials in responsible or managerial positions in party and government. “The cadre are expected to sacrifice themselves, work hard(est), be first, in short: to perform, to excel, to be non-selfish,” author Morten Jørgensen wrote in Quora. “China has become a merit-based technocratic society. In the West, a politician can be elected by making promises s/he doesn’t have to keep or be promoted for just being eloquent or charismatic. Not so in China. If you want to rise within the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, you have to take (real) exams, e.g. in math and international studies. If you are a talker or don’t deliver, you will get nowhere. You will get a bad reputation.”
The Oct. 1 military parade will be an opportunity for Xi to flaunt his military modernization efforts and send a message to the world, particularly the U.S., that he should not be trifled with, Strait Times reported.
In his speech, Xi said Chinese officials need to overcome challenges ranging from security concerns to financial risks, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. “The struggles we face will not be short term, but long term,” Xi told the cadre training course.
He said China’s development is entering a period of increasing complexity that could last 30 years. Trump is piling tariffs on the products manufactured there to secure concessions on trade, technology, and economic access. That dispute has exacerbated concerns about China’s slowdown and contributed to diplomatic tensions over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and American military support for Taiwan, Bloomberg reported.
The speech was followed up Wednesday by a front-page commentary in the government-controlled People’s Daily newspaper, taunting “some cadres, especially the young ones” for not having a fighting spirit. Some were “weak-kneed and unwilling to fight,” the commentary said, adding that this would put the country at peril.
