Xi's New Year Speech hails 'major achievements'

Below are the stories that I found noteworthy from the People’s Daily’s February 11, 2021, edition. Today’s was a smaller edition owing to the New Year holidays.

Page 1: The lead story is about the top leadership celebrating the Spring Festival, with a banquet. Xi Jinping’s speech at the event was about summarising the achievements of the past year and as Xinhua reports, he called for “virtues of modesty and prudence” while demanding “efforts to achieve the second centenary goal.”

Xinhua also reports that “Xi summarized the nation’s major achievements in 2020 under the Party's leadership, including emerging as one of the first countries that brought the COVID-19 epidemic under control, taking the lead among major economies in achieving positive economic growth, making historic progress in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and accomplishing the poverty eradication tasks on time.” He also talked about the development of BRI in the past year.

In addition, Xi said in his speech: “Practice has once again proved that the socialist system with Chinese characteristics has extremely powerful vitality and creativity...For 100 years, the Communist Party of China has upheld the original intention of seeking happiness for the Chinese people and the mission of seeking rejuvenation for the Chinese nation. It is not afraid of hardships and obstacles, not afraid of bloodshed and sacrifice and united to lead the country.”

Next, Xi Jinping spoke to Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday. This is in the context of the 50th anniversary of the bilateral relationship. Xinhua English has the report about Xi’s remarks. PD, meanwhile, has comments by Buhari too. It says that Buhari thanked Xi for “its support in the fields of railways, highways, power and national defense.” He added that both “Nigeria and China insist on upholding multilateralism, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and safeguarding the common interests of developing countries.”

Page 2: There’s a commentary that builds on Xi’s speech. It essentially underscores the strength of the socialist system and how events of the past year have further reaffirmed faith in it.

“The past year, we have gone through a very extraordinary course. Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Party Central Committee united to lead hundreds of millions of people to endure the great test, facing shocking storm clouds of sudden changes, with great enthusiasm, to forge ahead. The novel coronavirus epidemic came out of nowhere, but we withstood it! Encountering economic globalization counter-current, we stabilized!…We launched a general attack on the bastion of deep poverty, and we succeeded!...A new story is being written in the land of China. The ‘Thirteenth Five-Year Plan’ was successfully completed, the target task of poverty eradication was completed as scheduled, and a great historic achievement was made in building a moderately prosperous society.”

Page 3: You have a report with people talking up Xi’s speech at the CEEC summit. And then a commentary, which outlines the key points from Xi’s CEEC speech. 

Page 4: First, there’s a report about China’s first Mars exploration mission Tianwen-1 entering into orbit around Mars. Tianwen-1 comprises an orbiter and rover. 

Next, there was a press conference in Beijing on issues related to Xinjiang. The objective, of course, was to push back against the discourse around the camps in the region. The presser featured officials from the local government in Xinjiang, and what were believed to be “former trainees of vocational education and training centers.” These people were brought out to refute critical reportage.

One local, Yilijiang Anayiti, quoted in PD, compared the camps in Xinjiang to deradicalization centers in France. “They are both beneficial attempts and active explorations of preventive counter-terrorism and de-radicalization,” he said. Another, Xu Guixiang, deputy director-general of the CPC Publicity Department of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, lashed out at former US Secretary of State Pompeo for the “biggest false accusation in human history.” He said:

“In recent years, the preventive counter-terrorism and de-radicalization work carried out in Xinjiang has achieved remarkable results. There have been no cases of violent terrorism for more than four consecutive years. It has conformed to the longing and expectation of the people of all ethnic groups for safety and stability for many years. The greatest protection of human rights.”

The PD report talks about Western media coverage, but doesn’t mention the BBC. However, Global Times’ coverage does mention the BBC’s latest reporting. For instance, Xu specifically pushed back against the comments by Tursunay Ziawudun. A BBC report on February 2, 2021, said that she had spent nine months in an internment camp in Xinjiang before getting away to Kazakhstan. Xu pushed back saying that she “shamelessly fabricated her so-called experiences at vocational education and training centers many times.” He added that “she has been willing to act as a chess piece and actor of anti-China forces to falsely claim refugee status.” He also pushed back against charges of sexual abuse as “sheer nonsense.”

It’s interesting that PD’s report doesn’t mention these specific charges. But generally, talks about the apparent positive experiences and accounts by former inmates. This is obviously by choice.