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Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized support for the country’s elderly and vulnerable youth in a New Year’s address that acknowledged the strain on some of the 1.4 billion population.
Xi’s speech comes as his economic planners have struggled for much of the past four years to restore consumer confidence or address rising youth unemployment and sluggish wage growth.
In a televised address Tuesday night, the 71-year-old leader, speaking in front of a large Great Wall motif, said the issues of jobs, income growth, care for the elderly, care for children, education and health care ” are always on my mind.”
Xi said a July meeting of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party had sounded a “clarion call for further comprehensive deepening of reform”.
“Enabling people to live happy lives is the top priority,” he said. “Every family hopes that children can get a good education, the elderly can have good care services and the young can have more development opportunities.”
China’s economy, which is the world’s second largest after the US, recorded growth of 4.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, behind Beijing’s official target of about 5 percent.
Weak sentiment and deflationary pressures follow a series of shocks, from the pandemic and years-long property market slump to Xi’s reassertion of Communist Party control over large parts of China’s business landscape.
Xi on Tuesday also repeated a veiled warning about international support for Taiwan. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force if Taipei refuses to join indefinitely.
“Compatriots on both sides of the strait are one family. “No one can sever our blood ties and kinship, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification,” Xi said.
Xi has increasingly directed state support for manufacturing and high-tech industry, increasing investment in electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and artificial intelligence, while pursuing the production of critical Chinese-made technologies.
On Tuesday he highlighted China’s progress in technological self-confidence and advances in areas including computer chips, AI and space exploration.
A series of policy easing measures announced by Beijing since September, including some support for property and the stock market, have been seen as a sign that the Xi administration is shifting its focus to boosting domestic demand.
Reflecting these changes, the World Bank last week revised its forecast for China’s GDP growth next year by 0.4 percentage points to 4.5 percent.
However, China this year has been rocked by a series of mass murders and stabbings, which some experts have blamed on rising social tensions. Fan Weiqiu, a 62-year-old man, was sentenced to death last week after being found guilty of driving his car into a crowd in Zhuhai, southern China, in November, leaving at least 35 dead, the deadliest mass killing in history. heavy in the country in a decade.
Ahead of a series of national holidays, Beijing has begun asking local governments to expand the distribution of seasonal cash to people facing economic hardship, including unemployed youth.
Kelvin Lam, an economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that while the materials would not have a significant impact on the wider economy, they could support social stability and consumption in poorer rural areas.
China’s economic outlook has been further weakened by strained relations with the US.
Under President Joe Biden, the US has restricted China’s access to computer chips, limited Chinese investment in the US and increased sanctions on Chinese companies for trade with Russia in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier on Tuesday, Xi told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that “strategic coordination” between China and Russia continued to reach higher levels under their leadership, according to a New Year message reported by Xinhua, the state news agency.
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing, Cheng Leng in Hong Kong and Kathrin Hille in Taipei
