In a report on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua said Xi had taken the lead in the “overall design, coordination, supervision and implementation” of reforms. He did so as head of the top party group on systemic reform – a body that was initially a leading group and later upgraded to a top-level commission.
Citing unnamed “authoritative sources”, the report said Xi had “carefully reviewed each draft of major reform plans, making revisions word by word and sentence by sentence”.
The report said Xi had chaired 70 meetings with the leading group and commission on a series of major reform plans since the 18th party congress in November 2012, when he took power.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up policy, after then-leader Deng Xiaoping set the country on the road to economic transformation at a meeting of the party’s Central Committee held from December 18 to 22, 1978.
The Central Committee pledged further reforms and laid out dozens of market-oriented measures at a meeting in November 2013, a year after Xi took office.
Oops. US President Joe Biden mixes up his Chinese leaders
Oops. US President Joe Biden mixes up his Chinese leaders
Xi personally oversaw the drafting process of the document on reforms that was passed at that meeting in 2013, according to the Xinhua report. It said the document “for the first time proposed the overall goal of comprehensively deepening reform … to advance the modernisation of the national governance system”.
It said the document had set out “60 specific tasks and 336 reform measures” and outlined “the strategic focus, priority sequence, main directions, working mechanisms, promotion methods, timetable and road map” for reforms.
The report also pointed to a “major theoretical breakthrough” stated in the document – that the market should play “a decisive role” in resource allocation. That call was made by Xi, the report said, citing an unidentified source who was involved in the drafting process.
“Without the determination of General Secretary Xi Jinping, it would have been difficult for a lot of major reforms to happen,” the person was quoted as saying.
The report said “major deployments” to achieve China’s reform goals had been pushed forward over the past decade.
Xi “personally leads this great revolution that relates to the future and destiny of the party and the country, as well as the success or failure of our cause, steering reform and opening up towards an even broader journey”, according to the report.
It said Xi had taken a “long and broad view” on a series of key issues and that his statements seeking to answer the “major theoretical and practical questions” on reforms had provided “a powerful ideological and theoretical weapon” to carry them out.
