Xi touts China’s modernisation path at political parties summit

BLOOMBERG

President Xi Jinping promoted China’s development approach in a speech to a gathering of political groups, highlighting his growing willingness to tout his nation’s system.
“The Chinese path to modernisation is a sure path to build a stronger nation,” Xi said in video remarks to the Dialogue with World Political Parties, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
It’s also an approach that the country must take to seek progress for humanity and harmony for the world, he told the gathering of political groups from around the world that the Asian nation’s ruling party organizes to show it has broad foreign support.
China will neither attempt colonisation and plunder, nor the “crooked path” taken by some nations to seek hegemony, said the Chinese leader, adding the nation intended to pursue peaceful development. Beijing’s diplomats frequently accuse the US of seeking hegemony to counter their nation.
Last month, Xi said China’s path showed there was another way to modernise, rejecting any need to “westernise” and doubling down on his goals of increased self-reliance and improved social justice.
At the event, Xi said modernisation is not “an exclusive patent” of a few countries, and can’t be realised by a cookie-cutter approach. He urged front-runners in the process to support others in their development.
“One will not be seen in a more favourable light after blowing out others’ lamps, nor will they go further by blocking others’ paths,” said Xi.
The comments reinforced Xi’s pledge to boost his nation’s key technologies as China faces growing efforts by the United States to restrict its technology ambitions, partly to rein in its military expansion.
Xi also used the address to push his government’s Global Civilisation Initiative, which “called for respect for diversity of civilisations” and “advocating the common values of humanity.”
Xinhua didn’t go into greater detail, but the idea fits alongside the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative that China has been promoting recently.
Last month, Foreign Minister Qin Gang rolled out the security initiative as part of China’s efforts to portray itself as a responsible major power and to provide an alternative to the US’s model of military alliances.
The event that Xi addressed was organised by the party’s International Department. Xinhua said over 500 leaders of political parties from more than 150 countries joined the event on Wednesday, without giving a list of participants.
Previous state media reports suggested Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party; former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev; and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic were among the attendants at a similar event in 2021.