Most strong president given that Mao Zedong tells annual parliamentary meeting economy and safety are indivisible.

President Xi Jinping has promised to transform the Chinese military into a “Great Wall of Steel” capable of guarding China’s interests abroad whilst he also emphasised the want for higher stability and safety at household.

Xi’s remarks came in his closing speech to the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, exactly where final week he secured unanimous backing for an unprecedented third term in workplace.

Regardless of lately cementing his status as 1 of modern China’s most strong leaders, Xi alluded to the lots of challenges facing China as it navigates a post-zero-COVID landscape, a slowing economy, and a far more difficult connection with the West, specifically the United States.

“Security is the bedrock of improvement, whilst stability is a prerequisite for prosperity,” Xi told the assembly of three,000 delegates on Monday.

He also stressed the want for an enhanced “national safety program,” an enhanced “social governance system”, and the safeguarding of “China’s new improvement pattern with a new safety architecture”.

The speech reflected comparable issues shared throughout the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress in October, when Xi utilized the word “security” 91 instances, according to the US-primarily based Brookings Institution.

“Security is the most vital factor in terms of celebration politics. His [Xi’s] persons can safeguard his position and then he can have lots of, lots of terms, even a lifelong term. Of course safety is really, really vital,” Alfred Muluan Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew College of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

“Externally, the really vital factor is he is attempting to paint a image that he desires persons to feel that he could guard China. So in lots of of his documents or speeches, he is constantly mentioning that China is in fact now surrounded by the hostile United States and also its Western allies, so they want to fight really, really difficult for China.”

China is in the midst of a huge military modernisation campaign, which will be capable of “effectively safeguarding national sovereignty, safety and improvement interests” when it finishes in 2035, Xi mentioned, when the armed forces will come to be a “Great Wall of Steel”.

Although nevertheless a decade off, China currently exerts massive influence in the area with its strong People’s Liberation Army, military base and island constructing in the South China Sea, and sway more than domestic politics in neighbouring nations from Cambodia to Micronesia.

The PLA plays a key part in China’s ongoing campaign to bring Taiwan back into the fold, either by means of a peaceful or forceful “national reunification”.

Xi pointed out the self-ruled democracy in his speech on Monday, calling for the finish of “Taiwan independence separatist activities” as nicely as “external interference” in a thinly veiled reference to the US, Taiwan’s best military ally.

He also appeared to supply Taiwan the “one nation, two systems” arrangement noticed in Hong Kong and Macau, which would in theory permit for some autonomy beneath Beijing’s rule but in practice is an exceptionally unpopular supply to Taiwanese.

Xi’s issues for “security” also extend to the household front, exactly where officials have set a modest gross domestic item (GDP) target of just five % in 2023, reflecting the lasting impact of 3 years of the zero-COVID tactic.

China normally sees tens of thousands of protests more than challenges like land seizures, but protests became far more widespread at the finish of 2022 as typical Chinese chafed beneath the financial and social constraints of the policy.

The nation has also struggled with uneven improvement among urban and rural regions as nicely as developing wealth inequality.

Xi, nevertheless, told delegates on Monday of China’s ongoing efforts to guarantee the “great rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation for all citizens.

“The relay baton of constructing a wonderful contemporary socialist nation and advancing national rejuvenation has been historically passed on to our generation,” he mentioned, calling for efforts to “upgrade and appropriately expand the economy” by focusing on fields like science and technologies as nicely as industrial transformation that will advantage the entire economy.