Xi's Guangdong trip clarion call for reforms

President Xi Jinping's inspection trip to South China's Guangdong province, which was the trailblazer for China's economic reform and opening-up 40 years ago, sends a strong message that the leadership has both the resolve and courage to continue on this path.

However, the international situation is different from what it was four decades ago, and so are the global obstacles and domestic difficulties China faces in deepening its economic reform and further opening itself up to the outside world.

That explains why President Xi stressed the importance of China achieving its own innovations while visiting the headquarters of Gree Electric Appliances in Zhuhai on Monday, saying that manufacturing is the core of the real economy and calling on Chinese enterprises to obtain core technologies through innovations of their own.