Xi Jinping delivers speech at Spring Festival gathering

In his speech, Xi noted that during the past year, we held the 20th CPC National Congress successfully and drew up a grand blueprint for comprehensively building a modern socialist country. We have fully implemented the new development philosophy, adhered to the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, fully implemented the requirements for keeping the epidemic at bay, stabilizing the economy and ensuring safe development, and accelerated the efforts to foster a new development pattern and pursue high-quality development. We have maintained economic growth, achieved a bumper harvest of grain, kept employment and prices stable, and firmly ensured people's well-being. We have also consolidated our gains in poverty elimination, made one achievement after another in the fields of sci-tech innovation, kept improving the ecological environment, taken solid steps to modernize the national defense and the armed forces, made further efforts to exercise full and rigorous governance over the Party, and maintained overall social stability. We have put people and their lives first and kept optimizing the epidemic prevention and control measures according to the mutation of the virus and the anti-epidemic situation, so as to protect people's lives and health to the greatest extent and minimize the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development. We successfully hosted the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, respectively, and presented a streamlined, safe and splendid Games to the world. We held a grand celebration marking the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Hong Kong and Macao have remained prosperous and stable. We have been fighting resolutely in major struggles against separatism and foreign interference, maintaining the initiative to steer cross-Strait relations. We have vigorously advanced major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics and made many friends, providing the volatile global environment with stability.

Xi stressed that the achievements of this year did not come easily, and were made by the Party and the people together. What has been achieved has shown that as long as the Party and the people stand together, think together and work together, no storm can shake our iron will, and no difficulty can stop our sonorous steps.

Xi pointed out that 2023 is the first year to fully implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, with both hopes and challenges. We will take keeping stability the top priority, seek progress while maintaining stability. We will better balance both domestic and international situations, coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development, and development with security. We will comprehensively deepen reform and opening up, strive to achieve an overall upturn in economic performance, and continue to improve people's lives. As long as we work hard with firm confidence, we will get off to a good start on our new journey.