Innovative leadership for new era in China
In his speech at the opening of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Wednesday, General Secretary Xi Jinping set a new course for socialism with Chinese characteristics in a new era.
As head of the largest communist party in the world, Xi's challenge is to re-engineer the CPC to ensure it can effectively and innovatively deliver leadership. The question is how to take Marxism, a 19th-century economic theory that analyzed social relations during the industrial revolution, and make it relevant to China in the 21st century, when the nation leads the world in green finance, mobile phone banking, artificial intelligence research and robotics development.
Bridging those eras is a momentous undertaking. It is also generational. No wonder that Xi spoke for three and a half hours detailing the blueprint for transforming the CPC so that it can lead China into a high-tech and environmentally healthy future.
