China’s Xi defends Covid Zero, Hong Kong policies at Congress

Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Xi Jinping defended his Covid Zero strategy and crackdown in Hong Kong, as he opened the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade leadership congress where he’s expected to clinch a precedent-busting third term in power.

The 69-year-old started the weeklong event in Beijing by delivering the work report, the most authoritative policy document that lays out the party’s vision for China over the next five years. It spans everything from foreign policy and party building to the economy and the military.

“We have protected the people’s lives, health and safety to the greatest extent possible,” Xi said, at the Great Hall of the People, a huge building located off the capital’s Tiananmen Square. China’s punishing Covid Zero policy has closed its borders for nearly three years, while its lockdowns and mass testing drives to eradicate the virus have weighed on economic growth.

The Chinese leader spoke without a mask at a distance from the more than 2,340 delegates, including provincial leaders, top military figures, farmers and minority representatives, who wore facial coverings, aside from a handful top leaders.

Xi added that order had been restored in Hong Kong, marking a “major turn for the better” in the city. China imposed a national security law on the former British colony in June 2020, that has been condemned by the US and other Western democracies for diminishing democratic freedoms in the city.

Global investors will be closely following the speech for signs of how the party will steer China out of an economic slump, signals that Xi could relax his punishing Covid Zero policy and plans for navigating tensions with the US, especially in the wake of the Biden administration’s recent restrictions on chips.

Xi’s marathon address at the last party congress in 2017 stretched on for more than three hours. The congress will end Saturday and is widely expected to culminate in the Chinese leader’s reappointment. If the party follows the same schedule as five years ago, the new leadership line-up will walk out on October 23.