Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to obtain an unprecedented third term at the head of China on October 23, the day after the closing date of the Communist Party Congress, announced on Saturday.
Every five years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) meets in conclave, a major political event which must renew the leadership team of the country of 1.4 billion inhabitants.
In power since 2012, Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, who is also the army chief and President of China, is on the cusp of a third five-year term as head of the organization and therefore from the country.
On Saturday, the CCP confirmed the duration of the event. “The 20th Communist Party Congress will open on Sunday. […] and will take place from October 16 to 22,” spokesperson Sun Yeli told a press conference.
In previous editions, the Secretary General of the CPC and his new team – the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee – had been presented the day after the closing of the congress.
River speech and in camera
Saturday’s introductory press conference took place in front of two giant screens. To cover the Congress, journalists have indeed been required since Friday to confine themselves to a “health bubble”, as part of strict measures linked to the “zero COVID” policy. Away in a hotel in western Beijing, accredited journalists are subjected to a battery of screening tests.
During this two-hour videoconference, the spokesperson for the congress answered questions from the Chinese and foreign press during a well-oiled staging. No questions were asked about Xi Jinping.
“The epidemic is still there, it is a reality to be faced,” said Sun Yeli when asked about the future of the zero COVID policy whose negative effects on the economy are increasingly evident. .
“Everyone cares a lot about China’s economic development,” he said.
“The growth rate is an important indicator but it is not the only one,” he said, as China is due to unveil its gross domestic product (GDP) figures for the third quarter on Tuesday, disturbed by draconian confinements.
From Sunday, some 2,300 delegates chosen by the various Party assemblies will meet behind closed doors, after a ceremony in Beijing at the People’s Palace which dominates Tiananmen Square.
Xi Jinping, 69, will take stock of the past five years and deliver his roadmap for the next five in a speech broadcast on television.
The previous speech in 2017 lasted more than three hours.