Chinese Premier calls for combat readiness but softens tone on Taiwan

Li’s speech opened the Chinese government’s National People’s Congress on Sunday. His comments were included in the annual Work Report which outlines the party’s priorities for the year ahead. Up to 3000 delegates have gathered in Beijing for the week-long legislative meeting which will take place mostly behind closed doors to decide the country’s policies.

The premier set an annual economic growth target of “about 5 per cent” after the government failed to meet its mark of 5.5 per cent in 2022 following widespread COVID-19 lockdowns and some pockets of civil unrest. The benchmark was below market expectations, signalling the government is taking a cautious approach to reopening the economy after being hit by years of setbacks.

Li acknowledged the “difficulties, challenges, and great sacrifices” of the Chinese people throughout the pandemic – thousands pile onto the streets late last year to demand an end to lockdowns.

In a rare nod to a shift in policy, Li said when the party was “confronted with new downward pressure on the economy, we acted decisively and made timely adjustments”.

The cumulative effect of the lockdowns, protests and sudden reopening saw the Chinese economy sputter through the end of last year to hit only 3 per cent annual growth. It now appears to be in the middle of a rebound after purchasing and manufacturing data released this week showed the biggest jump in 11 years. The period also saw an exodus of foreign capital and talent, leading to a push by Beijing to re-invigorate its foreign investment even as it implements protectionist measures in some industries and guards against sanctions through its internal circulation policy.

“We do feel that China is actually underinvested now there’s so much more we can do,” the vice president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce, Jens Eskelund, told Chinese state media network CGTN on Sunday. “The year before last, European companies invested more in Texas than in all of China. We don’t think that’s proportionate.”

The period was also marked by trade sanctions on $20 billion worth of Australian exports after disputes over human rights, national security and COVID-19.

Li said China should expand market access and continue to open the modern services sector and “ensure national treatment for foreign-funded companies”.

The rhetoric appears aimed at fuelling foreign investment and shoring up China’s bid for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a giant trade bloc which Li said the Chinese government should now take active steps to join.

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The proposal has been met with strong reservations from Western countries, including Australia, after being the target of Beijing’s campaigns of economic coercion.

Li, 67, will be replaced by Xi’s former chief of staff Li Qiang this week after 10 years in the country’s second most important political office.

Li Keqiang, an economist from a rival faction to Xi who held less hard-line Marxist-Leninist views than the Chinese president, saw his power slowly whittled away during his decade in power.

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“Let us rally more closely around the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Li said to cheers in the Great Hall of the People. “Follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

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