China pledges strong growth

China’s government pledged Monday to deliver robust growth, pursue advanced technology and boost military spending while urging the public to embrace President Xi Jinping’s rule as its ceremonial legislature prepared for changes to allow Xi to stay in power indefinitely.

The plan to end constitutional limits on Xi’s term as president has overshadowed the meeting of the National People’s Congress, which usually is used to showcase economic initiatives and plans for social programs and other government work.

In a nearly two-hour speech to the legislature, Premier Li Keqiang did not mention the scrapping of term limits but emphasized the primacy of Xi and the ruling Communist Party he leads in all aspects of Chinese life.

“Resolutely safeguard General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core status and the authority of the party’s central committee and its centralized and unified leadership,” Li said in a speech to nearly 3,000 delegates to the ceremonial legislature in the Great Hall of the People.

The slide toward one-man rule under Xi, already China’s most dominant figure of recent decades, has fuelled concern that Beijing is eroding efforts to guard against the excesses of autocratic leadership and make economic regulation more stable and predictable.

The president’s office has few powers, but Xi’s posts as ruling party general secretary and chairman of the commission that controls the party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, already have no term limit.