This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
With a kills of methods to improve his vision of an ordered market that fulfills Beijing’s top political priorities and addresses growing inequality, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has pledged to develop control over families, businesses, and financial markets.
In a policy report published on Sunday in the midst of a top-level meeting, Xi said the leadership of the party was China’s “fundamental guarantee” of wealth and balance in the face of “risks and difficulties”, with safety remaining a top concern for his presidency.
In the report, which state media claimed was a record of Xi’s speech at the group’s second duct last week, he said,” China has entered a period in which proper opportunities, risks, and challenges coexist and uncertainties and unpredictability are rising.”
” We need to deal with significant risks and difficulties and ensure steady and sustained progress in the cause of the party and the nation,” Xi said.
” National security , provides a pivotal foundation for ensuring steady and sustained progress in Chinese modernization”, according to the document, which was published by state news agency Xinhua in full, and which mentions the word” security” 41 times.
Xi’s government will use science and technology to safeguard national security, as well as strengthening the country’s “integrated” law enforcement system, an apparent reference to law enforcement at neighborhood level by , local officials,  , militias , and “grid workers“.
” Our innovation capacity falls short of the requirements for high-quality development”, Xi wrote, adding:” The over-reliance on key and core technologies controlled by others has not been fundamentally changed”.
His directive comes as China largely avoided disruption caused by a faulty security update to Microsoft’s Windows operating system, having largely , transitioned away  , from reliance on U. S. operating systems since 2008.
The directive also vowed to boost homegrown tech and tweak rules to help  , cash-strapped local governments , and , internal economic migrants.
Local governments will be able to issue bonds for a wider range of purposes, but the central government will top up their finances and have more say in how much money is spent, according to the document.
The government will also reform the current household registration, or “hukou”, system , to enable internal migrants to access social security benefits anywhere in China, not just in the city of their birth, and to extend those benefits to gig economy workers.
According to the document’s language, Xi’s government wants to increase top-down control of social and economic activity.
“Economic structural reform will remain our priority ]and includes ] building a unified national market, and refining the systems underpinning the market economy”, it said.
That will include a mechanism for ensuring funding increases for “future-oriented industries” . ,
‘ Dead-end street ‘
According to the directive, the government will also consider creating a “unified national population management system,” which will likely aim to address the declining birth rate, encourage more births, and address the aging population by gradually raising the retirement age.
The third plenum said in an , official communique , last week that it would improve the , party’s grasp of Marxist economics, including improved handling of the relationship between the forces of production and the “economic base” of the general population.  ,
It also said it would improve its “macroeconomic governance”, suggesting that Xi’s administration will forge ahead with its , top-down, government-directed approach , to economic management, at the expense of the market forces that were given freer rein under the reforms of Deng Xiaoping.
In national defense, Xi wants to “improve the institutions and mechanisms for leading and managing the people’s armed forces, deepen reform of joint operations systems, and deepen , military-civilian reforms“, the document said, without giving specific details.
” There are a lot of security issues mentioned in this document, and a wide range of other issues” , , military analyst Qi Leyi , told RFA Mandarin on Monday.  ,
He claimed that” joint combat” was likely a result of preparations for a potential military invasion of Taiwan.
The fact that it discusses security so extensively demonstrates to us that Xi Jinping lacks confidence in his position of authority, Qi said. It’s a threat to global security, according to the statement, “it’s nothing to do with the country or its people.”
According to current affairs expert Chen Pokong, the document comes at a time when Xi faces enormous practical difficulties in running the economy and preventing social unrest.
” Xi Jinping’s governance is a mess”, Chen said. ” The economy is declining, people’s livelihood is in ruins, civil servants ‘ salaries are being cut,  , people are unemployed“.
” Recent car attacks and , stabbings , show that society is unstable and has descended into resentment, and dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping and the Communist Party”, he said.  ,
China has been plunged into a dead end by the one-party dictatorship and the one-man dictatorship, according to the statement.
