Xi Jinping speech calling for patience released amid economic gloom

It asked the public to take the long view and stay focused, balancing progress and stability with sustainability.

“We should first consider the size of the population and the large rural-urban development gap. We cannot be ambitious and unrealistic, but we cannot simply follow the beaten path,” Xi was quoted as saying by Quishi.

“We should be patient [with a historical perspective] and move forward in a steadfast manner.”

Xi gave the speech months after his historic third term as party leader began in October and ahead of the annual parliamentary meetings in Beijing.

He repeated his major policy initiatives – “common prosperity”, the green economy and upholding socialist values as the cornerstone of China’s development.

The part of the speech published in Qiushi focused on the task of steering one of the world’s most populous countries towards a national renaissance and stressed the need for patience and perseverance.

“A super big population can provide sufficient manpower and a super big domestic market, but it also brings about a series of difficulties and challenges,” Xi told his new team in February.

“It is quite a challenge just to make sure 1.4 billion people are fed. Then there are problems such as employment, [wealth] distribution, education, healthcare, housing, elderly care and childcare. They are all not easy to resolve and they all involve an astronomical number of people.”