China warns risks are increasing after biggest party meeting
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China is projected to see the slowest growth in gross domestic product in almost three decades this year - a concern made worse by the trade war with US President Donald Trump and rising prices of food staples like pork.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - China's ruling Communist Party warned that internal and external risks were increasing after wrapping up its most important meeting of the year.
The party "holds high the great banner of socialism" in the face of "a more complicated situation with risks and challenges significantly increasing at home and abroad", according to a communique released after the meeting known as a plenum that mostly contained vague statements.
The party's 200-plus-member Central Committee also discussed ways to improve the market-based economic system as well as the legal system in Hong Kong "for safeguarding national security".
"We must strictly govern the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macau Special Administrative Region in strict accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law, and safeguard the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau," it added.
The four-day closed-door meeting ending on Thursday (Oct 31) was the first time the body gathered since February 2018, the longest stretch without convening since China began its reform era four decades ago.
In the run-up to the meeting, President Xi Jinping had repeatedly warned against complacency, complaining in a speech last month that some cadres were "weak-kneed and unwilling to fight" against the party's growing and long-term challenges.
China is projected to see the slowest growth in gross domestic product in almost three decades this year - a concern made worse by the trade war with US President Donald Trump and rising prices of food staples like pork.
His government has also struggled with how to quell protests in Hong Kong that began over controversial legislation allowing extraditions to the mainland.
