JEDDAH — Despite the rapid economic growth and development China has achieved during the past three decades, the country faces a myriad number of social, economic and political challenges. President-in-waiting Xi Jinping and the next premier, Li Keqiang, were appointed to the top ranks of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in mid-November in what marked a smooth transition to a group of new leaders who face the challenge of continuing the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Speculation has been rife on the capabilities of the CPC's new leaders as they face immense social, economic and political challenges. Of particular concern are the challenges that exist in the party itself – in recent months several corruption scandals involving party members abusing power have caused internal imbalances. China's main concern now is reform. President Hu Jintao's report, delivered on Nov. 8 at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, focused on reform as well as tackling corruption. According to Hu Jintao, over the past 90 years, by relying firmly on the people and adapting the basic tenets of Marxism to China's circumstances and different underlying trends, the Party has pursued its own course independently. The system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a system of scientific theories that includes Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. This system represents the Party's adherence to and development of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong. Reform and opening up, initiated about 33 years ago, has enabled China to complete a transformation from a highly concentrated, planned economy to a vigorous socialist market economy, as well as from a closed and semi-closed economy to an open one in all respects. The CPC has more than 80 million members, which makes it the biggest political party in the world. The top of the CPC is the National Party Congress, which is held once every five years. All state owned companies have party members; some companies even have their own party members' meeting room. Congress' main mission is to elect a central committee of about 200 full members and 150 lower-ranking members. Almost all of these members are approved in advance. Even if in absolute terms China's economy should surpass that of the US (the number one economy in the world), living standards of Chinese people will remain far below those of America and Japan. Despite this, the rapid expansion of its economy has cast China at the center of the world with expectations that the country will become the No. 1 economy in the world. Despite those expectations, China's growth slowed to 7.4% year-to-year in the third quarter of 2012, its lowest rate since the financial crisis. However, China's economy has developed steadily and rapidly throughout the years. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reached 47.3 trillion Yuan in 2011 and government revenue increased by a wide margin. Yet, despite years of development and its role as a major economic player, China is still considered a developing country. Chen Xiaodong, Director General of Department of West Asia and North Africa, told a delegation from the region in a meeting that China has maintained cordial relations with the region's countries both politically and economically. “We face challenges when it comes to development. Income per capita is ranked 90th worldwide. When you visit cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, you will see modern and advanced cities but there is still poverty in areas located Northwest China,” said Chen. In 2011, commercial trade between China and West Asian and North African countries reached $270 billion while back in 2000 trade between the two sides was only $20.3 billion, meaning trade increased 13-fold. In the first three quarters of 2011, commercial trade increased by 8.5 percent reaching $213.4 billion. Although the percentage of development is not considerably high, it is still remarkable considering the global financial crises and the European debt issue. The region's countries are a major energy supplier to China. In 2011, China imported 146 million tons of crude while back in 2000 China imported only 40 million tons. Saudi Arabia remains the leading oil supplier to China and in the first quarter of this year Qatar became the leading natural gas provider to the country. The development China is witnessing is due to the unique path the country has taken which Chinese leaders believe is Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Zhai Jun, Vice Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a West Asian and North African delegation that China is growing rapidly but this fast growth is damaging quality. “The disparity between economic growth and social growth and also between rural and urban places is a major challenge for us. It's true China is the second largest economy in the world but we have 1.3 billion people so income per capital is low. Chinese leaders are different from any other leaders in the world because they are facing problems that don't exist anywhere else in the world. We have our own circumstances; we have 1.3 billion people,” he said. “This year, the size of the economy will reach 52 trillion Chinese Yuan, which is more than $7 trillion. This amount isn't large if we divided it among 1.3 billion people. It comes out to around $5,000 only,” he explained. “For the achievements we have made, people now have become more aware and concerned with issues such as democracy, social justice and also environmental preservation,” he added. Jun believes that as long as China is moving on the Socialist path while making its own changes, the country will have a bright future. Chinese foreign policy remains clear about maintaining peace worldwide, particularly in the region. China has stuck to its position when it comes to the Palestinian conflict in many international events as it negotiated policies to achieve peace. In the United Nations, China has called upon establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. West Asian and North African countries have political and economical importance to China. Commenting on the instability of the region, Jun said that China respects people's demands of development and reform. “We hope to achieve change in the region through dialogue instead of violence and we also hope from the international community to respect the United Nations Charter as China rejects any sort of foreign intervention and refuses any impositions of regime change,” he said. “If the Palestinian issue is not solved then the whole region will find difficulty solving internal matters. China is keen on keeping peace in the region and protecting people's interests,” Jun concluded. However, China might seem culturally or globally isolated despite the open economy. The social networking sites, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube are blocked while Google allows only limited access. The Chinese have instead created local social networking platforms such as “Weibo” to replace Twitter and Facebook, “Baidu,” the most popular search engine in the country, and “KuTube” is the Chinese version of YouTube. The Chinese government believes that such global networking sites are new to the people and it is better to create a local product easy for people to use, especially with the language barrier between the Chinese and rest of the world. The government allows Chinese content such as entertainment to be posted on YouTube to be viewed worldwide but the access is prohibited locally.
