Xi swears by Marxism to make China 1st modern socialist country

Beijing: Poised for record third five-year term and perhaps for life, Chinese President Xi Jinping's high-voltage Marxist rhetoric on Sunday with a vow to make China a modern socialist country has raised hackles at home and abroad that the Communist giant, which for decades relegated the ideology to the background, could be taking the turn to the extreme left.

"From this day forward, the central task of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will be to lead the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in a concerted effort to realise the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernisation," Xi said during his marathon speech at the key Congress of the party on Sunday.

"Only by taking root in the rich historical and cultural soil of the country and the nation the truth of Marxism flourish here," he told the over 2,300 delegates of the week-long 20th Congress, which is due to confirm his unprecedented 3rd five-year term to make him the only leader after the party founder Mao Zedong to continue in power after 10-year term. Xi, 69, who came to power in 2012, has raised the ideological bar of the CPC, which earlier relegated the ideology to the backseat for the last three decades.

China emerged as the second largest economy after the US during this period riding on the success of opening up and economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, ending Mao's disastrous tryst with extreme Marxist-Leninist communist ideology. Deng, who succeeded Mao after his death in 1976, ended the founder's ideological obsession and advocated a new theory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics under which CPC remained all but a Communist party by name.