BEIJING (AFP) – Intercontinental missiles, disinfection robots and a piece of the Moon – China’s Communist Party yesterday flaunted the fruits of its decade under President Xi Jinping ahead of a key meeting expected to extend his rule.
Thousands of people thronged an exhibition in Beijing celebrating Xi’s ‘New Era’ just days before a Party Congress at which the country’s political elite are expected to usher Xi into an unprecedented third term in power.
Visitors snapped selfies beside the enormous Dongfeng-41 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile outside the entrance to the attraction, housed in a palatial 1950s hall designed by Soviet architects.
Omnipresent portraits of Xi showed the leader handing out awards, greeting a baby and surrounded by beaming well-wishers dressed in traditional clothing.
“Xi Jinping’s thoughts guide our country’s economic construction towards heroic achievements,” one caption read.
Exhibits hammered home the message of the party’s triumph in every aspect of Chinese life, from dried mushrooms in an agricultural display to a lunar sample and lab-grown diamonds showcasing the country’s technical prowess.
“It’s so grand,” Wen, a government employee visiting the exhibition with her colleagues, told AFP during a government-organised media tour. “I feel proud of myself as a Chinese.”
There are photos of vast cotton fields and farmers grinning over a bountiful apple harvest in Xinjiang, a scale model showing Hong Kong’s integration with neighbouring mainland cities.
Realistic wax figures dressed in hazmat suits, vials of homegrown vaccines and a disinfectant-spraying robot highlighted the party’s pride in its zero-COVID policy, which Xi has claimed as a landmark victory.
Office buildings and shopping malls have set up elaborate floral displays marking the Congress.
