Roundup: Mexican experts say CPC leadership pillar of China's social, economic progress

The leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been a pillar of China's social and economic progress in the last decades, two Mexican experts have said.

Jose Luis Leon-Manriquez, an expert in Asian affairs from the Autonomous Metropolitan University, said the economic policies the CPC has pushed for since 1978 have yielded good results.

"The most important result of the existence of the CPC is that it has returned China to a central place in the global economic and political arena," he said.

Leon-Manriquez added that the CPC has also been promoting economic flexibility, allowing the rise of entrepreneurs and encouraging the private sector to become an important actor in the economy.

Ignacio Martinez Cortes, professor of international relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that a recent highlight of the CPC's governance has been the zero-tolerance anti-corruption campaign carried out during the past four years.

"The party has now placed a new transformation model on the basis of an inclusive society, a green economy and a harmonious environment where corruption is unacceptable," said Martinez Cortes.

Discipline and strict governance within the party were major topics at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, which was held from Monday to Thursday in Beijing.

The meeting saw the approval of two documents, laying out norms for intra-party political life and new regulations for internal supervision, in order to bolster discipline.

Leon-Manriquez said that corruption is a concern for the Chinese leadership and society at large, given the appearance of officials who used their positions to enrich themselves illegally.

The CPC's anti-corruption drive calls to "hunt tigers" and "swat flies," thus referring to targeting high-ranking and low-ranking officials respectively.

"There is a clear willingness among the political leadership, from President Xi Jinping, to face the problem of corruption," said Leon-Manriquez.

"China is fighting to remove doubts about the political system. This would (also) be a very important task across all of Mexican society, should the executive power and political will to do it be found," Leon-Manriquez said. Endi