China’s quinquennial Communist Party congresses are that rare event where ritual and dogma combine with introspection and strategy. The 19th National Congress, which began on October 18, is no exception.

No one can complain that Xi Jinping short changed anyone on the opening day of the 19th Party Congress in Beijing on 18th October. Just shy of three and a half hours, his thirty-thousand-character oration left few spaces for listeners, inside and outside China, to fill in.

The Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia are market-dominant minorities, and thus often a target for populist persecution. Will China, which has so often expressed solidarity with overseas Chinese, step up to defend them?

Weibo used to be the only place to find vibrant sources of debate in China. But in recent years, Weibo has become the platform of choice for nationalism, xenophobia and racism. Today, Weibo users have two labels for those they consider to be in the habit of lecturing them on “political correctness”— the “public intellectual” and the “saint bitch.” The invention of these two terms speaks volumes about the evolution of discourse on Chinese social media in recent years.

Xi's report at the 19th Party Congress offers clues of the updated road map for China.

The CCP Congress will bring important benefits to China and the rest of the world.

Education has long been the most important method for the Chinese lower class to achieve success and a higher social status. However, skyrocketing education costs are curbing the willingness of young Chinese couples to raise more than one child, which poses a serious challenge to the government’s attempts to address the looming demographic crisis.

Under the enlightened leadership of Xi Jinping, China has enjoyed great diplomatic successes in the past five years. The next five years will see even more successes.

There is hardly any reason for the 19th CCP Congress not to continue following Xi’s ideas, which boil down to the omnipresence of state power.

Most Chinese people recognize that China should take more international responsibilities in proportion to its rapid development, and they are eager to see their homeland gain stronger international standing as a “responsible great power.” However, in reality, they are not prepared for the implications of world governance; among them, the fact that China must make sacrifices and compromises and follow ideas that might contradict the propaganda and education that they have long accepted.