Xi Jinping on Monday joined a group discussion with delegates from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Xi Jinping joins a group discussion with delegates from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region who are attending the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing, October 17, 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

Zheng Zhiming sat across the table from Xi. Zheng, a worker from Guangxi Automobile Group Company, wore a workshop uniform. He has worked on the front line for more than two decades. He knows his business very well.

"How's your income now?" "What's your level in the professional title system?"

Xi asked Zheng.

"Very good! I'm entitled to an annual salary. I share the same level as the company's middle-level official," Zheng said.

"I was recently rated a top senior technician and a senior engineer."

Throughout the years Zheng advanced from an apprentice fitter to a senior engineer, coinciding with the era when China developed into a major manufacturing country and accelerated its pace toward becoming a manufacturing power.

Xi said, "The class base of the working class has expanded. Intellectuals are also part of the working class and they got rich through hard work."

Xi then further elaborated that Chinese modernization was the modernization of a huge population. "We [Chinese] are not undergoing the modernization of hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions of people — but the modernization of more than 1.4 billion people," he noted. "Our modernization is both the most difficult and the greatest. From this perspective, it is essential to rely closely on the working class. They represent the advanced productive forces."

Zheng told the session a story about the development and changes of the manufacturing sector. In the past Zheng and his peers learned from foreign technicians by dismantling parts and figuring out how they work. Now, "Those who used to lead in turn dismantle our spare parts to learn from us."

Zheng's story reminded Xi of his own work in Fujian Province. Xi once led a team to explore industrial development abroad. Decades later, products manufactured in China were exported overseas.

"These decades have witnessed the development and change of China," said Xi.

(Translated by Zhan Zinan and edited by Dong Feng)