REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a critical Communist Party Congress on Wednesday with a pledge to build a "modern socialist country" that will never copy the political systems of others and will remain open to the world.

Xi's wide-ranging speech kicked off the twice-a-decade congress, a week-long, mostly closed-door conclave that will culminate with the selection of a new Politburo Standing Committee that will rule China's 1.4 billion people for the next five years.

He set out his vision as he addressed more than 2,000 delegates in Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People, including 91-year-old former president Jiang Zemin.

"Through a long period of hard work, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, this is a new historical direction in our country's development," Xi said in a speech carried live across the nation on state television.

China will relax market access for foreign investment and expand access to its services sector, as well as deepen market-oriented reform of its exchange rate and financial system, while at the same time strengthening state firms, he said.

China's political system is the broadest, most genuine, and most effective way to safeguard the fundamental interests of the people, Xi said.

"We should not just mechanically copy the political systems of other countries," he said.

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