Is Xi Jinping following Pope Francis in his family-oriented lunar New Year greetings?
Beijing (AsiaNews) - In his message to the nation for Chinese New Year, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the value of family bonds and of the family as the primary setting for education with words similar to those used by Pope Francis in his greetings for the Year of the Goat.
Speaking yesterday in the Great Hall of the People, in front of more than 2,000 people, Xi said that New Year celebrations are an important time for family reunions. In his address, he stressed that Chinese traditions and family harmony and affection should not be forgotten for they are needed to ensure that the young grow up healthy and that the elderly are cared for.
The "Family is the cell of society and the first school we attend in our lives," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. Hence, "[We should] pay attention to the family, to family education, and to family heritage."
However, the life of Chinese families has come under strain in recent years as a result of problems related to work and the country's development.
For instance, figures from the first quarter of 2011 show that China's civil affair organisations dealt with 465,000 divorce cases, a 17.1 per cent increase over the previous year.
On average, more than 5,000 couples break up every day. China's overall divorce rate has continued to grow for the past seven years with selfishness and consumerism threatening Chinese families.
Owing to migration and China's one-child policy, which was recently relaxed, young people end up leading a single life in the cities, whilst their elder parents are left alone, uncared for, in the villages.
Xi pledged to improve the Party and the government to create more wealth, more benefits for the people and more glory for the Chinese nation.
After last Sunday's Angelus, Pope Francis sent his greetings to the nations that celebrate the Lunar New Year, stressing the importance of family values.
"These festivities," the pope noted, "offer the happy occasion to rediscover and live intensely the fraternity that is the precious bond of family life and the foundation of social life. This annual return to the roots of the person and of the family can help all the peoples celebrating the lunar New Year build a society in which interpersonal relations are woven with respect, justice and charity."
The one difference in the two greetings is that for the pope family solidarity is the ultimate goal. For Xi Jinping, the main aim is for families and the nation to work together to build the Communist Party and "socialism with Chinese characteristics".
However, for many Chinese, the real cause of the problems families face is the Party's "socialism," which has undermined Confucian traditions of respect for the elderly and underscored for more than 35 years the country's one-child policy and its legacy of demographic imbalances.
.png)
