BEIJING, China — The national focus here this week is on one event — the 19th Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) — and on one man, the country’s beloved President Xi Jinping.

The Congress opens Wednesday at the Great Hall of the People here in the capital Beijing, where 2,287 delegates will re-elect Xi for a second five-year term, giving him not only more power to continue on an aggressive path that has made China the envy of several countries around the world, but also allowing him to continue cleaning up corruption in the vast country of approximately 1. 3 billion people.

Television and newspaper reports have, over the past weeks, been carrying reports about Xi’s achievements over the five years since he assumed office in 2012. Billboards advertising the congress also feature giant photos as China’s big moment nears.

The powerful CPC, which has 89 million members, has been pulling out all the stops to ensure that the congress runs smoothly. And the party, whose system of government is crtiticised in some quarters, has nothing to hide as it has issued invitations to 3,600 journalists to cover the event, with 1,800 coming from overseas.

China, which describes its system of government as socialist with Chinese characteristics, gave foreign journalists tours of several cities across the country to see the development over the years.

Once-sleepy fishing villages are now booming cities. New highways and flyovers to accommodate the increasing number of motor vehicles on the roads — including several luxury brands — new housing for once-poor farmers, fancy hotels, banks, an improved rail service including the bullet train, and a modern ferry service are just some of the things that today make some Chinese cities attractive to its own people and thousands of expatriates and investors.

If Xi were to outline all the achievements of his Administration over the last five years he would probably spend an entire day on the platform.

However, the Chinese, conscious that only so many people can attend the congress, opened an exhibition, titled ‘Forging Ahead: China’s Great Achievements in Five Years’, at the Beijing Expo Centre on September 25.

The Government said that the expo has been seeing 30,000 visitors daily. “[Some] 500,000 have already visited up to October 16,” a guide told journalists through an interpreter today. The exhibition will be open for two months.

Xi and his Administration’s achievements in science, environmental preservation, national security, health care, diplomacy, research and development, culture, technology, construction, poverty reduction, housing, and transportation are among the topics captured in videos and photos in the huge exhibition hall.

“Wow!” was how one journalist who asked not to be named summed it up. The achievements in five years, he said, were much more than what some countries have been unable to achieve in decades.

“In the five years since the 18th CPC National Congress [China has seen] extraordinary development, deepening reforms, enhancing the rule of law, advancing and building of an ecological civilisation, pushing forward the modernisation of national defence and the military, and carrying forward major country diplomacy,” China Daily quotes the CPC Central Committee.

On Wednesday, Xi will start the next chapter of a journey that has warmed the hearts of his people and won him respect on the international stage.

According to a CPC statement, by 2020 China will complete building a moderately prosperous society, and by the middle of the century will become a modern socialist country that is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious”.