Adding to the anxiety were signs that the government was tightening the release of local economic data amid a sharp slowdown. Last month, the southern province of Guangdong stopped releasing the results of a monthly purchasing managers’ index — a survey that takes the temperature of China’s important factory sector — citing a notice from the National Bureau of Statistics. The bureau said on Tuesday that the province had violated regulations on statistics gathering.
In his speech, Mr. Xi repeatedly touted the huge advances China has made since “reform and opening” began in 1978, rattling off detailed statistics on personal incomes, education and life expectancy. Gone are the days when food and clothing were rationed, he said.
“Hunger, food shortages and poverty, which plagued the Chinese people for thousands of years, have been generally left behind,” he said.
Mr. Xi paid tribute to Deng Xiaoping, the former leader who presided over the reforms in the 1980s. In past anniversaries of the reform era, Deng stood out in tributes and displays, but Mr. Xi has shifted the spotlight to his own achievements since he became party leader in 2012.
Mr. Xi has repeatedly promised to ensure that China offers businesses and foreign investors an open, fair market, but many have become skeptical that he will follow through. Instead, many say, Mr. Xi’s drive to extend party control, stifle public debate and defend the state sector have stymied economic liberalization.
“Pledges to reform are sincere, but simultaneous pledges to prevent all instability too often nullify progress,” said Daniel H. Rosen, a founding partner of Rhodium Group, an economic analysis firm that helps keep a running scorecard on China’s promised changes. “Reform necessarily means some instability, and trying to have it both ways will not work.”
The occasion of the speech on Tuesday was the anniversary of a party meeting in 1978, when Deng and other veteran leaders who had fallen during Mao’s Cultural Revolution began to reassert their power and lay out ideas for restoring the economy after decades of strife.
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