“Judging from how this pandemic is being handled by different leaderships and [political] systems around the world, [we can] clearly see who has done better,” he said, without mentioning any countries by name.

“Time and history are on our side and this is where our conviction and resilience lie, and why we are so determined and confident.”

Nonetheless, China still faced many challenges and uncertainties, he told the cadres.

“We must be conscious that our country’s development is still at the important strategic opportunity stage, and our opportunities and challenges will face new developments and changes,” he said.

“Both our opportunities and challenges are enormous and unprecedented, and generally speaking our opportunities are bigger than challenges.

“As globalisation faces counter currents … we must understand how to handle the relationship between self-reliance and opening up [to the outside world],” Xi said.

“We must do a good job as we participate in the international division of labour and safeguard national security, make good use of foreign capital and carry out proper security checks at the same time so we can open our doors wider under the condition of ensuring our national security,” he said.

China should learn from other countries’ experience in setting up “glass doors and adding different locks at different stages” to deal with national security issues effectively, he said.

Xi devoted a large part of his speech to the need for self-reliance and said China could weather any storm or challenge as long as the economy remained strong.

“As long as we can stand on our own and be self-reliant, and maintain a vibrant flow of goods and services domestically, then we will be invincible no matter how the storm changes internationally. We will survive and continue to develop, and nobody can beat us or choke us to death,” he said.

“A new development framework will help enhance our survivability, competitiveness, development strength, and sustainability in all foreseeable and unforeseeable storms and tempests, so we can ensure that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will not suffer delay or interruption,” he said.

“[We must guard against] silo mentality and bear in mind [the importance] of building a unified market which serves the whole country,” he said. “[Cadres must not only] worry about your little domain or market, and only work hard to keep your little economy flourishing.”

As the world’s largest market, China should “play to this advantage, continuously consolidate and strengthen this advantage, and form strong support in the building of a new framework for our country’s development”, he said.

Analysts said that although Xi’s view in January was that China had managed the health crisis better than Western countries, circumstances had changed in the months since then.

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Chi Wang, president of the US-China Policy Foundation and former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, said the success of the American vaccine effort offered “a strong rebuttal” to Xi’s argument that the West was declining.

“The pandemic seems to finally be under better control now that all adult Americans are eligible for vaccines and vaccines are more easily available,” Wang said.

“While the US bungled the virus response last spring, the success of the vaccine research and development efforts shows that the American system is not inherently broken and that it can still compete with – and outperform – China in critical sectors,” Wang said.

Wang said the US midterm election would coincide with CCP’s 20th National Party Congress next year and the two events have the potential to highlight how the US and Chinese political systems are diverging.

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“While American voters will get the chance to return to the polls and demonstrate whether they want to further embrace Biden’s agenda or return power to the Republicans, China will likely be subverting its established norms and granting Xi a third term in power. While the politicians elected in the [midterm elections] will influence how Biden chooses and implements his agenda moving forward, the CCP will promote officials loyal to Xi and his continued dominance.”

Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said Xi’s speech was “a combination of superficial analysis, wishful thinking and conservative values” and that in the four months since the speech was made, “things have changed remarkably”.

“Washington is operating more effectively, the pandemic in the US is waning while vaccinations are rising, the economy is humming, and the US is well on its way to strengthening ties with its allies and providing more global leadership,” he said.

In contrast, “Beijing’s domestic repression and aggressive foreign policy are generating substantial pushback from many countries abroad and even quietly among many average Chinese”, he said.

“China may have had a low number of Covid-19 cases, but the high levels of vaccine hesitancy in China reflect a lack of popular trust in the system,” Kennedy said.

A poll by Morning Consult released on Monday said 50 per cent of Americans thought the US was “on the right track”, the highest proportion since 2017.

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Also, the US president “still had work to do to convince US allies”, as many of them had deep trade and investment links with China.

Wu Junfei, deputy director of the Tianda Institute think tank in Hong Kong, said Xi’s “glass door” concept was actually an example of how China had learned from the US, as many Chinese companies saw themselves blocked by glass doors in America.

“While the US claims it is an open economy, in actual fact, there are lots of glass doors to US government agencies, which keep industry and investment areas seemingly open, and installing national security scrutiny gates on a on-demand basis,” he said.

“Chinese companies have suffered a lot, and China has learned a lot,” he said.