CHALLENGES & EXPECTATIONS

Despite a widely acknowledged good start, there are challenges and expectations ahead.

Chinese industrial companies' profits rose a mere 5.3 percent in 2012, compared with the 25.4-percent surge registered in 2011, posting its weakest growth in 13 years, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The country's reliance on imported petroleum broke records. And an unreasonable economic structure is emerging as a prominent problem which hinders China's future development.

With cities around the country choking in air pollution, China is also encountering increasing ecological and environmental problems.

Widening income disparities, corruption, abuses of power, food safety scandals keep triggering public outcries.

Issues concerning the Diaoyu Islands, nuclear tests by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Sino-U.S. ties also test the new leaders' wisdom in diplomacy.

All these challenges serve to remind CPC leaders to be soberly aware that China is still in the primary stage of socialism and will long remain so.

This basic condition of China has not changed; nor has the principal problem in national society, that is, how can China meet the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people with backward social production; nor has China's international position as the largest developing country in the world.

Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said he hopes the new leadership can make all their decisions based on such basic provisos and the country's real situation in the future.

Huang Weiting, a research fellow with "Seeking Truth," the official magazine of the CPC Central Committee, said the public now have very high expectations of their prospects.

Huang, however, warned that "Rome was not built in one day."

"For some obstinate problems, the new leaders should be prepared for a prolonged battle to tackle them step by step," he warned.

The upcoming annual session of the National People's Congress, slated for March 5, will incorporate the main ideas of the 18th CPC National Congress into the country's will through legislation.

Top state leaders including the country's president will be elected during the session.

Amid global attention, the year of 2013 will be a new starting point for China to release its "positive energy."