The era of President Xi Jinping has begun. As he strode to the podium of the Great Hall of the People and delivered his extraordinarily long speech at the opening of the Communist Party’s 19th congress on Wednesday, Xi laid out an ambitious vision not only for his upcoming second term of five years, but more importantly for the next 30 years. China would become “a great modern socialist country” by the middle of the 21 century, Xi said to the applause of about 2,300 party delegates for the one-week meeting.