Chinese President Xi Jinping warned China's central and provincial leaders who had assembled in Beijing for a meeting on January 20, to be on high alert for “black swan” incidents amid a “complicated and sensitive external environment”. He urged senior officials to maintain social stability as China faced a changing international landscape. Xinhua said he told the leaders of China's provinces and government ministers, as well as the inner circle of the Politburo Standing Committee, that the Chinese economy was in good shape but facing “new and worrisome developments”. It said “Xi urged party committees and governments at all levels to pursue a holistic approach to national security and follow the requirements of the CPC Central Committee to ensure China’s political security.” Xi Jinping also expressed concern that Party personnel are not up to tackling the many challenges they are facing. He said, inter alia, that“The Party faces acute and serious risks lack of spirit, insufficient capabilities, being detached from the people, and passive corruption.” Asserting that this is a big judgment based on actual conditions, he exhorted leading cadres to strengthen their theoretical cultivation, thoroughly study the basic theories of Marxism, learn to understand Socialism Thought with Chinese characteristics in the New Era, [and] grasp the global outlook and methodology of dialectical materialism . He warned too that “The situation of the anti-corruption struggle is still severe and complicated and that [Our] commitment to zero-tolerance must not waver one bit.” He said the "intensity of combating corruption must not be reduced one bit.”