The scientific formulation and continuous implementation of five-year plans is a vital experience in the Chinese Communist Party's governance. This is a new planning and governance model that integrates planned and market economies, and reflects the significant political and institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Recently, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was successfully convened. The 15th Five-Year Plan announced at the session has drawn high attention from the international community.
Firstly, the Five-Year Plan is an institutional arrangement that upholds long-termism. China has long adhered to the "Five-Year Plan", which is a consistent theme to build the new China into a modern socialist power from the First Five-Year Plan to the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, and achieved a remarkable development miracle. This requires running one relay after another, with each runner striving to achieve a good result for the next.
The development achievements of the previous "Five-Year Plan", namely the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, have made full preparations for the upcoming "15th Five-Year Plan" period, a critical stage of which will reinforce the foundations and push ahead on all fronts toward basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035, and it will thus serve a key link between the past and future.
Secondly, the implementation of Five-Year Plan has a huge advantage. As we know, only by concentrating superior resources can an entity accomplish great tasks and achieve great success. The Five-Year Plans have played a key role in overall coordination and have been crucial to China's remarkable achievements in major engineering projects, key scientific and technological breakthroughs, targeted poverty alleviation, and the promotion of green development.
Taking poverty alleviation as an example, China's rural poverty alleviation policies are deployed in conjunction with the 13th Five-Year Plan. The goal of "lifting rural poor out of poverty under the current standards" has been listed as a binding indicator. National policies in areas of fiscal revenue, finance, land, transportation, water conservancy, education, and medical policies are all tilted towards impoverished areas.
Mechanisms such as East-West cooperation, targeted assistance, counterpart support, and village-based work teams have been established to integrate resources of policies, projects, funds, and personnel, forming a synergy and focusing efforts precisely. From 2016 to 2020, China lifted more than 10 million people out of poverty each year, achieving the poverty reduction target of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule.
Thirdly, the Five-Year Plan is a dynamic integration of an effective market and a capable government. Five-Year Plans under a socialist market economy are market-friendly plans, characterized by macro-level strategic guidance rather than micro-level material directives. It has the function of improving government efficiency and compensating for market failures, so that the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of planning complement each other. The plan is for a forest, while allowing the trees to grow freely.
The Chinese government is a government of the people, and its Five-Year Plans always take the people's aspirations for a better life as their starting point and ultimate goal. To ensure that the fruits of development are shared by the people, the Communist Party of China has persistently pursued self-reform, strengthened self-discipline, and adhered to strict Party governance.
The Five-Year Plan has many other characteristics and advantages, such as its balance between scientific rigour and democratic principles. It draws wisdom from the people while operating within a top-level design framework; the decision-making process prevents short-term returns on capital while avoiding the over-exploitation of the future to blindly please voters.
The Five-Year Plan is an important contribution of China to the development of the world today. Against the backdrop of a sluggish global economic recovery, some countries have experienced economic booms and busts, while China is one of the most stable major economies. With the stability of its governance, China has injected more certainty into a turbulent world and will also provide new opportunities for the world with its new development.
Zhang Kaibin,
Consul-General of the People's Republic of China in Willemstad, Curaçao.
