context: 2025 marks the last year of the 14th 5-year plan (2021–25). Departments have started winding down ongoing work while finalising blueprints for 2026–30. A 15th 5-year plan local development forum took place in April, with Xi Jinping 习近平 drawing out his roadmap for what lies ahead. On 16 June, Party mouthpiece Qiushi released a series of Xi quotes, praising the role of state planning in backing governance success. The following is a synopsis of the major policy goals and tools mentioned.
Using medium- and long-term plans to guide economic and social development is an important governance method of the CPC, notes Xi Jinping 习近平.
Such planning allows the market to play a decisive role in resource allocation, while also giving full play to the role of the government.
Top-level design must
- align with global development trends
- accurately grasp public consensus
- achieve top-down coordination per stage and sector, ensuring
- short- and long-term coordination
- coherence between different levels and content areas
In terms of policy goals, Xi notes that the country’s primary contradiction has shifted to one between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s growing demand for a better life.
His government is focusing on industrial upgrades to achieve high-quality development.
In the long-run, the PRC takes a ‘two-step approach’ to modernisation
- 2020–35: basically achieved socialist modernisation
- 2035–50: consolidate a prosperous, democratic, civilised, harmonious and beautiful modern socialist country
By 2035, the PRC aims to
- raise per capita GDP to MDC-level
- rank among the top innovative nations
- modernise
- economic system and realise new-type industrialisation
- national governance system and capacity
- boost disposable income and nurture a middle class
- achieve common prosperity and rural modernisation
- guarantee access to public services
- adopt green lifestyles and production models
- consolidate state security systems and capabilities
- modernise national defence
To ensure accurate planning, Xi notes the importance of departments in conducting grassroots investigations and gathering first-hand information.
As early as the Yan’an period, Mao Zedong 毛泽东 emphasised that ‘Communists should be models of seeking truth from facts.’ Research should be
- grounded in realities, not lofty idealism
- compiled via investigation meetings
As strategising for five-year plans involves every aspect of socioeconomic development, it is crucial to merge top-level design with public consultation, encouraging input from all sectors of society.
Local plans must
- reflect actual conditions and adhere to realism
- set flexible targets with no excessive layering of goals
- clarify duties of agencies in realising the plan
- including mechanisms for
- real-time monitoring
- midterm evaluation
- final review
Practices on the ground must not stray from written goals.