context: The 20th Central Committee Fourth Plenum met on 20–23 October 2025 to review the CPC’s proposals for the 15th 5‑year plan. The Fourth Plenum highlighted the importance of strategic resilience, deepening economic reform and developing 'new productive forces'. While conscious of addressing challenges posed by US decoupling, Beijing is also setting its eyes on long-term growth priorities for the country.
Zhang Yansheng 张燕生 China International Economic Exchange Centre chief researcher shares his analysis on the strategic opportunities and challenges that the PRC will face
- strategic context for the 15th 5-year plan
- global systemic risks are expected to increase as the US retreats from post-1945 responsibilities in the international order
- US isolationism, protectionism and ‘state power capitalism’ will intensify US–PRC rivalry
- the PRC will focus on maintaining strategic composure and strengthening domestic stability and resilience
- the US seeks to concentrate all its advantages to comprehensively suppress the PRC
- global systemic risks are expected to increase as the US retreats from post-1945 responsibilities in the international order
- key policy directions
- continuation of three priorities
- promote high-level opening
- deepen economic reform
- develop new productive forces and promote PRC-style modernisation
- three key themes
- ‘new globalisation’ that is based on the market, firms, efforts of local governments, active participation of the private sector and support from tech advances
- maintain interconnected global supply chains through ‘connected but not decoupled, cooperative not confrontational, open not closed’ strategy
- build a ‘community of shared interests’ that all parties can gain economic benefits from
- promote AI and digital technologies to build ‘decentralised’ economic networks
- focusing on the openness of neighbouring and regional areas
- continuation of three priorities
- PRC strategy against US-led decoupling
- the US is driving decoupling efforts in high-tech sectors including semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum information and AI, with potential extension to biopharma and new energy
- PRC breakthrough in three aspects
- expand domestic demand to attract global business
- the PRC’s domestic market is expected to become the world’s largest by 2035
- global firms are likely to view engagement with the PRC as essential for competitiveness
- the PRC’s domestic market is expected to become the world’s largest by 2035
- develop new productive forces which lead an open and collaborative innovation ecosystem integrating both domestic and foreign actors
- facilitate person-to-person exchange through visa and transport easing
- expand domestic demand to attract global business
- the Shenzhen model
- three indicators highlight its development model
- macro performance driven by high-quality development
- efficiency gains through increasing total factor and labour productivity
- e.g. the effectiveness of AI measured not by its surface applications, but by whether it generates creative rather than substitutive effects
- profitability focusing on return on equity and measurements that indicate the generation of wealth, surplus value and social welfare
- three indicators highlight its development model
- optimisation of Shenzhen’s development momentum
- technological innovation to lead industrial upgrading
- expanding domestic demand
- current consumption incentives remain contractionary
- policy aims to shift toward a neutral or expansionary stance to boost demand
- e.g. through the use of AI
- solving issues of uneven development
- emphasises the reliance on market mechanisms, new productive force and governance modernisation
- importance of the 15th 5-year plan in integrating these dimensions into a coherent framework to advance high-quality development in Shenzhen over the next five years