Above photo: CPC Central Committee plenary session. MFA.
The meeting of the highest decision making body between two Congresses of the CPC took on greater significance this year.
Due to global challenges such as the rise in protectionism in the US and EU, geopolitical tensions, and slowing down of domestic growth.
The third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held in Beijing from Monday July 15 to Thursday, July 18. It adopted a resolution listing a set of reforms with the objective of deepening the modernization process in the country in the path to complete building an advanced socialist market economy in China by the year 2035 and an advanced socialist society by 2050.
Chinese President Xi Jinping who is also the general secretary of the CPC presided over the meeting attended by 199 members and 165 alternate members.
Each elected Central Committee, the highest decision making body between two party Congresses, holds seven plenums or meetings during its five year term. Each of those plenums have a specified agenda. The third plenum is assigned the job of reviewing and laying down long term policy directions.
This year’s meeting was held amidst the rising global and domestic challenges which China faces in terms of protectionism pursued by countries such as the US and its European allies, rising geopolitical interventions in the region, and the relative slowing down of the Chinese economy since the outbreak of COVID-19.
As stated in the communique issued after its meeting, the Central Committee believes that “Chinese modernization has been advanced continuously through reforms and opening up, and it will surely embrace broader horizons through further reform and opening up.”
The reforms and opening up, the Central Committee believes, would advance “Chinese modernization in order to” make China deal better “with complex developments both at home and abroad” and help it “adopt to the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and live up to the new expectations of our people.”
Advanced Socialist Society By 2050
The Central Committee communique reaffirmed that further reforms are necessary to address issues in the country’s major policy areas such as economy, politics, security, and ecological conservation to enable the party to realize its objective of completing the task of making China an advanced socialist society by 2050.
It says the focus in the next years would be to improve the quality of modernization, development of productive forces sensitive to the local conditions, deepening supply-side structural reforms, and overall improvement of living standards and people’s well being by ensuring “greater social fairness and justice.”
Focusing on the primary task of making people happier, the Central Committee vowed that it ”will improve the income distribution system, the employment-first policy, and the social security system, further reform the medical and health care systems, and improve the systems facilitating population development and providing related services,” in the coming years.
The third plenum also decided to advance “socialist democracy and rule of law” in the country by “advancing the whole process of people’s democracy and developing a strong socialist culture in China”, following Marxism-Leninism, the thought of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and new principles propounded by President Xi Jinping.
“We must diversify the forms of democracy at all levels and ensure that the principle of the people running the country is manifested in concrete and visible ways in all aspects of China’s political and social activities,” the Central Committee says in the communique.
It talks about the resolve to make economic policies keeping the wider interest of environmental protection in mind. “Chinese modernization is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature,” the communique says.
Address Domestic And Global Disparities
The third plenum promised to lift more restrictions on the market “while ensuring effective regulation,” maintaining order and capacity to remedy its failures. However, given the concerns of rising inequalities in the country it also talks of a balanced approach to public and private ownership of production, rural and urban development with mutual exchanges and narrowing disparities between the two.
“We will improve the institutions and mechanisms for advancing new urbanization, consolidate and improve the basic rural operation system, improve supporting systems to strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers, and enrich rural areas, and deepen reform of the land system,” the communique says.
Given the challenges in international politics, the third plenum vowed to further develop China’s international relations, promising greater reforms in its trade policy and institutions responsible for foreign policy execution. The document asserts the independence of China’s foreign policy. It asserts that a peaceful and shared human community under a multipolar world order remains the central goals of Chinese foreign policy.
The Central Committee meeting decided to refine the mechanism of Belt and Road initiative for high quality cooperation in future across the globe. It also talks about pursuing further bilateral, regional and global cooperation with allies in the future under the different policy formulations issued in the last few years by President Jinping such as Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative.