The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yesterday began a key meeting to dictate the direction of the world’s second-biggest economy for the next decade.
Xinhua news agency said the gathering of the party’s Central Committee would discuss a draft document on “major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms” in the Chinese economy, a key driver of regional and global growth.
The meeting, which is known as the Third Plenum and takes place amid intense security and secrecy, has traditionally set the economic tone for a new government, and past meetings have been used to signal far-reaching changes
Recent reports in party and state media have singled out key issues at the four-day meeting as potentially including land and administrative reforms, as well as reducing protections for powerful state-owned enterprises.
A government think tank called for dismantling the residency registration system known as hukou, which restricts access to medical insurance and other benefits for migrants. China also faces other important issues, including oppressive air and environmental pollution, and how to retool its economy to ensure more sustainable growth.
The meeting comes a year after China embarked on a once-a-decade leadership transition, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) taking over as party general secretary before becoming president in March.
Although the economy is no longer completely party and state-controlled, the CCP holds huge sway, with officials in charge of key elements, such as the exchange rate, that in other countries are left mostly to markets.
Xinhua said the party’s draft document “pools the wisdom of the whole party and from all aspects” and is expected “to advance the reform that has lasted for more than three decades.”
China’s leadership recognizes that the country’s economic growth model, largely based on state-financed investment, needs to give way to one in which consumers and other private actors take the lead in propelling expansion.
However, changing direction is no easy task given entrenched interests and ways, as well as the economy’s increasing complexity.
The Global Times newspaper, which has close links to the party, alluded to such challenges in an editorial.
“Different groups in society have different — or even conflicting — interests,” it said.
Analysts say broad brushstrokes rather than firm details are more likely to emerge from the meeting after it concludes on Tuesday.
“Expectations are not very high for the economic reform blueprint which will be spelt out at the plenum,” said Willy Lam (林和立), an expert in Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“This is because Xi Jinping has emphasized the values of stability and also incremental changes,” he said.
China most notably signaled major reforms at a Third Plenum in 1978, when it embarked on the landmark drive that has seen it transformed over the past three decades from a communist-style command economy into a key driver of global growth, trade and investment.
However, “intellectuals in Beijing are not very optimistic that the reforms introduced at the weekend will be as forward-looking and sweeping as those introduced by [late Chinese leader] Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) 35 years ago,” Lam said.
The People’s Daily newspaper, the official party mouthpiece, firmly rejected any Western-style political reforms on the eve of the gathering.
The party “must uphold its leadership ... in the face of some people in society who advocate imitation of the Western system,” the paper said on Friday in a full-page editorial.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique