The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad.
Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm.
The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the last party congress in October 2022.
Photo: Reuters
Further deepening reforms and promoting the modernization of China will comprise the main agenda of the third plenum, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, citing the party’s politburo, during a regular meeting.
Third plenums have been typically held in the autumn since the 1990s. The party was widely expected to hold one in either October or November last year, but it did not.
“The meeting had been expected to happen late last year, but was postponed without explanation,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics.
“We should get a better sense of the leadership’s medium-term reform priorities during the third plenum,” he said.
The plenum will open amid a subdued economy, with the massively indebted property sector, once accounting for a quarter of GDP, a major drag on household sentiment.
The economy still faces many challenges, with “effective demand” still lacking, the pressure on enterprises sizable, and risks and hazards in key areas numerous, Xinhua reported, citing the politburo meeting.
“Domestic circulation is also not smooth, and the complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment has obviously increased,” Xinhua reported, adding that China’s economic foundation remained stable.
China has not collapsed as predicted by the “China collapse theory,” nor will it peak as forecast by the “China peak theory,” Xi said last month.
“I have repeatedly emphasized that reform and opening up are crucial tools for contemporary China to catch up with the times. China’s reform will not pause, and its opening-up will not cease,” he said.
“We are planning and implementing a series of significant measures to comprehensively deepen reform,” he said.
Third plenums have typically focused on reforms after the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s. Some have left a long-lasting and historical impact on the economy. The third plenum in December 1978 under Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) initiated China’s economic reforms, igniting China’s transformation into a global economic powerhouse.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS