Hong Kong
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping will convene a key political meeting this week to press ahead with his next five-year strategy to strengthen the world’s second-largest economy amid escalating tensions with the United States.
The gathering, known as the Fourth Plenary Meeting, will be a perfect opportunity for Mr Xi to showcase China’s brand of sophisticated economic planning and tight control over its political institutions, days before he is likely to meet with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of an international summit in South Korea.
It also highlights the stark contrast between the two countries as they compete in the areas of technology and trade. The assembled Communist Party elites will discuss China’s next five-year plan. This plan is an economic blueprint whose direction is strictly determined by the top leadership of an authoritarian state. Meanwhile, the U.S. government shutdown has been extended into a third week as democratically elected lawmakers remain at odds over spending for the coming year.
The General Assembly will be closely watched by outsiders for clues about the inner workings of China’s opaque ruler, the Communist Party. Conspiracy heightened on Friday when state media announced the ouster of China’s number two general. The general is the highest-ranking casualty so far in Xi’s ongoing military corruption crackdown.
The conference comes at a critical time for Beijing. Chinese leaders believe they are navigating an increasingly hostile global landscape, including U.S. trade tensions and tightening restrictions on China’s access to Western technology, while also addressing deep economic challenges at home.
China’s economic growth slowed to its lowest level this year in the third quarter, reporting 4.8% year-on-year growth, down from 5.2% in the previous quarter, as these pressures weighed on the economy, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.
More than 300 full members and non-voting delegates of the powerful Central Committee will gather in Beijing for a closed session, one of seven meetings usually held between party congresses within five years.
The five-year plan, which will be the focus of this week, is expected to emphasize China’s economic security and technological innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, new energy and biotechnology. It will run from 2026 until the end of the decade.
But that’s not the only topic on the agenda; the meeting could also include personnel changes if new officials are appointed to key roles vacated by those who were purged.
Full details of the next five-year plan will not be revealed until it is approved by China’s rubber-stamp parliament in March next year. But Mr. Xi has already given strong hints about his priorities as he seeks to adjust China’s economic strategy to ensure “high-quality development” in the remaining decade.
This is a decade in which there is a good chance that Mr. Xi will rise to power. The strongman leader will break precedent and remain at the top of the party and state for a third term starting in 2022, so far avoiding securing a successor.
Earlier this year, President Xi called on leaders of various ministries to focus on the development of emerging and future industries and breakthroughs in core and cutting-edge technologies over the next five years, while coordinating “development and security” and considering “internal and external risks.”
China has already made significant progress in high-tech industries such as electric vehicles, solar panels and batteries, and is rapidly catching up with the United States in other advanced areas such as semiconductors, AI and biotechnology, which are included in the current five-year plan that ends this year.
But the country’s industrial innovation is also hampered by overcapacity. The surge in production has fueled friction with trading partners who accuse China of flooding global markets, while contributing to persistent deflation and price wars between rivals at home.
China’s economy also needs to be rebalanced, as it faces long-term concerns such as a prolonged real estate recession, prolonged deflation, weak consumer demand, high youth employment, as well as rapid aging and population decline.
China’s growth rate slowed in the third quarter compared to the rest of the year, increasing pressure on the Communist Party to meet its annual growth target of around 5%. Overall, the economy grew 5.2% year-on-year in the first three quarters.
Officials said Monday that the third-quarter decline was due to a “complex and challenging external environment,” including the impact of tariffs on the global economy and China’s economic transition between “old and new” growth engines.
Despite the economic headwinds, many observers expect Mr. Xi will aim to largely maintain the course he has already charted toward China, albeit with some targeted adjustments.
“There is little reason to expect the new five-year plan to deviate, given that Xi Jinping now has decisive control over the entire system and there is no need for big headlines,” said Jacob Gunter, head of the economy and industry program at the Berlin think tank MERICS.
Günther said he hoped to see “some signals” in the next plan on how to deal with the “engulfment” of intense domestic competition linked to increased consumption and overcapacity. But any signs of deeper change, he said, would include meaningful efforts in the coming months and years to expand the social safety net and tackle issues such as subsidies and overinvestment.
All eyes will also be on potential personnel changes this week, including potential appointments to the powerful Central Military Commission, which oversees China’s 2 million-strong military.
The Central Military Commission has been reeling from Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption purge, with three of the commission’s six uniformed members expelled since 2023, including No. 2 general He Weidong.
Friday’s announcement of his dismissal confirmed months of speculation about his fate since he disappeared from public view last March. He served as CMC vice-chairman and was also a 24-member member of the Politburo, the second-highest level in the Communist Party’s leadership.
His expulsion from the party was announced along with that of fellow CMC member Miao Hua and seven other officers who were dismissed from their military positions in June. All were “suspects of serious work-related crimes involving unusually large sums of money,” state media said.
As a result of this reorganization, the number of members of the Party Central Committee whose term begins in 2022 will be 205, and the number of non-voting substitutes will be 171, leaving an unusual number of vacancies on the Party Central Committee. Approximately 12 seats are expected to be filled by alternate members in this plenary session.
It is unclear whether Mr. Xi will choose to fill the post on the Central Military Commission, which he chairs, or whether he will prefer to maintain firm control over a smaller group.
Neil Thomas, a China politics researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said existing vacancies on the central committee and the possibility of other disciplinary actions this week could lead to the biggest reshuffle in the plenary session since at least 2017.
“The record purge strengthens, not weakens, Mr. Xi’s control over the party and the (People’s Liberation Army). All members of the Central Committee know that their future depends on remaining in Mr. Xi’s good graces.”
