The fourth plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee set out major objectives for the country's economic and social development in the next five years.
The next five years will be critical as the country works to push ahead on all fronts toward basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035, and it will thus serve as a key link between the past and the future, according to a communique issued after the key meeting.
"Part of the Chinese political DNA is to be able to plan and implement long-term projects", said Andy Mok, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization and Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Major objectives of the next Five-Year Plan include making substantial progress in achieving scientific and technological self-reliance and strength, and securing new breakthroughs in comprehensively deepening reform.
"This is a very important set of developments that I think everyone will be watching very closely," Mok highlighted. "China has a big market, very supportive policies, and a very deep talent pool of science, technology, engineering, math, and scientists."
During a press conference to interpret the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session, top Chinese officials pointed out that China will create more high-tech industries over the next decade, with emerging sectors driving future growth.
Mok believed artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum technology are among China's next priorities.
"I think embodied AI or AI-powered robots will be next," said Mok. "China has an enormous market, but also has the manufacturing prowess."
Mok also emphasized the importance of looking at China's Five-Year Plans in the longer arc of what China is looking to accomplish.
"So 2035 is when China intends to achieve what it calls basic modernization," explained Mok. "What that means is that China will have the complete toolkit, technologically, economically, socially, and from a security perspective, to achieve its centennial goal in 2049 of being a great modern socialist nation."
Reporter: Xie Hongzhou
Cameraman: Xie Hongzhou
Video: Xu Xiaoxin
Poster: Lai Meiya
Editor: Yuan Zixiang, Ou Xiaoming, James Campion, Shen He
