On Thursday, the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China concluded its third plenary session with an issued communique. The party adopted a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization at its third plenary session, and the overall objectives continue to improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China's system and capacity for governance.
In an exclusive interview with GDToday, Alan Zhang, a China-US expert at ICAS, perceives that China's intent on further deepening reform is a continuation of its fight in modern history. Intrinsically, reform means getting rid of obsolete policies to enable China to stay consistently in touch with all the trending issues, Alan concluded. "It is arguable that the latest chapter of modern Chinese history began with reform and opening up," he said. "We can say that reform is at the foundation."
The year 2029 marks China's half-century milestone in reform and opening up
Noticeably, the communique sets a timeline for China's further deepening of reform. In addition to mandating that China will have basically realized socialist modernization by the year 2035, it is also said that the reform tasks laid out in the resolution shall be completed by 2029.
In the view of Alan, the year 2029 is a milestone for China in many ways. He stressed that during this half-century milestone of reform and opening-up, China is expected to present an important assessment not only to its own people, but also to the world, regarding its reform progress.
"The underlying tone is that China is committed to staying connected to the world." Alan thinks China's stance in continuing to open up has brushed off all of the nonsense during the pandemic about China closing off. "As a driving force for global development, opening up is a responsibility that a great power like China must shoulder," said Alan.
A still underdeveloped domestic market for new quality productive forces
In terms of building a high-standard socialist market economy, as underscored in the communique, Alan noted that China should continue to close the gap with the rest of the world in three major areas: finance, technology innovation, and education. "China has made progress over the years in the market economy, but there are still some areas in which China needs to catch up. In terms of finance, the financial system is still relatively young."
He argues that China should focus on both local and global fronts when working to deepen structural reform. "There is going to be a new round of industrial revolution, and China needs to create new driving forces," he commented. "China has a huge population, but its domestic market is largely undeveloped or underdeveloped. A mature economy needs to be driven by domestic consumption, not by exports."
"China is now working on new quality productive forces, aiming to produce new supplies to meet the new demands in its domestic market," he concluded.
China is expected to pick up stronger economic resilience in upcoming quarters
Figures show exactly how China is making progress in the first half of 2024. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasted a 5% growth in China's economy on July 15, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from its forecast in April of this year.
"That's definitely a correction from earlier this year when major financial organizations predicted China's growth rate to be below 5%," he said. "In fact, we can see that China's exports are stronger, leading to more trade. More resilience is coming back."
Alan also mentioned the China Travel trend that has been making headlines worldwide. "The new visa policy allows foreigners to stay in China for up to 144 hours. This also smartly reminds us that China's domestic tourism resources are not only for the Chinese, but also open to the rest of the world."
China's modernization is not driven by hegemonic ideas but by peace
The communique also stressed that Chinese modernization is the modernization of peaceful development. China is dedicated to promoting a human community with a shared future, as noted.
Alan thinks that marks a major difference from hegemony. "Peaceful development is essentially a commitment to the world that China's development is not driven by hegemonic ideas and is not seeking to develop itself at the expense of others," he said. It is striking to see tension and turbulence on the rise among nations. China's path of peaceful development is highly valued in this time of global instability, Alan interpreted to GDToday.
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