China’s Strategic Opportunities in the Next Five Years

A workshop in a cotton factory at the Korla Economic and Technological Development Zone, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Major Concerns of the 13th Five-Year Plan

The 13th Five-Year Plan period plays a decisive role in ensuring completion of the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

As the world’s second largest economy, China is the strongest engine powering global economic growth. Over the past four years, China contributed one third of global economic growth, roughly double that of the U.S. The country’s economy, therefore, has polarized global attention. But China now proposes a shift from the GDP-centric criteria with which the change of China’s growth model is so closely connected. The author believes that the growth target of the 13th Five-Year Plan period will be set at around seven percent. Currently China is experiencing an economic downturn that will hit bottom at the end of this year. It is possible that the 13th Five-Year Plan period will usher in a new round of growth.

China still has great potential for growth, the results of which will likely exceed our expectations. This is because China is in an era of synchronized momentum towards urbanization, modernization, informationization (also known as the Internet Plus), agricultural modernization, and infrastructure modernization. The accent in all five areas is on ecological conservation. We have good reason to believe that China’s future growth will be maintained at around seven percent or higher.

Ensuring that workers, especially those in the private sector and who are self-employed, have access to various insurances and basic public services is essential in the long term. From this perspective, the five-year plans indeed “promote human all-around development.” We must, therefore, further improve public services and boost employment, education, healthcare, and other indexes vital to people’s lives, and at the same time reduce economic anticipated indexes. The design of the 12th Five-Year Plan indexes reduced economic development indicators to three, or 12.5 percent, all of which were anticipated. In contrast, during the Sixth Five-Year Plan period (1981-1985) shortly after the reform and opening-up policy was initiated, 60 percent of the indicators were obligatory economic targets.

The main issue now is that of low-income housing in urban areas. Bearing in mind the constant change and flow of population and labor force, basic housing could be the issue demanding most attention during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. The target – a home for every urban resident – is also a key obligatory indicator that must be fulfilled by both the central and local governments.

The period between now and 2030 will bring important strategic opportunities for China amid the country’s transition from a moderately prosperous society to a prosperous society for all, with an income level that has advanced from the middle to higher level. As a transitional period in which to achieve the strategic goals of modernization, it will be integral to comprehensively building a modernized country, comprehensively deepening reform, comprehensively implementing the rule of law, and comprehensively carrying out innovation.

HU ANGANG is dean of the Institute of Contemporary China Studies and professor at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsing-hua University.