By Talibeh Hydara
The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has convened its third plenary session in Beijing from July 15 to 18, 2024.
The Central Committee, which is the highest organ when the National Congress is not in session, is tasked with carrying out congress resolutions.
The third plenary session centred on the importance of reform and opening up.
The session discussed a report on the work of the Political Bureau, presented by Xi Jinping on behalf of the Political Bureau, and considered and adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization.
The targets in the resolution, which was issued on Thursday 18 July, have to be met by 2029 when
the People’s Republic of China celebrates its 80th founding anniversary.
A communique from the session maintained that despite global complexities, the Political Bureau has made progress in a number of areas.
“It was unanimously agreed that in the face of a grave and complex international environment and the arduous tasks of advancing reform and development and ensuring stability at home, the Political Bureau has secured progress in the following respects:
— earnestly implementing the guiding principles from the 20th National Party Congress and the first and second plenary sessions of the 20th Central Committee;
–fully and faithfully applying the new development philosophy on all fronts;
— adhering to the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability;
— implementing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy in a coordinated way;
— giving full consideration to both domestic and international imperatives;
— ensuring both development and security;
— promoting high-quality development;
— taking further steps to advance and plan for the deepening of reform across the board;
— advancing socialist democracy and rule of law;
— improving public communication and cultural work;
— ensuring the people’s wellbeing and protecting the environment;
— safeguarding national security and social stability;
— promoting the development of national defense and the armed forces;
— advancing work related to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan;
— pursuing major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics; and
— strengthening full and rigorous Party self-governance,” the Communiqué stated.
China caught up with the world because of its smart reform and opening up, and the Central Committee gave a positive assessment of the successes made in comprehensively deepening reform.
The Central Committee also discussed targets for the next five years to further deepening reform comprehensively with the emphasis “on building a high-standard socialist market economy, promoting high-quality economic development, supporting all-around innovation, improving macroeconomic governance, promoting integrated urban-rural development, pursuing high-standard opening up, advancing whole-process people’s democracy, promoting socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, deepening reform in the cultural sector, ensuring and improving the people’s wellbeing, deepening reform in ecological conservation, modernizing China’s national security system and capacity, deepening national defense and military reform, and improving the Party’s leadership in further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.”
The communiqué added: “We will lift restrictions on the market while ensuring effective regulation, striving to better maintain order in the market and remedy market failures. By doing so, we will ensure smooth flows in the national economy and unleash the internal driving forces and creativity of our society as a whole. We will unswervingly consolidate and develop the public sector and unswervingly encourage, support, and guide the development of the non-public sector. We will ensure that economic entities under all forms of ownership have equal access to factors of production in accordance with the law, compete in the market on an equal footing, and are protected by the law as equals, thus enabling entities under different forms of ownership to complement each other and develop side by side. We will build a unified national market and refine the systems underpinning the market economy.”
The People’s Republic of China will be 80 years old in 2029 and plans are clear in advancing Chinese modernization.
