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Original Title: British Media Report: China’s Five-Year Plan Changes and Doesn’t Change
Reference News Network reported on October 29 On October 27, the BBC website published a report entitled “The Fifth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China: Changes and Changes in the Five-Year Plan: Five Key Questions to Know About Chinese-Style Development Plans.” The full text is as follows:
The Chinese Communist Party held the Fifth Plenary Session of the XIX Central Committee from October 26 to 29. One of the highlights was the discussion of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan. This is often a weather vane for the outside world to watch the direction of China’s economy.
As the predecessor to the Five-Year Plan, China’s Five-Year Plan dates back to the 1950s.
This plan spanned decades, from the era of China’s planned economy to today’s socialist market economy. Why is China formulating a five-year plan? What has changed and has not changed in the last decades?
What is the five-year plan?
China’s five-year plan simply represents the economic vision and development goals set by the Chinese Communist Party for a long period of time in the future. It covers China’s major construction projects in the next five years, productivity distribution, resource allocation, and consumer service structure.
China began implementing its first five-year plan in 1953. As of 2005, a total of 10 five-year plans had been drawn up, during which they were discontinued from 1963 to 1965 due to economic adjustments. Since 2006, the term “plan” has been changed to “planning” and continues to this day.
Just as the same person goes through different stages of growth as they age, the CCP has different economic views at different times. The government makes plans according to the strategic environment and national tasks in each period, so each five-year plan has obvious characteristics of the time.
Why is China formulating a five-year plan?
At the beginning of the founding of New China, people lived in poverty and some people could not have enough to eat, not to mention industrial production.
At that time, the Soviet Union achieved rapid growth in industrial technology under the constraints of a series of five-year plans and used its powerful military equipment to repel the German army during World War II. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party believes that the Soviet Union’s five-year plan is an important reason for the country’s rise to a world power.
In this context, China began formulating an ambitious five-year plan based on the Soviet Union.
The historical changes of China’s five-year plan
China’s five-year plan determines the “Chinese-style” development process.
The “First Five-Year Plan” implemented in 1953 allowed China to move towards a highly centralized mechanism to ensure that the orders of the central government can be implemented.
Beginning with the “Eleventh Five Year Plan” in 2006, China changed “plan” to “plan”. The difference of a word implies a great change.
The “plan” emphasizes the mandatory and instructive role of the government, while the “plan” emphasizes the regulatory role of the government in the new market economy environment. If you use the analogy of trees and forests, the “plan” stipulates the height and thickness of each tree, while the “plan” is the general arrangement of the entire forest. As long as it is within the general specifications, each tree has a certain degree of freedom to grow. space.
Initially, the government will set very detailed quantitative targets in the five-year plan as the only means of regulating the economy. Subsequently, it gradually shifted to strategic orientation, relying more on market mechanisms to promote development goals.
How to formulate and evaluate the five-year plan
Each five-year plan is generally formulated in the middle of the implementation of the previous plan, and the formulation process generally takes two to three years.
The formulation process involves different government departments and research institutions and is quite complicated. It must go through the stage of thematic research, idea formation, drafting of planning schemes, formation of special plans, request for opinions and convergence, until its completion and presentation to the National People’s Congress of China for discussion and review.
How to implement the five-year plan
China’s five-year plan has brought about tremendous social change. After more than 60 springs and autumns since the “first five-year plan,” China has long been different from the past. When the “First Five-Year Plan” ended, China’s annual steel production was 5.35 million tons, which is less than China’s current three-day production.
Some scholars believe that this system is an important means of bringing into play the “two hands” of government and the market, the “enthusiasm of both” of the central and local governments, and an important driving force for China’s economic development. .
