Third plenum boosts confidence, injects certainty into world
China’s ‘economic miracle’ to continue amid new round of reform and opening-up
The third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee is presided over by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing. The plenary session was held from July 15 to 18, 2024. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese officials as well as domestic and foreign observers on Friday applauded the adoption of a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization, highlighting China's resolve to maintain focus in pursuing high-quality development and share opportunities with the world through further opening-up to better empower the world economy and development.
Observers said the reform-themed session, often referred to as the "third plenum," will not only gather confidence to promote China's high-quality development, but also inject certainty and stability into a world that is undergoing unprecedented changes.
China's institutional advantage with the firm leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee is the source of confidence in the Chinese system and China's development, experts said, expressing confidence that China's "economic miracle" is set to continue.
Firm resolution
The adoption of a reform resolution is the most important outcome of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, Tang Fangyu, deputy head of the CPC Central Committee Policy Research Office, said at a press conference on the guiding principles from the just-concluded plenum.
The resolution, with economic structural reform as the spearhead, comprehensively plans reforms in various fields and aspects, Tang said, adding that the resolution puts forward more than 300 important reform measures, all of which involve reforms on the levels of systems, mechanisms, and institutions.
China will accelerate efforts to build a high standard market system, which is a major reform task for the country, Han Wenxiu, executive deputy director of the Office of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, said at the same conference.
Efforts will be made to build a unified national market, including the development of a unified urban-rural construction land market, a nationwide integrated technology and data market, and a unified national electricity market, he said.
It's necessary to create a sound environment and offer more opportunities for the development of the private sector, Han stressed. He said the authorities will improve the long-term mechanism for private enterprises participating in national key projects, support capable private enterprises to lead tasks in making key technological breakthroughs and regulate administrative checks involving private enterprises.
"The just-concluded third plenum is epoch-making, as it strengthens development momentum and institutional guarantees on China's journey toward realizing the second centenary goal," Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times on Friday.
Over 300 specific reform measures indicate that China's new reform will be more targeted, pragmatic and problem-oriented, Xin said.
"Amid major changes unseen in a century, a series of forceful reform measures released from the third plenum showcases the CPC's precise grasp of reform direction and historical trends," Chen Chunxing, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy president of the Hubei Federation of Industry and Commerce, told the Global Times on Friday.
In particular, the third plenum attaches great importance to the development of the private economy and encourages the sector to grow stronger, which is set to give a boost to private enterprises, Chen said.
In mapping out China's grand development goal and major policies, the country's leadership has always attached great importance to opinions and suggestions from all sectors and sought to pool their wisdom to make reform decisions more rational and ensure effective implementation.
According to a Xinhua News Agency report on Friday, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, chaired a symposium in May to solicit views and suggestions of non-CPC personages on the drafting of the CPC resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.
Xi also stressed that the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the entire Party and nation should be fully mobilized.
Xi also chaired another symposium in Jinan, East China's Shandong Province on May 23, during which representatives including entrepreneurs from state-owned, private and foreign-funded enterprises put forward opinions and suggestions on deepening reform across the board.
Observers said such intensive symposiums to fully solicit opinions from the Party and non-CPC personages, while taking advice from relevant government agencies, residents' expectations and experts' suggestions in the drafting, are a vivid display of socialist democracy.
The development of whole-process people's democracy means ensuring the principal status of the people, inspiring the people's motivation, initiative, and creativity, and gathering wisdom and strength from all sides in a bid to better transform our institutional advantage into the efficacy of the country's governance, Shen Chunyao, director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said at the same press conference on Friday.
Cargo is loaded and unloaded at the Tongling port in East China's Anhui Province on July 19, 2024. Tongling, a river port along the Yangtze River, has committed to port construction over recent years, contributing to the city's export-oriented economy. Photo:VCG
Positive, warm signal
Domestic and foreign entrepreneurs and observers said that the third plenum sends a positive and warm signal not only to China but also the whole world, elevating their confidence for further investment and development in the country and injecting stability to the world amid growing geopolitical tensions and protectionism.
"We're strongly inspired and encouraged," Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo, told the Global Times.
A series of measures to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization will create a sound institutional environment for the high-quality development of the economy, while sparking the vitality of enterprises and enhancing their innovation capacity for the accelerated development of new quality productive forces, Yang said.
Riding a wave of the milestone meeting and the tide of artificial intelligence, we will boost technological innovations in a bid to become a strong force in the development of new quality productive forces and the Chinese modernization drive, Yang said.
Boosted by China's clarion call for reform, Chinese stocks closed higher on Friday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 0.17 percent to 2,982.31 points. The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.27 percent higher at 8,903.23 points.
While stressing efforts to boost reform, the communique released after the third plenum describes opening-up as a "defining feature of Chinese modernization," signifying the importance of expanding opening-up in the new era.
In promoting high-level opening-up, China will expand unilateral opening-up to the least-developed countries, and open to the rest of the world its goods, service, capital and labor markets in an orderly way, Han said.
China's reform and opening-up has strong spillover effects, Xin said. The country's reform and opening-up not only drives global growth but also offers a new blueprint, path and possibility for the world to usher in a better future, he said.
"China's reform and opening-up over the past more than 40 years shows that many countries, especially developing countries, have high expectations for further reform from China. They wish to learn from China's wisdom and China's solution to boost their own development," Xin said.
Saravoot Yoovidhya, Chief Executive Officer of TCP Group, applauded the Chinese government's resolve to deepen reform and opening-up, and the remarkable achievements the Chinese economy has made.
"With its high-quality development featured by technology and innovation, China now serves not only as the 'world factory' but also as the 'global market' and 'research and development hub'. China's economy sees more vitality with the development of new quality productive forces, empowering the global economy, and at the same time, offering more opportunities for foreign enterprises to develop in China," Yoovidhya told the Global Times.
He said TCP Group sees China as one of the most significant overseas investment markets, and will steadfastly carry out the company's long-term investment plans in China.
Economic miracle to continue
Currently, China's economy is maintaining an upward trend, high-quality development is advancing in a solid manner, and main macro-economic figures are meeting expectations, Han said at the press conference on Friday, stressing strengthened policy adjustments and palpable reforms to boost sustained economic recovery.
However, some Western media outlets are dismissing China's resolve to deepen reform comprehensively for promoting high-quality development as well as the confidence, stability and vitality the crucial meeting conveys to the world, especially to other developing countries, and are hyping up pessimism about China's economic prospects.
"Indeed, the country faces challenges, such as external shocks and uncertainties, lack of effective demand and other difficulties. However, China's institutional advantage and the CPC's leadership will allow the country's economic miracle to continue," Song Ding, a research fellow from the China Development Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.
Achieving Chinese modernization is a new long march for China - the world's largest developing country - and will be full of hardships and challenges, but I'm confident we will be able to explore a Chinese path to modernization thanks to our confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Song said.
He rebuked certain Western media outlets for attempting to dampen China's economic growth confidence and then misleading Chinese residents' expectations by smearing the economy as entering the "garbage time of history."
"China's economic confidence is more solid than some in the West have imagined," Song said. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has made stable progress in various aspects, with the world's most complete industrial system and some high-tech industries leading the world, he said.
After China reported a 5 percent GDP growth for the first half of 2024, some international organizations and multinational banks such as IMF and Singapore-based DBS maintained their forecast for China's economic growth this year, underscoring that global confidence in stable growth in China's economy has remained unchanged.
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