9-22 April 2023

Fortnightly newsletter tracking high-level policy signals sent by China’s top leaders. For more information, visit About Five Things.

Commentary

China’s top leaders appear finally to be putting in place a policy framework to guide decision-making for the coming five years. The third most widely circulated article from the last fortnight was a report about a meeting of the Party’s Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform.

The commission was set up by Xi Jinping in his first period as CPC general secretary to give him a forum through which his own ideas could be fast-tracked. Its decisions are the leading indicators as to what matters in Chinese policy. Its meeting on 21 April was the first in more than seven months and so also the first since the start of Xi’s third five-year period as CPC leader.

The meeting approved policy opinions on:

– Strengthening the Main Position of Enterprises in Scientific and Technological Innovation.

– Strengthening and Improving the Management of the State-owned Economy to Strongly Support Chinese-style Modernization.

– Promoting the Development and Growth of the Private Economy.

Both their content and order appear significant.

First, is the primacy of developing China’s science and technology capabilities, so underlining that the country’s top priority is not economic growth as such but making itself into an advanced, modern nation.

Second, is that the state sector will be playing a key role in this – possibly, in China’s leaders’ minds, the leading role.

And third, that “supporting the development of the private economy is the consistent policy of the Party Central Committee”, or in other words an acknowledgement that the private sector must not be neglected, even if it is regarded as secondary to the state sector in terms of general importance.

In recent issues of this newsletter, we have commented on the apparent lack of a guiding framework for policy; this appears to no longer be the case. To summarise: for China’s overall development, the priority now is finding new ways of developing and applying science and technology for the advancement of the country; the state sector must play the leading role in this; the private sector will be supported, but it too must also contribute.

A couple of other points. First, the article notes:

The systematic layout of key innovation resources such as projects, platforms, and talents will promote scientific and technological innovation, industrial innovation, and system and mechanism innovation in an integrated manner, and promote the formation of an innovation system with enterprises as the main body and efficient collaboration and deep integration of industry, education, and research. It is necessary to focus on the major needs of national strategies and industrial development, increase support for enterprise innovation, actively encourage and effectively guide private enterprises to participate in major national innovations, and promote enterprises to play a role in key core technological innovations and major original technological breakthroughs.

This points to the state’s role as being a facilitator rather than an actor.

And second, the article also suggests that the private sector will be allowed relative freedom to act:

[T]to promote the development and growth of the private economy, efforts should be made to optimize the development environment of the private economy, break down institutional barriers that restrict private enterprises from participating fairly in market competition, and guide private enterprises to find their proper positions in high-quality development through their own reform and development, compliance management, and transformation and upgrading.

It also appears that the overall goal is not autarky as such, but rather “self-reliance”, i.e., not being in a position where the actions of others could unduly hold back China’s development.

Top-ranked articles for 9-22 April 2023

% = percentage of publications carrying the article

1. Unswervingly comprehensively deepen reform and expand high-level opening up, take the lead in promoting Chinese-style modernization坚定不移全面深化改革扩大高水平对外开放  在推进中国式现代化建设中走在前列Xinhua News Agency, 13 April 2023Chinese/ Machine translation/ 54%

2. Xi Jinping Holds Talks with Brazilian President Lula习近平同巴西总统卢拉举行会谈Xinhua News Agency, 14 April 2023Chinese/ Machine translation / 46%

3. Keeping righteousness, innovating, working hard and writing a new chapter of reform and opening-up on the new journey守正创新真抓实干在新征程上谱写改革开放新篇章Xinhua News Agency, 21 April 2023Chinese/ Machine translation / 46%

4. Firmly grasp the primary task of high-quality development牢牢把握高质量发展这个首要任务Xinhua News Agency, 18 April 2023Chinese / Machine translation / 43%

5. “Xi Jinping’s Important Exposition Study Reader on ‘Three Rurals’ Work” published《习近平关于“三农”工作的重要论述学习读本》出版发行Xinhua News Agency, 17 April 2023Chinese / Machine translation / 40%

6. Deepen military training and prepare for war, accelerate transformation and construction, Comprehensively improve the level of military modernization深化练兵备战 加快转型建设  全面提高部队现代化水平Xinhua News Agency, 12 April 2023Chinese / Machine translation / 40%

7. “At the forefront in promoting Chinese-style modernization”“在推进中国式现代化建设中走在前列”Xinhua News Agency, 15 April 2023Chinese / Machine translation / 38%

8. Xi Jinping sends congratulatory letter to the “Chinese-style Modernization and the World” Lanting Forum习近平向“中国式现代化与世界”蓝厅论坛致贺信Xinhua News Agency, 21 April 2023Chinese/ Machine translation / 37%

9. Accelerate construction of the new development pattern and grasp the initiative in future development加快构建新发展格局 把握未来发展主动权Xinhua News Agency, 15 April 2023Chinese/ Machine translation / 37%

10. State Council and Central Military Commission announce implementation of newly revised "Conscription Work Regulations"国务院、中央军委公布实施新修订的《征兵工作条例》Xinhua News Agency, 12 April 2023Chinese / Machine translation / 31%

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