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On October 23, the Chinese government released the Proposal for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. As stated by Xie Feng, China\u2019s Ambassador to the United States, this new \u201c15th Five-Year Plan\u201d journey will forge a new, groundbreaking phase for Chinese-style modernization.<\/p>\n
So, where exactly does this \u201cnew\u201d character lie? Professor Wang Xiangsui, Secretary-General of the China CITIC Foundation for Reform and Development Studies, offers a straightforward perspective: the \u201c14th Five-Year Plan\u201d emphasized quantitative growth, whereas the \u201c15th Five-Year Plan\u201d pivots towards an all-around enhancement of development quality.<\/p>\n
If the \u201c14th Five-Year Plan\u201d solved the scaling-up challenge from \u201c1 to 10,\u201d then the \u201c15th Five-Year Plan\u201d is dedicated to achieving the qualitative leap from \u201c10 to 100,\u201d focusing squarely on addressing the remaining weak links in economic development and social construction. A case in point is the frequent Western commentary on China\u2019s per capita GDP. The \u201c15th Five-Year Plan\u201d explicitly sets the goal for China to reach the level of a moderately developed country by 2035.<\/p>\n
By World Bank standards, moderately developed countries typically have a per capita GDP ranging from $20,000 to $30,000. As of 2024, China\u2019s per capita GDP stands at approximately $13,000. This means China has set itself a target of essentially \u201cdoubling\u201d its development quality, a goal perceived by many Western media outlets as remarkably bold.<\/p>\n
Yet, as Professor Wang points out, while this target appears formidable, China possesses both full confidence and solid foundational strength to achieve it.<\/p>\n
This confidence stems from China\u2019s performance during the \u201c14th Five-Year Plan\u201d period. Despite complex internal and external challenges, including the global pandemic and trade wars, China still achieved an average annual economic growth rate exceeding 5%. At a time when economic growth in the US and Europe stagnated or even regressed, China cemented its role as the primary engine of global economic growth.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, this momentum is expected to continue, because the four fundamental conditions enabling China\u2019s development amidst adversity remain robust, and are in fact being reinforced:<\/p>\n
1. The Super-Sized Market Advantage<\/p>\n
China possesses the world\u2019s largest domestic market, comprising 1.4 billion people. In 2024, the country\u2019s total retail sales of consumer goods surpassed 48.3 trillion yuan, consistently maintaining its position as the world\u2019s second-largest for many years. Furthermore, China is deeply integrated into the global economic system, serving as the major trading partner for over 150 countries and regions. Beyond this, the construction of Chancay Port in Peru is projected to boost logistics efficiency for South American trade with China by 50%; meanwhile, the China-Europe Railway Express has cumulatively made over 65,000 trips. This economic resilience and diversity are being continuously strengthened through the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative.<\/p>\n
2. A Complete Industrial System<\/p>\n
China is the only country worldwide that possesses all industrial categories listed in the UN industrial classification. Its manufacturing value-added accounts for approximately 30% of the global total.<\/p>\n
More significantly, China\u2019s focus isn\u2019t solely on high value-added segments; it equally emphasizes building comprehensive supporting supply chains and industrial clusters. For instance, the Shenzhen-Dongguan electronics cluster achieves a 95% local procurement rate for mobile phone components, slashing new product development cycles by 30%.<\/p>\n
This systematic industrial ecosystem explains why, despite Apple moving some assembly lines to India, it still relies on imports of core components from China. It is also the fundamental reason why China can sustain growth and maintain its irreplaceable role in the global supply chains for sectors like EVs, semiconductors, and renewable energy.<\/p>\n
3. Ample Talent Reserves and an Equitable Education System<\/p>\n
China boasts the world\u2019s largest higher education system. In 2024, the number of university graduates reached 12.046 million, an increase of 300,000 compared to the 2023 figure. Among these graduates, the proportion from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields consistently exceeds 40%, and the annual number of engineers China produces surpasses the combined total of the United States, Japan, and Germany.<\/p>\n
This talent advantage manifests not only in quantity but also in quality. At the 2024 WorldSkills Competition, the Chinese delegation claimed the top spot in both the gold medal and overall medal tally. This highly skilled industrial workforce constitutes the most solid pillar supporting China\u2019s transition from the \u201cWorld\u2019s Factory\u201d to an \u201cInnovation Workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. China\u2019s \u201cLong-Termism\u201d Philosophy, The Most Overlooked Factor<\/p>\n
China\u2019s substantial talent reserves, industrial clusters, and economic scale are inseparable from institutional designs like the Five-Year Plans and the 15-Year Science and Technology Development Plan. This interlocking system of short, medium, and long-term planning ensures greater policy continuity and stability compared to Western systems, enabling China to execute projects that may offer low short-term returns but deliver substantial long-term benefits.<\/p>\n
Virtually every competitive industry in China today is a seed cultivated through this long-termism. For example, the development planning for the photovoltaic industry, where the US now finds it difficult to compete with China, can be traced back to the \u201c11th Five-Year Plan\u201d in 2006. Similarly, the industrial policies for the rare earth refining sector where the US remains critically dependent on China, were initially formulated and implemented as far back as the 1970s. Simply put, the stronger a Chinese industry is today, the deeper its roots in long-term strategic planning.<\/p>\n
The United States once partially possessed this kind of \u201cfarsighted\u201d capability. Bell Labs, for instance, could invest in basic research without the pressure for immediate returns, leading to transformative inventions like the transistor. However, this ability to take the long view wasn\u2019t fundamentally rooted in a national or societal-level long-termism; rather, it was underpinned by AT&T\u2019s monopoly. Consequently, when AT&T was broken up in 1984, its R&D orientation was forced to shift towards short-term profitability, causing it to lose its exceptional, pioneering status. Reports<\/a> from Harvard Business School indicates that U.S. listed companies now allocate over 50% of their profits to stock buybacks, not R&D investment. Thus, even though Nvidia\u2019s current monopoly in AI hardware ecosystems is arguably no less significant than AT&T\u2019s past dominance, the emergence of a next-generation Bell Labs in the United States appears to be a distant prospect.<\/p>\n In summary, the success of China\u2019s \u201c14th Five-Year Plan\u201d and the confidence underpinning the \u201c15th Five-Year Plan\u201d do not rely on the exceptional performance of any single technology, industry, or factor. Instead, they stem from a systemic advantage composed of market scale, industrial completeness, talent resources, and institutional design. Editor: Charriot Zhai<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Try Premium Member for Free with a 7-Day Trial On October 23, the Chinese government released the Proposal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-122410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Therefore, the goals of elevating economic development quality and becoming a medium-developed country by 2035 represent merely the phase destinations of the \u201c15th Five-Year Plan.\u201d But for China, the steadfast commitment to and practice of pragmatism and long-termism is a journey without end.<\/p>\n