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China - 14th Five-Year Plan 2021-2025

A communique outlining a basic economic policy for the five years from 2021 was released on 29 October 2020 after senior party officials wrapped up a four-day meeting. It says China would aim to shift from dependence on exports by expanding domestic demand and implementing structural reforms to its supply chains. It also mentions long-range objectives through 2035. These include raising per-capita gross domestic product to the level of moderately developed countries. It also said China will aim to become a global leader in innovation.

However, there was no mention of a possible successor to President Xi, suggesting he will remain party leader beyond 2022, when his current term is supposed to end. Among the challenges that China faces are its disputes with the United States and the toll on the domestic economy from the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts said the country's long-term goals could solidify the basis for Xi to keep power for an extended period.

China will further upgrade the protection of its national security by incorporating "security and development" in all aspects and process of the country's development, and accelerate the modernization of its military to build a prosperous country and a strong military in the coming years, according to the communiqué of the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The move is part of China's medium-to-long term plan for social and economic development to build China into a modern socialist power and ultimately realize its long-term goal of great rejuvenation. Coming at a critical time of mounting threats to China's national security as well as development interests, the move is aimed at preventing and dissolving all risks that affect China's pursuit for modernization.

Chinese analysts said that with a more mature and modern view on national security which covers a wide range to include economic, political, military security, social order, and people's personal safety and public health, China can better handle the complicated situation of internal and external security threats, and provide security for the country to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation step by step from now to 2035, and to the middle of the century.

The Chinese Communist Party held a meeting to discuss a new economic plan and a long-term national strategy. The CCP held the fifth plenum of its Central Committee since the 19th Party Congress. Plenary sessions, or plenums, continue the work of the previous Party Congress, and are attended by some 400 members and alternate members of the full Central Committee. Since the CCP took power in 1949, fifth plenums have typically focused on economic policy, and this one looks unlikely to break with that tradition.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported that the meeting started 26 October 2020 in Beijing at Beijing's Jingxi Hotel. More than 300 officials, including President Xi Jinping and other top leaders, attended the four-day gathering. Many police personnel and vehicles were deployed around the military-run facility where the meeting was underway. The road in front of the building's entrance was blocked. The agenda for the meeting included basic economic and other policies for the five years from 2021 through 2025, as well as long-term goals through 2035. A communique summarizing the results of the discussions was expected to be released on 29 October 2020, the final day of the meeting. Attention focused on what kind of strategy will emerge for the high-tech industry, where a China-US struggle for supremacy had been intensifying.

The results of the meeting could bring about a new dispute. If the Chinese Communist Party formulated a national strategy with goals for the period until 2035, it would be the first long-term plan in 25 years. The party last set a long-term plan in 1995 under President Jiang Zemin. The new policy is likely to help Xi solidify his government for the long term. Overall, the state will take a larger role, and the private sector a smaller one; that's the long-term goal.

Xi -- faced with a trade war with the U.S. and the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic -- was moving China to a "circular economy" under state control, and away from the export-based model that has fueled its rapid growth since 1979, when late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping ushered in four decades of market-based economic policy. They are planning a circular domestic economy linked to a limited foreign trade bubble that only includes smaller countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where they are still operating cash-based diplomacy.

While formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), policymakers and economists analyzed China's status in the global economy, and have laid out a "dual circulation" development paradigm for the future. Since dual circulation, being centered on internal circulation (the domestic market), is aimed at further integrating the internal circulation and external circulation (the global economy) together to develop new advantages for China in global cooperation and competition, the country should consider all the pros and cons so it can avoid the pitfalls on the road to future development.

Factors such as new consumption patterns and government stimulus measures will help China become the world's largest consumer country in 2020. China can complete the original plan of 41 trillion yuan($6 trillion) in domestic consumption which may even surge to 45 trillion yuan in 2020. This robust growth in consumption won't just meet the targets of the 13th Five-Year Plan, but is a policy focus of the coming five years in the "dual circulation" strategy. China's more domestic-focused development pattern is not a stopgap measure to deal with the current pandemic, but also a road map for China's new economy development trajectory for the next 20 to 30 years.

The dual-circulation plan was expected to help China become a stable force in global economy that emerges in a new, inclusive, balanced, win-win globalization post-pandemic period. Therefore, the dual-circulation strategy would be a key focus of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, especially for the next year.

China will develop and produce modern, advanced weapons and equipment in the upcoming five years, as the world could witness the debut of China's first long-range, stealth-capable strategic bomber, the country's third and electromagnetic catapults-equipped aircraft carrier, among other new weapons that aim to safeguard the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, Chinese military experts and analysts predicted on Monday, after China's recently released 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and the Communiqué of the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) set the tone for the development of the country's national defense and armed forces.

The roadmap is in line with China's overall national strength and the urgent needs of national defense brought by the likes of hegemonies, power politics and regional instabilities in other parts of the world when China is having more development interests overseas, analysts said.

The plenary session made "making significant strides in the modernization of national defense and armed forces in the next five years" one of the main goals for the development of the economy and society in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and stressed that the development of the economy should go side by side with the strengthening of the military.

Among others, it is arranged in the 14th Five-Year Plan that the military should be enhanced by technologies, the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligentization should be accelerated, key and innovative fields should develop in a coordinated way, and the layout for national defense and technology industry should be optimized.

To follow the 14th Five-Year Plan and reach the goals, China is expected to continue its momentum in the domestic development of modern weapons and equipment in addition to the military reform and scientific military exercises, analysts said.

The 14th Five Year Plan period will be a very hopeful and fruitful period for the PLA Air Force, as the long-range, stealth-capable strategic bomber will likely make its long-expected public debut, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation expert, told the Global Times on 02 NOvember 2020. China has been reportedly developing the new bomber, often dubbed the H-20, for many years, and its maker, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, has been hinting its development since 2018.

"We have been studying on the bomber for a certain period. As we have conquered the difficulties in large aircraft production, stealth technologies and engine design and production. The time is ripe for us to roll out a new bomber," Fu predicted. The aircraft is expected to be a fourth-generation bomber, compared to China's current H-6 bomber platform, which is only of the first generation, Fu said, noting that it will come out with world-leading design and technologies. Its stealth capability and range will at least as good as the US' B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, Fu predicted.

In other warplane developments, Fu believes that China will start to mass-produce and improve the J-20 fighter jet, with its engines replaced with more powerful ones; drones and artificial intelligence will also see advanced developments.

In terms of the PLA Navy, Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, predicted that China's third aircraft carrier is very likely to be commissioned during the 14th Five Year Plan period. The new carrier is expected to be much larger, and the country's first one using a flat flight deck equipped with electromagnetic catapults to release aircraft, a more efficient way than the ski-jump approach used on the country's previous carriers, analysts said.

In accordance with the PLA's carrier groups construction, the construction of supporting warships for the carriers, including destroyers like Type 052D and Type 055, as well as amphibious assault and landing ships, anti-submarine warfare aircrafts, will likely continue in the next five years, Li told the Global Times.

"Overall, in the following 10 years, the PLA Navy will develop more systematically and integrated, centering on the construction of aircraft carrier groups," Li said. In specific, new amphibious vessels will be launched and existing destroyers and frigates, such as the Type 055 and Type 054A, will be upgraded. The network integration of the PLA Navy will also be improved, Li noted. China is reportedly developing the electromagnetic railgun, which is widely expected by analysts to be installed on an upgraded version of the Type 055.

A type of aircraft carrier-based stealth fighter jet, rumored to be developed based on China's second type of stealth fighter jet the FC-31, could also make its debut in the coming years, along with the aircraft carrier-based early warning aircraft the KJ-600, observers said.

China's centennial goal of military development in 2027 aims to develop the military with the capability to defend national sovereignty, safeguard against security threats posed by the hegemony in western pacific region and protect overseas development interests as China's overseas economic presence grows, Li said.

As the world has seen a rise in strategic competition, constant armed conflicts and regional warfare, and increasingly obvious instability and uncertainty in security, China as a rising power with huge development interests both at home and abroad requires its military to adapt to new missions, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.

By the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 2027, the centennial goal of military development should be achieved; by 2035, the country should achieve the modernization of the national defense and armed forces, it was announced at the plenary session.