Consul General of China in Kota Kinabalu Liang Caide
From October 26th to 29th, the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. This is a very critical meeting held at a crucial time when China is about to complete the development goals of the “13th Five-Year Plan” in building a moderately prosperous society, and fully embark on the new journey of building a modern socialist country. The most important outcome of the meeting was the review and approval of the Proposals for formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035 (referred to as Proposals). It drew a blueprint for China's future development and specified the direction and goals to be attained, which will provide a guide for China’s economic and social development in the next 5 years and beyond. Here, I would like to briefly introduce the main content of this important document to friends of Sabah from three aspects.
● Achieving one goal: to comprehensively build a modern socialist country
This year is the final year of the 13th Five-Year Plan. China's GDP will exceed 100 trillion yuan, achieving the goal of building a moderately prosperous society; 55.75 million rural people will be lifted out of poverty and absolute poverty will be completely eliminated. Next year is the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. China will enter a new stage of development and embark on a new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country. As a concrete implementation of this strategic arrangement, the Proposals outlines a beautiful picture of basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035 through specific descriptions in 9 aspects: economic, technological and composite national strengths will increase significantly; finish building a modernized economy; basically achieved the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities; the country’s cultural soft power will grow much stronger; the goal of building a Beautiful China basically reached; the opening-up will reach a new stage; the per capita GDP will reach the level of moderately developed countries; the implementation of the Peaceful China initiative will be promoted to a higher level; substantial progress will be achieved in achieving common prosperity for everyone.
● Coordinating two major issues: development and security
Standing at a historical juncture, on the one hand is the strategic overall situation for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, on the other hand is the world's major changes unseen in a century. How does China take the next step? The answer given by the Proposals is: to coordinate the two major issues of development and safety, and focus on taking care of our own matters. Whether it is economic development or national rejuvenation, the prerequisites are national security and social stability. Without security and stability, everything is impossible to talk about. Therefore, China must increase its crisis awareness, adhere to bottom-line thinking, be prepared for danger in times of peace, fully estimate the difficulties and complexities in advancing development, and consider more deeply about various risks, so that it could proactively move forward better. Security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security. With the fundamental development goal of meeting the people’s ever-increasing needs for a better life, China will continue to consolidate its strength of national security with the development results, to resolve prominent contradictions and problems and to forestall and defuse various kinds of risks by promoting sustainable and healthy economic development.
● Connecting three novelties: new development stage, philosophy and paradigm
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China will enter a new stage of development as its economic and social development will shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development. Opportunities and challenges will hence undergo new changes. Adapting to the new stage of development is inseparable from the guidance of new development philosophy, and for that it is necessary to build a new development pattern. On the one hand, guided by the new development philosophy, China will be more focus on pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development. To foster new economic growth drivers by vigorously promoting scientific and technological innovations, to deepen supply-side structural reforms by enhancing the optimization and upgrading of industrial system, and to work on improving the quality and efficiency of development as to fully energize the vitality of 1.4 billion Chinese people. On the other hand, China will also accelerate the new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay, mutually reinforcing domestic and international circulations. Doing so will make production, distribution, flow of goods and services, and consumption more based on domestic market. At the meantime, it continues to advance the international trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, as well as high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, so that domestic and foreign markets can boost and complement each other.
No country could develop itself by keeping its doors closed. After years of development, China has already been deeply integrated with the world economy and international system. China could not develop without the world, and the world also needs China. The Proposals not only determines the future direction of China, but also has a profound impact on the future development of the world.
The world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe damage to the economies and people's livelihoods of all countries, and the international community is facing unprecedented challenges and tests. How would the global economic recovered? What is the future development of mankind? Facing a small number of countries engaging in unilateralism, protectionism, hegemonism, and advocating the “new cold war” and the “decoupling” commentary, China too gave its own answers at this meeting. We firmly believe that the subject of the era of peace and development has not changed, and that the trend of times of world multi-polarization and economic globalization is irreversible. In the future, China will rely on the grand blueprint drawn by the Proposals, upholding the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind and open up wider to the outside world. China will continuously and firmly support the multilateral trading system, get more actively involved in reforming the system of global economic governance, more enthusiastically expand exchanges and cooperation with other countries, and more effectively integrated into global industrial, supply and value chains. Striving to make greater contributions to the well-being and progress of the people of the world, it will inject stronger impetus to the recovery of world economy.
Malaysia is China's close neighbor across the sea, a sincere friend, as well as a cooperating partner. China and Malaysia have the advantage of closely people-to-people exchanges and geographical convenience of facing each other across the ocean. Not long ago, as signatory counties, China and Malaysia have just witnessed the historic moment of the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). As the free trade zone with the largest population, the most diverse membership structure and the greatest development potential in the world, this is a milestone achievement in East Asia regional cooperation. At the 27th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting hosted by Malaysia, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Muhyiddin also reiterated the importance and correctness of multilateralism and free trade. It is believed that as the potential of the Chinese market continues to be stimulated, it will provide broader development opportunities for China-Malaysia friendly cooperation. Let us jointly seize the historical opportunities of the Asia-Pacific regional development and regional economic cooperation deepening, work together to build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future featuring openness and inclusiveness, innovation-driven growth, greater connectivity, and mutually beneficial cooperation!