Mao Zedong's People's Republic of China was only four years old when, in 1953, it announced its first five-year plan: inspired by a Soviet model of massive industrialization, the goal was to abruptly replace agriculture with heavy industry in a country where peasants represented around 80% of the population. The result was catastrophic. With the push of the economic campaign known as the Great Leap Forward, introduced in the second plan, rationality was completely lost in Mao's obsession with transforming China into a modern communist power. Tens of millions died from famine.
Fortunately for the Chinese people, the subsequent five-year plans significantly improved citizens' lives and today continue to set the pace for the development of the Asian superpower. It is a strategic roadmap that outlines economic and social development objectives for a five-year period, guiding national policy, investment, and reforms.
No other country in the world has maintained a continuous centralized planning system for over 70 years, even though it was reinvented at each stage. In the 1950s, the focus was on building factories. In the 1980s, it was about economic reform. In the 2000s, it was about opening up to the world. And now, it's about embracing technological self-sufficiency.
This Monday, the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), the highest decision-making body, begins a closed-door meeting to discuss the country's fifteenth five-year development plan. The usual secrecy during these congresses means that details barely emerge until the party decides to gradually release several summaries of the agreed-upon guidelines after the closure.
The formulation involves the 370 members of the party's Central Committee, including the supreme leader, Xi Jinping, ministers, provincial governors, army generals, historians, scientists, academics, and engineers. They will discuss, among many topics, economic growth objectives, technological innovation, the environment, unemployment, national security, and global challenges.
The elite of the omnipresent CPC gathers in Beijing against an economic backdrop that is not ideal in a country that has spent decades overwhelmed by unrestrained development. Consumption is weak, the job market, especially for the younger population, remains very uncertain, and the collapse of the real estate sector already seems like a chronic issue. Economic growth seems to withstand the poor predictions of international experts, as GDP rose by 5.3% year-on-year during the first half of 2025, driven by manufacturing investment and the resilience of exports.
One must not forget the impact of the trade war initiated by U.S. President Donald Trump. Despite extending their tariff truce in September, the two largest economies in the world continue to tighten with sanctions.
"China's economy is like an unsinkable and indestructible economic aircraft carrier. Unfazed by wind or rain, it advances tirelessly capable of withstanding internal and external uncertainties," summarized one of the series of articles published by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the CPC, before the significant political elite meeting.
Most analysts, both Chinese and Western, currently agree that one of the main objectives of the new five-year plan will be to double down on high-end manufacturing and the pursuit of leadership in key present and future industries, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing.
A note from Nomura, a global financial services group, suggested that the final document to be approved will likely make an explicit mention of the need for Chinese tech companies to reduce their dependence on foreign suppliers, especially in the field of advanced chips.
State media these days recall how crucial the five-year plans were for the country's development starting in the 1980s (always omitting Mao's disastrous policies) thanks to the open-minded leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who understood that planning needed to be approached differently: private ownership was allowed, markets opened for global trade integration, and special economic zones began to be created.
With Deng came the ideological concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics," and after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) during the tenth plan, the country became the world's factory. For the following decades, the focus was on social stability (with repression and censorship, as per the authoritarian canon), scientific development, and the eradication of extreme poverty.
This was officially declared in February 2021 when Beijing announced that it had lifted nearly 100 million people out of poverty in the previous eight years (and over 750 million people in the last four decades) thanks to an ambitious national program. Beijing deployed all kinds of financial and human resources to weave a large social safety net and relocate millions of citizens from remote areas, moving them to modern urban centers with access to basic services.