Chinese Communist
Party Approves Orientation for 11th Five-Year Plan
At its plenary
session held from October 8 to 11, 2005 in Beijing,
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) approved a draft
proposal for the orientation of China’s
11th Five-Year Plan for National Economy and Social Development
(2006-2010). The proposal will be presented to China’s National People’s Congress
for discussion and approval in March 2006. The draft plan re-affirmed that while
“development is the absolute principle” the objective is to change the “pattern
of development” from “an extensive to an intensive mode of economic growth”.
The massive restructuring of the China’s economy into a market economy since the
late 1970s, and its rapid industrialization and growth, especially since its
accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, has created various challenges
for China.
The CPC has identified these problems as the economic disparity between the
urban and rural areas, the uneven development among the regions, the polarization
between rich and poor, the damage to the environment, the excessive dependence
on foreign investment and import of natural resources, and the low productivity
of labour. The CPC states that its objectives with
the new five-year plan are to increase the productivity of labour
through scientific and technological innovation, to reduce the reliance on
foreign investment and resources, to reduce the damage to the environment and
to avoid the polarization between rich and poor in the country.
According to the
official Chinese news agencies, the new five-year plan will make an adjustment
to the pattern of development by changing the approach to economic and social
development from “getting rich first” to “common prosperity”, and from “growth
rate” to “sustainable development”. Xinhua News
stated: “After China decided to launch economic reforms in 1978, Deng Xiaoping
proposed the principle of allowing some of the regions and some of the people
to get rich first to achieve a final ‘common prosperity’. The new idea departed
from egalitarianism, yet managed to energize the country. More than 20 years
later, the average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita has risen above
1,000 US dollars and is expected to reach 3,000 US dollars in 2020. But China’s
rapid economic growth engendered new problems. The lowest incomefamilies, comprising the bottom 10
percent of all families, owns less than two percent of all the residents’
assets in the society, while the highest-income families, or the top 10 percent
of all the families, own over 40 percent of the total assets, government
statistics show.”
The article went
on to say: “Blind pursuit of economic growth has led to blind investment,
damage to the environment and false statistics... Government statistics show
that foreign trade accounts for over 70 percent of China’s economy. Frequent trade
frictions have caused huge costs to the economy. China has become a major consumer
of energy resources in the world. International energy institutions predict
that from 2002 to 2030 around 21 percent of the world’s new demand for energy
resources will come from China.
In 2004, nearly 50 percent of the petroleum used in China was imported.”
It also pointed
out: “China’s
top leaders stressed that it has become urgent to solve the problem of strong
economic growth accompanied by weak social development. The problem of social
security is particularly serious in the countryside, where the medical care
system and welfare are extremely weak. During the period from 1993 to 2003, the
number of people with no access to medical insurance in the country increased
from 900 million to one billion, with the percentage rising from 67.8 percent
to 80.7 percent. The number in the urban area rose from 96.53 million in 1993
to 300 million in 2003.”
The challenges
facing China that are identified by the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China are a result of the direction taken by the CPC since the
founding the People’s Republic of China in 1949, but especially since the late
1970s. The new five-year plan will either not resolve
these problems at all, or it will not resolve them in a manner that will favour the interests of the vast majority of the Chinese
people. The polarization between rich and poor, the uneven development among
various regions, the disparity between urban and rural areas, and the damage to
the environment are the inevitable result of a market economy, while the
dependence of many countries on foreign capital and trade is a feature of
globalization.
The solution to
these problems lies in developing a planned and self-reliant economy which has
as its motive to fulfill the increasing material and cultural needs of the
Chinese people. The expansion of the market economy in China, and its further integration into the
global market, even if it becomes less dependent on foreign investment and
resources, will not open up a path towards “common prosperity” or “sustainable
development” for China.