Yang Yongheng: Deeply Understanding the Operating Mechanisms and Significant Advantages of China's Five-Year Plans
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Scientifically formulating and successively implementing five-year plans is an important experience of our Party’s governance of the country, and also an important political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics." Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, our country has compiled and implemented fourteen five-year plans (initially called "programs"). Following the establishment and perfection of the socialist market economy system, five-year plans have gradually evolved from purely mandatory plans under the conditions of a planned economy into strategic, macro-level, and policy-oriented guiding plans for the state to promote economic and social development under market economy conditions. They have become development programs that articulate national strategic intentions, clarify government work priorities, and guide or regulate the behavior of market entities. Deeply understanding the deep-level operational mechanisms of five-year plans in building development consensus, leading development orientation, optimizing resource allocation, and promoting comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development is of great significance for effectively exerting the strategic guiding role of national development planning and demonstrating the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The Consensus Mechanism: Promoting the formation of schemes and targets with broad consensus to enhance the conscious action of diverse entities in plan implementation
General Secretary Xi Jinping issued important instructions on the compilation of the "15th Five-Year Plan," emphasizing: "Adhere to scientific, democratic, and law-based decision-making; integrate top-level design with 'asking the people for advice' [1]; strengthen research and demonstration; extensively gather consensus; listen to the opinions and suggestions of the masses and all sectors of society through multiple channels; fully absorb the fresh experiences created by cadres and the masses in practice; and focus on the systemic, holistic, and synergistic nature of targets, tasks, and policy measures." The consensus mechanism utilizes institutionalized and procedural arrangements, using the basic logic of the plan, the Central Committee’s recommendations, and the drafting of the plan outline as a platform. It involves the orderly participation of multiple stakeholders—including Party and government departments, experts and scholars, enterprises, social organizations, and the public—in stages such as agenda setting, target definition, and scheme design to promote the achievement of schemes and targets with broad consensus. This includes a scientific consensus that objectively grasps the essential characteristics of the planning subject, a political consensus that reflects the demands of various parties and the will of the decision-making level, and a social consensus that embodies the general aspirations of the whole of society.
Scientific Consensus. General Secretary Xi Jinping has noted: "Scientific planning is the greatest benefit, planning errors are the greatest waste, and planning volatility [2] is the greatest taboo." The compilation of plans must respect natural laws, economic laws, and social laws, and objectively grasp the essential characteristics of the subject of the plan. Scientific consensus refers to the process where, under the promotion of the lead planning department, specialized forces are organized to conduct research and expert symposiums are convened around the future development environment, strategic thinking, main targets, major tasks, and policy measures. Through the collation and study of research results and expert opinions, a consensus is formed from the perspective of scientific cognition regarding the essence of major issues and the logic for solving them. This provides support for assessing domestic and international situations, clarifying development ideas, proposing development targets, establishing key tasks, and optimizing resource allocation. For example, to prepare for the "14th Five-Year Plan," the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), starting in 2018, organized high-end think tanks, research institutes, and enterprises to conduct over 200 major research projects through open selection, targeted delegation, and cooperative research. This resulted in nearly 300 research reports totaling over 5 million words, providing strong support for the plan’s compilation. In addition to specialized institutions participating in planning research, Party and government departments also conduct research on major issues as needed. During the drafting of the recommendations for the "15th Five-Year Plan," following the deployments of the Party Central Committee, some central and state organs carried out 35 key research projects. Furthermore, with the approval of the State Council, the NDRC established the National Development Planning Expert Committee in 2005 to provide consultation, demonstration, and professional opinions for the compilation of national five-year plans, thereby improving the scientific nature of the planning process.
Political Consensus. Five-year plans involve different stakeholders, including both departments and institutions that can influence the achievement of planning targets and groups that are affected by their achievement. Allowing various entities to participate in the planning process in appropriate forms is crucial for improving the quality of the plan. Political consensus refers to the process whereby, under the leadership of the Party Central Committee and with the drafting of the Central Committee’s planning recommendation document as the primary platform, government departments and all sectors of society are mobilized to participate. This process gradually unifies thinking and builds consensus on future development targets, development concepts, main development themes, and development strategies. General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to the compilation of five-year plans. Since the "13th Five-Year Plan," he has personally served as the head of the drafting group for the Central Committee’s planning recommendation document, personally planning, deploying, and promoting national development planning work. During the drafting process of the Central Committee’s recommendations, the drafting group learns about the demands, opinions, and suggestions of all sectors of society through investigations and symposiums, striving to better integrate top-level design, local needs, social expectations, mass wisdom, expert opinions, and grassroots experience.
Take the "Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" (hereinafter referred to as the Recommendations) as an example. In January 2025, the Party Central Committee issued the "Notice on Soliciting Opinions Regarding the 20th CPC Central Committee’s Fourth Plenary Session Study of the 15th Five-Year Plan Recommendations," soliciting opinions within a certain scope inside and outside the Party. This in itself is a process of setting the planning agenda. The draft Recommendations were also distributed within a certain scope of the Party for comments, and opinions were specifically sought from the central committees of various democratic parties [3], heads of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and representatives of personages without party affiliation. During the drafting of the Recommendations, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held three meetings, and the Political Bureau held two meetings for deliberation and revision. Through multiple processes of democratic centralism, the Party Central Committee's strategic planning and propositions for development over the next five years were formed, becoming the fundamental basis for compiling the plan outline. Furthermore, as plan compilation involves the resource allocation and development patterns of various departments and regions, opinions were fully solicited from these sectors during the drafting process through field investigations in localities and symposiums with representatives from certain provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, as well as from the economic, scientific, and grassroots communities. This balanced the development demands of all parties and promoted consensus at the implementation level regarding the decomposition of targets and indicators, major engineering projects, key tasks, and policy measures. The higher the degree of consensus among various departments and regions, the stronger their initiative and enthusiasm in participating in the implementation of the plan, and the better the implementation results will be.
Social Consensus. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The compilation of five-year plans involves all aspects of economic and social development and is closely related to the production and life of the masses. It is necessary to integrate the strengthening of top-level design with the persistence of asking the people for advice, encouraging the broad masses and all sectors of society to offer suggestions and advice through various means." Social consensus refers to the process of listening to the opinions, suggestions, and demands of market entities, social actors, and the public during the planning process. While drawing on the wisdom of the people, this process also enhances the understanding of the plan across all sectors of society, making the five-year plan a true development consensus for the whole of society. During the compilation of the "14th Five-Year Plan," General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over seven symposiums for entrepreneurs, scientists, and experts in economic and social fields to listen to opinions and suggestions and delivered important speeches. From May to June 2025, the compilation work for the "15th Five-Year Plan" included an online opinion-solicitation campaign, receiving over 3 million valid suggestions from the public, providing a useful reference for the plan’s formulation. General Secretary Xi Jinping placed great importance on the opinions and suggestions of netizens and issued specific instructions requiring relevant departments to earnestly study and incorporate them. After collation and editing, over 1,500 constructive and representative suggestions across 27 areas were formed from the netizens' input. This is, in effect, a process of communicating the plan’s important ideas and goals to society, continuously deepening social understanding and building social consensus. Once the plan outline is deliberated upon and passed by the National People's Congress, it also legally belongs to the consensus formed by the whole of society and serves as a common program of action for all the people.
Scientific consensus solves epistemological problems and is the foundation for forming political and social consensus. Political consensus coordinates the interest demands of various parties and gathers the "greatest common denominator," serving as the prerequisite for social consensus. The consensus mechanism of the five-year plan helps achieve goal synergy between different levels and departments within the government, as well as between the government, the market, and society. It enhances the sense of identification with the plan among various entities, which is then transformed into the conscious action of supporting, participating in, and promoting the plan's implementation, thereby maximizing the leading role of the five-year plan in economic and social development.
The Guidance Mechanism: Clarifying the behavior of diverse entities and the direction of market resource allocation to align the actions of all entities with national strategic goals
When discussing five-year plans, General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "This is actually a Chinese characteristic. Based on investigation and research, we propose comprehensive and systematic plans that fully respect the will of the people and accord with reality, and we possess super-strong executive power to implement these plans." The guidance mechanism refers to the process of clarifying national strategic intentions, development ideas, and tasks/measures; specifying government work priorities and areas for public resource allocation; guiding the behavior of market entities and the direction of market resource allocation; and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the broad masses. This achieves behavioral synergy among diverse entities and unifies them under national strategic goals, promoting the formation of a powerful force for implementing the five-year plan.
Providing public knowledge to the whole of society and guiding social expectations. Change is eternal and often contains opportunities. To seize the initiative in future competition, one must accurately identify changes, scientifically respond to changes, and proactively seek changes—acting in accordance with trends and building on momentum. The five-year plan is a strategic and programmatic document for analyzing the national development environment, depicting the national development blueprint, and leading the national development direction. It must evaluate future domestic and international development situations while clarifying development ideas, basic principles, main targets, and key tasks within the planning period.
The five-year plan’s exposition on the stages of development, the internal and external environment, development ideas, and long-range goals within the planning period represents a consensual strategic judgment formed through comprehensive research and repeated analysis based on the national overall situation. This is also public knowledge provided to the whole of society, helping various entities better grasp and respond to future opportunities and challenges. After the five-year plan is issued, macro-economic departments can use means such as taxation and finance to balance economic aggregates and adjust the economic structure based on the assessment of future development situations, promoting steady economic development. Various departments and regions can, under the guidance of the national plan, accurately find their own future development positioning, ensuring that their own development "micro-logic" fits into the "macro-logic" of national development.
Establishing an internal government guidance mechanism to enhance the synergy and overall efficacy of plan implementation. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "We must place implementation in a prominent position, formulate specific schemes, clarify the division of responsibilities, and prevent tasks from falling through. We must resolutely overcome the phenomena where 'plans are just hung on the wall' or where 'one thing is planned while another is done.'" The purpose of establishing an internal government guidance mechanism for the five-year plan is to clarify government work priorities. By establishing implementation mechanisms such as target constraints, task decomposition, and evaluations and accountability—supplemented by supporting policies in investment, projects, finance, taxation, and land—it promotes development in areas of market failure such as public services, livelihood protection, and the ecological environment, fulfilling the government's promises to the public.
Annual plans, specialized plans, and regional plans formulated according to the five-year plan decompose planning tasks and main targets into various years, sectors, and regions. This guides all regions and departments to unify their policies and actions with the planning targets, ensuring the realization of development goals, especially binding (obligatory) indicators. For example, the binding indicators of the "14th Five-Year Plan" are primarily concentrated in areas such as people's well-being, energy conservation and emission reduction, resources and environment, and security guarantees, requiring governments at all levels to rationally allocate public resources and guide/regulate social resources to ensure timely completion. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the state also formulated and implemented a batch of key specialized plans for fields such as scientific and technological innovation, the digital economy, green ecology, and livelihood protection, which played an important role in promoting development in key sectors, solving major difficulties, and advancing the implementation of the plan.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Improve the mechanisms for dynamic monitoring, mid-term evaluation, and summary evaluation in the implementation of the plan, and enhance the executive and implementation power of the plan." Through continuous exploration, China has gradually formed a relatively complete monitoring and evaluation mechanism for plan implementation, reversing the phenomenon of "emphasizing compilation while neglecting implementation and evaluation" that existed for a period. This has further strengthened the authority and seriousness of the plans. The "14th Five-Year Plan" made institutional arrangements for implementing planning responsibilities, strengthening monitoring and evaluation, and reinforcing policy synergy. It emphasized the establishment of sound mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation, policy guarantee, and assessment/supervision, requiring that the implementation status of the plan be incorporated into the evaluation system for relevant departments, local leadership teams, and cadres. The Recommendations of the 20th CPC Central Committee’s Fourth Plenary Session explicitly proposed: "Strengthen the monitoring, evaluation, and supervision of plan implementation, improve the mechanisms for policy coordination and work synergy, and ensure that the decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee are put into practice."
Establishing a market guidance mechanism reduces information asymmetry between the government and the market. Under the conditions of a socialist market economy, the Five-Year Plan guides and regulates the behavior of various market actors by sending policy signals. The market guidance mechanism clarifies national strategic intent, enhancing the understanding of business entities regarding the nation's developmental direction, strategic goals, and key tasks. It directs the allocation of market resources toward the orientation indicated by national strategy. Simultaneously, it regulates the behavior of business entities and guides the direction of market development by improving the system of laws, regulations, and institutions, thereby achieving synergy between the government and the market and forming an economic order that is both "dynamic without chaos" and "well-regulated" [4].
The plan guides the investment behavior of business entities by releasing development signals. The Five-Year Plan encapsulates the strategic direction, objectives, major tasks, and projects of national development. Combined with massive public resource investment and public policy support, this inherently generates a vast array of market opportunities. Based on their own commercial logic, business entities identify market opportunities favorable to themselves and make corresponding investment arrangements, thereby aligning their investment and business behavior with the national strategic direction. This realizes their own commercial interests while simultaneously promoting the overall national interest. For instance, the "14th Five-Year Plan" explicitly set the goals of striving to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. This has driven enormous business opportunities in fields such as new energy, carbon trading, and the circular economy, involving multiple niche segments such as photovoltaics, wind power, energy storage, carbon reduction technologies, carbon monitoring equipment, and power battery recycling. Individual business entities in the market cannot scientifically or comprehensively foresee the balance of total supply and demand in the national economy, making it difficult for them to make long-term judgments. Consequently, the government must use "holistic knowledge" to judge the state of supply and demand, thereby guiding the direction in which business entities allocate resources. In this sense, the market and industrial policy signals released by the plan are particularly important.
The plan regulates the behavior of business entities by releasing policy adjustment signals. Addressing prominent problems and contradictions existing at different stages of the market system, the Five-Year Plan makes deployments for improving laws, regulations, and regulatory systems, providing a guide for specific legislation and policy formulation. Taking the regulation of internet platforms as an example, the "13th Five-Year Plan" proposed "strengthening the supervision of internet transactions"; the "14th Five-Year Plan" clarified "strengthening the regulation of the internet platform economy in accordance with laws and regulations"; and the "Suggestions" of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee [5] further proposed "improving regulation and promoting the innovation and healthy development of the platform economy." As the understanding of the internet platform economy deepens across all sectors of society, the call for strengthened platform regulation has become increasingly strong. The plan must respond to this by making deployments for the improvement of relevant laws, regulations, and policy systems to create a healthy ecosystem for the platform economy, which serves as a strong policy signal for internet platforms.
Establishing a social guidance mechanism enhances the cohesion and synergy of the entire society. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Good principles, policies, and development plans should all conform to the will of the people and meet their thoughts and expectations; they must come from the masses and go to the masses" [6]. The Five-Year Plan is both a common program of action for the people of all ethnic groups in the country and a cornerstone for individuals to plan their own development. The social guidance mechanism of the plan lies in clarifying national strategic intent to the entire society, allowing the public to understand the goals and direction of national development, guiding individuals to align their behavior with the nation's developmental direction, and striving to form a powerful collective force for the implementation of the plan. The "Suggestions" and the "Outlines" of the plan are released and promoted through multiple channels, allowing the public to understand the nation's current historical coordinates and see its developmental direction and goals, thereby boosting social confidence and morale and enhancing individual pride and a sense of belonging. The plan also elaborates on tasks and goals for various people's livelihood initiatives over the next five years, such as education, healthcare, employment, elderly care, and social security. This is essentially a solemn commitment to the public, conducive to enhancing the public's sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security. The Five-Year Plan sketches a blueprint and direction for national development, helping individuals find their own developmental opportunities and guiding them to align their actions with national strategic directions, thereby better achieving their own careers while contributing to national development.
Balancing Mechanism: Handling Several Key Relationships to Enhance the Coordination and Sustainability of Development
Chinese culture prizes "harmony" (he), emphasizing systemic thinking and holistic planning, with a focus on "coordination," "balance," and "harmony." This is also an important methodology for China's national governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "To be a leader in China, one must, on the basis of clarifying the situation, make overall plans and take all factors into consideration for a comprehensive balance, highlighting key points to drive the overall situation." a key characteristic of the Five-Year Plan is its comprehensiveness and integrated nature, focusing on handling important relationships such as those between the government and the market, domestic and international, short-term and long-term, economic development and spatial development, and the whole and the parts, thereby enhancing the coordination and sustainability of development.
Balancing the relationship between the government and the market. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Medium- and long-term development plans can both give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and better play the role of the government." Market allocation of resources is the most efficient method, but the market is not omnipotent; it can fail, and it possesses spontaneous, blind, and short-term tendencies. This necessitates a better role for the government. China’s Five-Year Plan is an important means of combining an effective market with a capable government to solve market failures, promote social fairness and justice, and drive long-term stable economic development.
The Five-Year Plan creates a fair competitive environment and high-quality operating environment for the market to function by building a high-standard market system, using an effective market to improve the efficiency of resource allocation across society. Simultaneously, it promotes the transformation of government functions and improves the macroeconomic governance system, using a capable government to compensate for market shortcomings and defects and promote high-quality development. The Five-Year Plan clarifies the relationship between the government and the market in its implementation: anticipatory indicators and tasks such as industrial development and structural adjustment rely primarily on market forces, while the government’s main responsibility lies in ensuring the timely realization of binding indicators, major engineering projects, public services, ecological environmental protection, and security guarantees. The brilliant achievements of Chinese-path modernization fully demonstrate that the Five-Year Plan, as an important institutional innovation in the socialist market economy system, plays a key role in handling the relationship between the government and the market. It not only helps to give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and stimulates the vitality and creativity of business entities, but also enables the government to better play its role, effectively preventing macro-level imbalances and avoiding the spontaneity and blindness of the market.
Balancing the relationship between domestic and international spheres. Economic globalization has linked the fates of all countries more closely together, forming a community with a shared future where "we are in you and you are in us." General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Leading officials must keep in mind two overall situations: one is the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and the other is the world's once-in-a-century profound changes. This is the basic starting point for our work." The formulation of the Five-Year Plan must be based on domestic needs while keeping the eyes of the world in view, both profoundly grasping changes in the international situation and assessing the global impact of China's future balanced development strategy. Facing the world's once-in-a-century profound changes, the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed to "accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the mainstay and the domestic and international dual cycles promoting each other." This aims to leverage China's advantages in its ultra-large-scale market and superior supply capacity to enhance the endogenous power of national development, while also fulfilling China's role as the "world factory" and "world market," better integrating into the global development pattern from both the supply and demand ends, so that China continues to be a stabilizer and power source for the world economy. The "Suggestions" of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee explicitly proposed to "expand high-level opening up to the outside world and create a new situation of win-win cooperation," intending to promote reform and development through opening up, share opportunities and develop together with all countries, and inject more confidence and positive energy into a turbulent world through the stability of China's strategy, the certainty of its development, and the firmness of its opening up.
Balancing the relationship between the short term and the long term. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to scientifically grasping the dialectical relationship between the present and the future, emphasizing the need to "both grasp the present with vigor and keep an eye on the long term." As a phased deployment and arrangement of the socialist modernization strategy within the planning period, every Five-Year Plan implements the national development strategy in stages, anchoring development goals for the next five years to long-term strategic objectives and guiding the government, market, society, and the public toward long-term goals. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "From the First Five-Year Plan to the 14th Five-Year Plan, the consistent theme has been building our country into a socialist modern country." Since 1953, China has formulated and implemented fourteen Five-Year Plans (and earlier versions titled "Plans" [7]), relaying the implementation of long-term strategic goals for socialist modernization. Currently, China is forging ahead on the new journey of comprehensively building a socialist modern country. The three Five-Year Plans from the "14th" to the "16th" are anchored to the goal of basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035; subsequently, the three Five-Year Plans from the "17th" to the "19th" will be used to achieve the goal of comprehensively building a great modern socialist country by the middle of this century. The close connection and implementation of longer-term modernization strategic arrangements by Five-Year Plans are conducive to maintaining the stability and continuity of policies, ensuring that one administration follows another in their work, making sure national development moves toward established goals and directions, and "executing a single blueprint to the end."
Handling the relationship between development and protection is also an important manifestation of balancing short-term and long-term relationships. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has profoundly grasped the laws of ecological civilization construction and creatively proposed a series of scientific theses, providing fundamental guidance for handling the relationship between development and protection. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The relationship between ecological environmental protection and economic development is not one of contradiction and opposition, but one of dialectical unity. Only by laying the green foundation of development well can there be a triumphant advance in future development." The "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed "achieving higher quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable, and safer development," and dedicated a specific chapter to the deployment of green development. The "Suggestions" of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed to "accelerate the comprehensive green transition of economic and social development and build a Beautiful China." These are scientific deployments for coordinating high-quality development with high-level protection.
Balancing the relationship between economic development and spatial development. China has a vast territory with uneven distribution of resource endowments. Distinct differences in basic conditions and development levels across various regions have led to the long-term existence of unbalanced and inadequate regional development. Rapid economic growth in some areas has also placed enormous pressure on resources, the environment, public services, and infrastructure, resulting in excessive industrial agglomeration and spatial imbalance. The Five-Year Plan balances economic and spatial development, promoting coordination between economic development and resources, environment, public services, and infrastructure. Over time, and to adapt to developmental needs, the content of the Five-Year Plan has gradually expanded from being primarily economic to covering multiple important fields such as the social, cultural, and ecological sectors. The spatial attribute of the planning has also been continuously strengthened, gradually becoming a strategic layout for national economic and social development in both time and space.
The "11th Five-Year Plan" proposed "promoting the formation of major function zones," which required planning future population distribution, economic layout, land use, and urbanization patterns based on resource and environmental carrying capacity, existing development density, and development potential, so as to achieve a balance between development activities and territorial space. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must follow a path of rational division of labor and optimized development based on the conditions of each region, implement the major function zone strategy, improve spatial governance, and form a regional economic layout with complementary advantages and high-quality development." Improving and implementing the major function zone strategy requires, on the one hand, basing development on the environmental carrying capacity and socio-economic endowments of each region, leveraging comparative advantages, and carrying out differentiated development to achieve precise regional economic policies. On the other hand, it requires enhancing the economic and population carrying capacity of urban clusters and central cities to form a coordinated development pattern for large, medium, and small cities.
Achieving coordinated regional development is a requirement for implementing the new development philosophy, building a modern economic system, and achieving high-quality development. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has stood high and looked far, assessed the situation, and proposed regional development strategies such as the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin, and the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. It has deeply promoted the large-scale development of the western region, the full revitalization of Northeast China, the rise of the central region, and the leading development of the eastern region, promoting the formation of a new regional development pattern where each region has a rational division of labor, complementary advantages, and coordinated development. The "Suggestions" of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee further proposed:
“Leveraging the synergistic effects of regional coordinated development strategies, major regional strategies, functional zones [8] strategies, and new-type urbanization strategies; optimizing the layout of major productive forces; utilizing the role of key regions as growth poles; and constructing a regional economic layout and territorial space system characterized by complementary advantages and high-quality development”—this provides an important standard for optimizing the regional economic layout and promoting coordinated regional development.
We must properly balance the relationship between the whole and the parts. National development is an organic whole composed of the mutual relations and internal links between various links, levels, and fields of the economy and society; it increasingly manifests as comprehensive, systemic, and complex. The Five-Sphere Integrated Plan—comprising economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological organizational construction—concentratedly reflects an adherence to systemic and holistic perspectives. These “five spheres” constitute a single entity while interacting with one another; when balanced, they promote each other, but if poorly balanced, one may grow at the expense of another. Of course, balance does not mean parity, nor does it mean failing to distinguish between the primary and the secondary. Grasping the principal contradiction [9] is the key focal point for balancing the whole and the parts, and it is the highest priority for advancing central tasks and driving the development of the overall situation. As a large developing country, China faces many contradictions in its development, and it objectively needs to grasp the principal contradiction while simultaneously balancing others. The Five-Year Plans apply systemic concepts to comprehensively consider and coordinate all aspects of national development, seeking a dynamic optimal balance between holistic and local development, and between comprehensive advancement and breakthroughs in key areas. For example, both the 13th Five-Year Plan and the 14th Five-Year Plan deployed innovation-driven development as the primary key task. This reflects our focus on the major, leading issues of modernization amid the intertwining of the technological revolution and great power competition. Every Five-Year Plan in the history of the People's Republic of China has strived to resolve the principal contradiction faced in each developmental period, attempting to drive an overall leap through key breakthroughs, realizing the principle of “lifting the guideline so that the ten thousand meshes of the net open; unfolding the first volume so that all chapters become clear” [10].
China was not the first country in the world to compile five-year plans, but it is the only country that has persisted with them and successfully achieved the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability. The developmental trajectory of the Five-Year Plan is a process in which the consensus mechanism, guidance mechanism, and balancing mechanism have continuously evolved and matured. This process has promoted the transformation of government functions, advanced the continuous sound improvement of the socialist market economy system, and formed a powerful combined force among the government, the market, society, and the public to drive national development. Chinese practice, represented by the Five-Year Plan, can provide solutions for developing countries to address problems such as unclear positioning of government functions and unsound market systems, and can also provide ideas for developed countries to resolve issues of market failure and government failure. Exploration knows no bounds. The mechanism of the Five-Year Plan will continue to improve alongside the perfection of the socialist market economy system. It will become an important institutional innovation for improving and developing the system of socialism with Chinese characters and for advancing the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance, while continuously contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the handling of the relationship between the government and the market under market economy conditions.
(The author is the Dean of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University) Source: People's Daily (January 9, 2026) Online Editor: Huihui