Li Zhijun: The Remarkable Advantages of China's Governance as Seen from the "15th Five-Year Plan"
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Scientifically formulating and continuously implementing Five-Year Plans is an important experience of our Party’s governance and a significant political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics." The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC deliberated and adopted the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (hereinafter referred to as the Recommendations). This document provides a deep analysis of domestic and international situations, offering systematic planning and strategic deployment for the economic and social development of our country over the next five years. From a decision-making model that integrates top-level design with the gathering of public wisdom, to a strategic tempo characterized by long-term layout and continuous advancement; from a global perspective rooted in national conditions while embracing the world, to the transformation of efficacy from blueprinting to promoting implementation—the "15th Five-Year Plan" profoundly interprets the remarkable advantages of Chinese-path modernization through its scientific formulation logic and its working mechanisms for driving implementation.
I. Scientific Decision-Making: The Integration of Top-Level Design and Consulting the People
General Secretary Xi Jinping has noted: "Scientific planning is the greatest benefit; planning errors are the greatest waste; and constant vacillation in planning is the greatest taboo." The entire process of formulating the "15th Five-Year Plan" is permeated by the dual logic of "precise orientation through top-level design and building consensus by consulting the people." This is not only a vivid practice of whole-process people's democracy but also the fundamental guarantee for ensuring that decisions align with national conditions and public will, achieving a high degree of unity between the scientific and democratic nature of decision-making.
The forward-looking and systematic nature of top-level design is the prerequisite for scientific decision-making. The "15th Five-Year Plan" period occupies a critical position as a link between the past and the future in the process of basically achieving socialist modernization [1]. By formulating and implementing the "15th Five-Year Plan" effectively, we can lay a more solid foundation for basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035. Starting from this basic positioning, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee planned the economic and social development for the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. It maintains continuity with the concepts and ideas proposed in the "14th Five-Year Plan," while accurately grasping the major development trends for the next five years. It clarifies the general approach, major principles, primary goals, and strategic tasks, putting forward the "Six Persistent Principles" that must be followed. This top-level design did not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, it is based on the fundamental judgment that China’s economic foundation is stable, its advantages numerous, its resilience strong, its potential vast, and its long-term positive supporting conditions and basic trends remain unchanged. It is based on a precise grasp of the international situation characterized by intertwined changes and chaos and the deep development of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. It was proposed on the basis of coordinating the two overall situations [2]—domestic and international—grasping the historical coordinates and development stage of the cause of the Party and the state, and analyzing the profound and complex changes facing the development environment. It is rich in content and highly instructional. This type of top-level design, which stands on the global picture and links the past and future, originates from the Party's deep grasp of the laws of economic and social development. More importantly, it stems from the fact that the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee can transcend departmental interests and short-term demands to achieve global and long-term planning for national development.
The breadth and depth of consulting the people is the source of vitality for scientific decision-making. Whole-process people's democracy is the most extensive, genuine, and effective form of democracy. Throughout the formulation of the "15th Five-Year Plan," this concept was applied from beginning to end, forming a multi-level and multi-channel system for collecting public opinion. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core integrated the promotion of democracy and the gathering of collective wisdom throughout the entire process of drafting the Recommendations, conducting in-depth investigations and research, and extensively soliciting opinions from all parties. From January 22, when the Party Central Committee issued the Notice on Soliciting Opinions for the Recommendations of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee on the 15th Five-Year Plan, to late February, when the Party Central Committee organized six research groups to conduct special investigations in 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities; from the online opinion solicitation activities held from May 20 to June 20, to August 4, when the Party Central Committee distributed the draft for comments to various regions, departments, and relevant units—the solicitation activities saw high participation and broad coverage. Experts and scholars advised on healthcare reform; "agricultural entrepreneurs" [3] proposed specific ideas for rural revitalization; and the business community voiced opinions on optimizing the business environment. Suggestions from different groups were fully absorbed into the plan. This "open-door" approach to planning ensures the plan aligns with national strategic directions while meeting the practical needs of the masses, turning the decision-making process into one of building consensus and gathering strength, greatly enhancing the plan's scientific rigor and feasibility.
The benign interaction between top-level design and consulting the people—moving from democracy to centralization, and then back to democracy and centralization [4]—ensures the "15th Five-Year Plan" meets the interests and needs of the people while aligning with long-term goals and the overall interests of the state. This fully reflects the organic unity of Party leadership, the people as masters of the country, and the comprehensive rule of law, highlighting the characteristics and advantages of our Party's governance.
II. Strategic Synergy: The Integration of Long-Term Layout and Continuous Struggle
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Achieving socialist modernization is a historical process of step-by-step progression and continuous development; it requires unremitting efforts and continuous struggle." Through systematic planning that anchors long-term goals, connects historical practices, and resolves phase-specific difficulties, the "15th Five-Year Plan" demonstrates our Party’s strategic wisdom in coordinating the short and long term, and the local and the global. It achieves a high degree of synergy in "drawing one blueprint to the end."
The step-by-step progression of the long-term layout provides clear guidance for continuous struggle. From the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan in 1953 to the present, the continuous implementation of 14 Five-Year Plans (and Programs) has driven our country from establishing an independent and relatively complete industrial system to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and now toward basically achieving socialist modernization. These have always revolved around the long-term goal of "building China into a great modern socialist country." The fact that China could develop from a state where it "could not build a single car or airplane" to becoming the world's largest manufacturing power within 70-plus years proves the vital role of long-term layout. The 20th Party Congress clarified the "two-step" strategic arrangement for comprehensively building a great modern socialist country and marching toward the Second Centenary Goal. Basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035 is the first step, which requires the continuous advancement of three Five-Year Plans from the 14th to the 16th. Among these, the "14th Five-Year Plan" was for starting the journey; the "15th" is for consolidating the foundation and exerting full force; and the "16th" will be for focused breakthroughs and total completion. This step-by-step planning design ensures that the long-term goal of basically achieving socialist modernization is no longer an unreachable vision, but a series of phased tasks that can be dismantled, implemented, and verified.
The practical character of continuous struggle transforms the long-term blueprint into reality. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's economic increment is expected to exceed 35 trillion RMB, per capita GDP has exceeded $13,000 for two consecutive years, and the participation rates for basic old-age and medical insurance have stabilized above 95%. These achievements have laid a solid foundation for the continuous struggle of the "15th Five-Year Plan." The implementation of the "15th Five-Year Plan" must consolidate and expand advantages, break through bottleneck constraints, and strengthen weak links to further solidify the foundation of development. Simultaneously, it must focus on the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and the Four Comprehensives strategic layout to exert force in a coordinated manner, driving major breakthroughs in strategic tasks concerning the overall situation of Chinese-path modernization. This continuous struggle is not simple repetition but innovation within inheritance and development within innovation. For example, facing the arduous task of shifting from old to new growth drivers during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the Recommendations—while consolidating previous industrial foundations—propose developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions and fostering emerging and future-oriented industries. Regarding weak links in people's livelihoods, it emphasizes launching a series of highly balanced and accessible policy measures on top of improving the social security system. This spirit of continuous struggle focused on long-term development is the source of power for our country to maintain sustained and healthy development despite the pressure of changing international circumstances.
Institutional guarantees for strategic synergy provide the framework for long-term layout and continuous struggle. The comprehensive leadership of the Party is the fundamental guarantee for achieving strategic synergy. By improving the mechanism for implementing the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, we ensure that all regions and departments always focus on the overall national goals, avoiding fragmented efforts. Meanwhile, the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for plan implementation allows for timely tracking of progress and dynamic adjustment of measures based on actual conditions. This ensures both the stability of strategic direction and the flexibility of execution. This institutional design prevents the long-term layout from being disconnected and ensures the continuous struggle does not slacken, making the "15th Five-Year Plan" a vital bridge connecting history, reality, and the future, steadily driving Chinese-path modernization forward.
III. Coordinating the Global Picture: The Integration of Rooting in China and Looking to the World
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Leading officials must keep two overall situations in mind: one is the strategic goal 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 Party’s work." The "15th Five-Year Plan," focusing on "coordinating development and security and coordinating the two overall situations of domestic and international," persists in handling our own affairs well based on national conditions while embracing the world with an open and inclusive attitude. It vividly demonstrates a major-country governance pattern that integrates rooting in China with looking to the world.
Rooting in China's reality to build a solid foundation for high-quality development. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China is at a critical stage of leaping from a middle-income country to a high-income country, and further toward becoming a moderately developed country. Development conditions and growth models are undergoing profound changes. The "15th Five-Year Plan" clearly recognizes the prominent issues of unbalanced and inadequate domestic development, continuing to identify the promotion of high-quality development as the theme of economic and social development for the next five years. Addressing the blockages and bottlenecks in the domestic circulation [5], the Recommendations propose accelerating the construction of a unified national market, stimulating domestic demand potential, and fully releasing the dividends of a super-large-scale market. It highlights the leading role of technological innovation, making deployments in areas such as building a modern industrial system, accelerating high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology, and accelerating the comprehensive green transition of economic and social development. These coordinated plans rooted in national conditions avoid the blindness of copying other countries' models and optimize resource allocation through a "national chess game" [6], concentrating forces to overcome development difficulties. This manifests the advantage of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics in concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks.
Looking to the world stage to expand the space for opening up. While remaining rooted domestically, the "15th Five-Year Plan" always upholds the concepts of openness and cooperation, actively promoting the common development of China and the world. Currently, the global balance of power is undergoing profound adjustments; unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and the international economic and trade order faces challenges. However, the Recommendations explicitly propose persisting in expanding opening up to the outside world, demonstrating China's firm determination to achieve win-win development with the world. In the field of trade, it promotes higher-level trade facilitation, expands trade cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, and fosters new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce. In the field of investment, it continues to optimize the business environment to attract global high-quality resources, while supporting Chinese enterprises in "going global" in an orderly manner to participate in international capacity cooperation. The "15th Five-Year Plan" not only helps domestic industrial upgrades by introducing advanced technology and management experience through opening up, but also promotes the implementation of the Global Development Initiative by sharing development opportunities. This makes China's development a stabilizer and power source for global economic growth, showcasing the global vision and major-country responsibility of Chinese governance.
In rooting in China and looking to the world, coordinating development and security is paramount. Currently, the world is intertwined with change and chaos, volatility is intensifying, and geopolitical conflicts are frequent. Major-country competition is more complex and intense. At the same time, structural, institutional, and cyclical problems in China's own development process are interconnected, and the complexity and difficulty of national security issues have significantly increased. In the next five years, uncertain and unpredictable risk factors will increase significantly, and the task of coordinating development and security will be even more arduous. The Recommendations revolve around promoting the modernization of the national security system and capacity, proposing to improve the national security system, strengthen capacity building in key areas, improve public safety governance, and refine the social governance system. Regarding the high-quality promotion of the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, it proposes accelerating the construction of advanced combat capabilities, promoting the modernization of military governance, and consolidating and enhancing the integrated national strategic system and capabilities. these strategic measures are forward-looking plans based on China's current development stage, which are of great significance for effectively responding to various domestic and international risks and challenges, building a security barrier, and ensuring the steady and long-term progress of modernization during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
IV. Efficacy Transformation: The Integration of Far-Reaching Planning and Promoting Implementation
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Planning accounts for ten percent of the work; implementation accounts for ninety percent." Through a full-chain design of "institutional guarantee, resource integration, and practical execution," the "15th Five-Year Plan" promotes a high degree of unity between "deciding" and "acting," demonstrating the executive advantage of the socialist system.
A sound institutional mechanism provides the guarantee for implementation. To ensure...
As the "Fifteenth Five-Year" Plan is implemented, our country preserves and will continue to improve an effective plan implementation mechanism, forming a resource allocation model where "projects follow the plan, while funds and production factors follow the projects." In terms of vertical integration, the planning goals are decomposed into a three-level task list involving the central government, local governments, and departments, clearly defining responsible entities and completion deadlines. Regarding horizontal coordination, the mechanism for coordinating development planning with fiscal, monetary, and industrial policies is being perfected to ensure that various policies exert force in the same direction. In 2025, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress [7] reviewed the "Draft Law of the People's Republic of China on National Development Planning" twice, promoting the inclusion of plan formulation and implementation into a rule-of-law framework and providing legal guarantees for promoting plan execution. This multi-level, comprehensive institutional design effectively solves the governance dilemma where "planning is one thing and implementation is another," building a solid institutional foundation for the effective implementation of the plan.
Strict evaluation and supervision safeguard implementation. The "Fifteenth Five-Year" Plan inherits the mechanisms for dynamic monitoring, mid-term evaluation, and summary evaluation formed during the "Fourteenth Five-Year" period. By improving policy coordination and work synergy mechanisms, strengthening monitoring, evaluation, and supervision, and promptly identifying and resolving emerging problems, it ensures that each task proposed by the plan is fully realized. Simultaneously, various decision-making deployments in the "Proposal" [8] provide relevant policy support for the formulation of various types of plans at all levels. For instance, the "Proposal" suggests strengthening the governance of artificial intelligence and improving relevant laws, regulations, policy systems, application specifications, and ethical standards; it also calls for unifying market supervision and law enforcement, strengthening quality supervision, and perfecting the system of standards for administrative discretionary power, among others. This whole-process, multi-dimensional supervision and evaluation mechanism helps to promptly detect deviations in the implementation process and make dynamic adjustments. By forming a closed-loop system of "institution-policy-supervision," a rigid guarantee is provided for transforming effectiveness, pushing the plan from a "blueprint on paper" to a "program of action."
The enthusiasm of the entire society injects momentum into implementation. The formulation of the "Fifteenth Five-Year" Plan involves all aspects of economic and social development and is closely related to the production and daily lives of the masses. By encouraging the broad masses of people and all sectors of society to participate actively through various means, social expectations, the wisdom of the masses, expert opinions, and grassroots experiences are fully integrated into the plan's formulation. This ensures the plan truly reflects the will of the people, protects their rights and interests, and stimulates their creative vitality. The "Proposal" emphasizes fully mobilizing the initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity of the whole society to devote themselves to Chinese-path modernization, and implementing the policy of respecting labor, knowledge, talent, and creativity. History has proven that under the strong leadership of the Party, only by strengthening the solidarity and mobilization of the broad masses, guiding them to transform the Party's decisions and deployments into conscious action, and gathering the majestic strength of the people, can the Party’s cause be successfully advanced. The 14 Five-Year Plans (and Programs) already formulated and implemented in our country, from the drawing of blueprints to the bearing of fruit, have fully demonstrated the concerted efforts and tenacious struggle of the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country.
From the logic of formulation and the path of promoting implementation of the "Fifteenth Five-Year" Plan, we see clearly the significant advantages of "China’s Governance" (中国之治). On the new journey, we must unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, deeply study and implement the spirit of the 20th CPC Central Committee’s Fourth Plenary Session, and overcome difficulties, combat risks, and meet challenges with a spirit of historical initiative, striving to create a new situation for Chinese-path modernization.