'Four comprehensives' vital to progress
- By Dan Steinbock
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E-mail China Daily, November 3, 2015
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The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee is held in Beijing from October 26 to 29 [Xinhua] |
At the recently concluded Fifth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee, the "Four Comprehensives" became the grand blueprint for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). Each of the four tasks requires broad measures and pragmatic actions.
A moderately prosperous society
The first one - and the most critical- stresses the task of building a "moderately prosperous society". It does not refer to "middle class", a term that is often, but mistakenly, evoked in the international media. True, the middle class is emerging in China, but it is still not comparable to that in the West.
In the United States and the European Union, the average per capita GDP, adjusted to purchasing power parity, varies between $55,000 and $38,000, but in China it is still $13,200. As a result, the term has vastly different meanings in advanced economies and China.
Unlike in the West, higher living standards in China are a recent development. Chinese families enjoy very little of the kind of accumulated wealth that is taken for granted in the West. China is now building social security and welfare systems that advanced economies have had for generations. And it will take another five years for the country to lift out of poverty most of the remaining 70 million people.
A moderately prosperous society means rapidly rising per capita incomes. It also means basic social security and less environmental degradation. It is the Four Comprehensives' strategic goal, while the other three represent major strategic measures that are required to realize this objective.
Structural reforms, rule of law, and strict party discipline
The second task is to "deepen reform". In China, the Deng Xiaoping era unleashed reforms that were designed to industrialize the mainland in record time. Seeking to surpass the so-called "middle-income trap", President Xi Jinping's reforms face even more challenging obstacles and entrenched interests.
The structural reforms must ensure the completion of industrialization in the poorer provinces and regions even as they seek to transform China into a post-industrial society in which services rather than manufacturing fuel growth.
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