With the conjoined evolvement of the historical logic of Chinese civilization, the logic behind the modernization drive, and the logic behind the communist movement, the Communist Party of China (CPC), which was founded more than 100 years ago, became China's leading force. It formulated a host of reform proposals, and took the Chinese people on a path of Chinese modernization.

Starting from the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee held in 1978, the CPC shaped a regular work rhythm to make corresponding reform decisions—at each third plenary session every five years—on the liberation and development of productive forces according to the needs of socialist modernization. From this work rhythm, we can have a glimpse of the logic behind China's reforms.

Why reform?

Marxism, the guiding ideology of the CPC, holds that human society is in constant development and progress, and that the most active factor therein is its social productive forces.

With the development of the productive forces, the relationship between production and the superstructure that was once compatible begin to hinder development. To liberate and develop the productive forces, it is necessary to promote changes in the relationship between production and the superstructure according to the requirements of the development of the productive forces, and to adapt the relationship to these requirements.

Historically, there have been two ways of adjusting the relationship between production and the superstructure according to the development of the productive forces: One was active adjustment by peaceful means, and the other was passive adjustment by violent means. The former we call reform, the latter we call revolution.

However, whether we call it reform or revolution, the effect would be revolutionary if only the social productive forces could be greatly liberated and developed by adjusting and developing the relationship between production and the superstructure. Especially for a country like China, which had been closed to the rest of the world for such a long time, opening up was in itself a kind of reform and a revolutionary endeavor.

How can the reform be carried out more smoothly and effectively? Since human society entered the modern era, the development of any country or region can affect the development of other countries and regions in the world, which means that maintaining close exchange with the world and fully absorbing the experience and achievements of other countries is an important way to promote the development of productive forces under modern conditions. Specifically, through opening up to the outside world in the process of learning from and communicating with other countries, we will inevitably find that, to learn more from others their advanced productive forces, we need to adjust the existing relationships between production and the superstructure accordingly. This is known as "opening up to force reform."

However, when anything goes through development, it always changes quantitatively before qualitatively, locally before holistically, and the same is true of reform endeavors. To smoothly advance the reform process and achieve results, it is necessary to start reforms from the point where contradictions are most prominent and conditions are most favorable. This approach will create the necessary conditions for further reforms, enabling a holistic leap forward.

The above is the theory and logic behind the CPC's leadership of the people to carry out reforms to liberate and develop productive forces.

1978: The beginning of China's reform

After the Opium War, the wave of modernization led to the decline of the Chinese nation and the collapse of its classical civilization. Insightful people reached a consensus that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation could be achieved through the construction of a modern civilization.

Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people completed the tasks of the New Democratic Revolution, cleared the obstacles to modernization, founded the People's Republic of China, and chose the socialist way to carry out modernization.

To resolve the contradictions between the demand for primitive accumulation and social organization in the modernization drive and the country's extreme poverty and prevailing disunity in the wake of the founding of New China, China established a planned economy and a unit society system. Through hard work, in a short period of over 20 years, China established an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system, thus laying a solid foundation for modernization.

Although the planned economic system and the unit social system provided the basis for primitive accumulation and organization, they could not provide the internal driving force for sustainable development or modernization. In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee convened and made two significant decisions:

First, the decision was made to shift the work center of the Party and the state to "taking economic construction as the center"; second, a historic decision was made to carry out the reform and opening up. It was pointed out that "the realization of the modernizations of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, requires a substantial increase in the productive forces, and inevitably requires a change in many aspects of the relations of production that are incompatible with the development of the productive forces, and changes in all modes of management, activities, and ideas that are incompatible with the development of the productive forces, and it is, therefore, a broad and profound revolution."

At that time, the most urgent task was to feed the people. Therefore, when it was decided to shift the Party's central work to economic construction, the study of agricultural issues naturally became one of the topics of the plenary session.

Subsequently, guided by the spirit of the plenary session, the Communist Party of China began to explore rural agricultural reform. For three consecutive years following 1982, the production responsibility system of contracting production to households and contracting all work to households was fully affirmed. From then on, the household contract responsibility system for linked production was continuously improved, and a farmer household contract management system finally took shape.

From the perspective of the impact on the overall development of socialist modernization, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee found a way to liberate and develop productive forces, providing a steady stream of power for the development of socialist society.

From "focused" to "all-round" reforms

After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, promoting reform became a key task for each Central Committee. A convention was established for the Party to deploy reform tasks at each third plenary session every five years, focusing on the liberation and development of productive forces with economic construction at the center.

Analyzing the key issues of each of the third plenary sessions and comparing them with one another, we can find an important pattern, that is, the key breakthroughs within all-round reform.

When comparing the key topics of one third plenary session to the next, the general rule is to follow the logic of economic system reform, constantly promote key local breakthroughs, and carry out all-round reforms when the conditions are mature.

Before the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the focus was primarily on breakthroughs in rural and urban areas, laying the groundwork for comprehensive reform. The most fundamental achievement was the establishment of the socialist market economy system. Urban reforms, which covered a wide range of areas, were included in the overall reform agenda after the Third Plenary Session of the 12th CPC Central Committee and became a focal point. Therefore, in terms of the general rhythm, rural reforms were interspersed with the overall reform.

When comparing third plenary sessions with all of the government's major meetings, each third plenary session before the 18th CPC National Congress focused on economic system reform on the whole, while the Party's work was centered on economic construction, and the economic base determined the superstructure. This, in turn, meant that as economic system reforms advanced and developed, other Party activities also needed to be reformed and innovated. This required various aspects of work to align with economic system reforms, thereby objectively promoting reforms in other areas and contributing to overall reform. From a cross-sectional perspective, all these phenomena indicate that China's reform has been comprehensive, extending beyond just the economic system. However, economic system reform has always been the foundation and focus of reform.

From "crossing the river by feeling the stones "to" deepening reform in all aspects"

From the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee to the 18th National Congress, the practice of these reforms, as described above, was primarily oriented toward solving problems. As the reforms advanced, they not only reformed the relations of production and the superstructure that hindered the liberation and development of productive forces, but also promoted the formation and development of various elements of modern Chinese civilization.

As the reform practice of "crossing the river by feeling the stones" emerged quickly, two deficiencies became apparent: one in the functional development of each element, and the other in the organic integration between elements. The deficiencies meant that with the completion of the element generation task, it was time to leap to the stage of developing an integral form.

To this end, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee stressed that we must pay more attention to the systematic, holistic, and coordinated nature of reform, accelerate the development of the socialist market economy, democratic politics, advanced culture, harmonious society, and ecological civilization, to unleash the vitality of all labor, knowledge, technology, management capability, and capital, and make it possible for all sources of social wealth to fully flow and for the fruits of development to benefit all people more equitably.

Analyzing the overall process of successive third plenary sessions since the reform and opening up, the 18th Third Plenary Session stands out with the following features and significance:

First, the emphasis was no longer just on economic structural reform, but also on all institutional elements involved in the overall layout of socialist modernization, including economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological progress.

Second, this session no longer emphasized only the characteristics of the reform of "crossing the river by feeling the stones," but paid attention to "strengthening the top-level design." Before the 18th CPC National Congress, the focus was to break the forces that hindered the liberation and development of productive forces mainly through tackling and breaking through the key and urgent issues one after another. Through the efforts made before the 18th CPC National Congress, China completed the generation of specific elements of modern Chinese civilization, and this also needed to be integrated and promoted in terms of the overall form. Therefore, it has been necessary to strengthen top-level design and promote the overall reform and development.

Third, the session no longer limited itself to emphasizing key breakthrough reforms, but focused on systematic, holistic, and coordinated reforms. This was one of the features of the reforms undertaken at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee.

New quality productive forces and new task of reforms

After the reform and opening up, Chinese society experienced overlapping structural transformations: first, a social structural transformation driven by the establishment of a market economy through institutional changes; and second, a social structural transformation driven by the emergence of a digital civilization through technological revolution. These two processes existed almost in parallel after the reform and opening up. However, from the perspective of their focused impact, before the 20th CPC National Congress, the impact of the former was more intense, while the impact of the latter was relatively weaker.

However, after the 20th National Congress, from a global perspective, digital technology development transitioned from isolated breakthroughs in specific technologies to an integrated development stage across various technologies, rapidly ushering in the era of digital civilization. This comprehensive and interconnected development of digital technologies not only impacted the digital realm but also had a transformative and disruptive effect on other sciences and technologies, resulting in the generation and growth of new quality productive forces distinct from traditional ones.

Before the 20th CPC National Congress, the productive forces to be liberated and developed by reform were primarily those under the conditions of industrialization. After the 20th CPC National Congress, in addition to the existing types, a key focus of the reform has been on liberating and developing new quality productive forces.

This aspect of productive forces required China's reform not be limited to simply "crossing the river by feeling the stones." In addition to emphasizing the top-level design, it should emphasize foresight in terms of strategies and countermeasures. Only in this way could we continuously create conditions for the liberation and development of new quality productive forces, laying a foundation for the development of modern Chinese civilization.

These considerations present new propositions, requirements, and tasks for the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the reform work that follows.

The author is Zheng Changzhong, director of the Research Centre for Political Party Building and National Development at Fudan University.

Liu Xian /Editor    Wu Yongqiang /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Liu Xian /Coordination Editor

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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