The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened its third plenary session in Beijing from July 15 to 18, 2024. The plenary session made systematic planning and arrangements for further comprehensively deepening reform and drew a new grand blueprint of Chinese modernization. These are the main five takeaways from this key meeting:
Promoting High-Quality Economic Development
High-quality development is our primary task in building China into a modern socialist country in all respects. China will improve the institutions and mechanisms for fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions and work to facilitate revolutionary breakthroughs in technology, innovative allocation of production factors, in-depth industrial transformation and upgrading.
China will improve the systems for promoting full integration between the real economy and the digital economy, move faster to advance new industrialization and move faster to establish institutions and mechanisms for promoting the development of the digital economy. China will refine the institutions and mechanisms for developing the service sector and promote standardization in this sector.
China will improve the institutions and mechanisms for modernizing infrastructure and build a planning and standards system for new types of infrastructure. China will improve the systems for enhancing the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains and move faster to build industrial and supply chains that are self-supporting and risk-controllable.
Supporting All-Around Innovation
Education, science and technology, and talent function as basic and strategic underpinnings for Chinese modernization. China will deepen comprehensive reform in education and work faster to build a high-quality education system and advance coordinated reforms in student training methods, school operation models, management systems, and support mechanisms. China will deepen scientific and technological structural reform.
Targeting the global frontiers of science and technology, the development of the economy, the major needs of the country, and the health and safety of our people, we will refine the mechanisms under which major scientific and technological innovation projects are organized in order to mount a concerted push for breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields. We will see that the development of innovative capabilities, allocation of innovation factors, and ranks of innovators become more systematic, well-organized, and coordinated.
China will deepen institutional reforms for talent development. Our policies on talent will become more proactive, open, and effective. To improve the mechanisms for nurturing talent here at home, we will work faster to develop national hubs for high-caliber personnel and platforms for attracting and pooling talent.
Advancing Whole-Process People’s Democracy
Developing whole-process people’s democracy is integral to Chinese modernization. China will strengthen the institutions through which the people run the country. We must uphold, improve, and implement the system of people’s congresses to good effect.
China will improve the mechanisms for consultative democracy. We will give play to the role of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as a specialized consultative body. China will enhance democracy at the primary level. We will improve the mechanisms for conducting community-level self-governance under the leadership of Party organizations at the primary level.
China will build a broad united front. We will improve the policies and measures for facilitating the united front’s political role in rallying the support of the people and pooling their strength. We will also establish a more solid legal footing for the governance of religious affairs.
We will continue working to cultivate a cordial and clean relationship between government and business across the board and improve the working mechanisms for facilitating the healthy development of the non-public sector and those working in it. We will refine the mechanisms for work related to Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese affairs.
Deepening Reform in the Cultural Sector
Chinese modernization is the modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement. China will refine the mechanisms for supplying cultural services and products. We will refine the systems for cultural industries and markets as well as economic policies concerning the development of the cultural sector.
We will explore effective mechanisms for integrating culture with science and technology and step up our efforts to foster new forms of cultural business. We will establish coordination agencies for preserving and passing down our cultural heritage and put in place an inspection system for cultural heritage protection to facilitate systematic protection and unified supervision.
We will improve the public fitness services system and carry out reforms to refine the management systems and operating mechanisms for competitive sports. Mechanisms for promoting the implementation of the Global Civilization Initiative will be established. We will work to facilitate both outbound and inbound visits to promote broader international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation.
Deepening Reform in Ecological Conservation
Chinese modernization is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature. China will improve the mechanisms for green and low-carbon development. We will implement fiscal, tax, financial, investment, and pricing policies as well as standards to support green and low-carbon development, develop green and low-carbon industries, improve incentive mechanisms for eco-friendly consumer spending, and work toward an economy that facilitates green, low-carbon, and circular development.
We will optimize policies on green government procurement and refine the green taxation system. Mechanisms for ensuring clean and efficient use of coal will be refined. We will accelerate the planning and development of a new type of energy system and improve the policies and measures for promoting the absorption of electricity generated from new energy sources into power grids and for the regulation of such energy.
Improvements will be made to the working systems for adapting to climate change. New mechanisms will be put in place to facilitate the transition from controlling the total amount and intensity of energy consumption to controlling the total amount and intensity of carbon emissions. We will also improve the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions and the trading system for voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reduction. On this basis, we will actively and prudently move toward reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality.
Chinese modernization has been continuously advanced through reform and opening up, and it will surely open up broad prospects through this approach. A lot of achievements have been made in the past, and we will ascend to greater heights in the future.
On the new journey, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people will unite and forge ahead, dedicated to advancing Chinese modernization and writing a new chapter of reform in the new era. A newer and more beautiful picture of Chinese modernization will surely be presented in further comprehensive deepening of reform.
