3 August 2024

Quotable Decisions

Anushka Saxena

To conclude the proceedings of the Third Plenum, on July 21, the full text of the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese-Style Modernization” was released. This is a much-anticipated document, for various reasons.

Historically, third plenums have focussed on shaping the economic agenda of the country. For instance, the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee in December 1978 launched the “reform and opening up” in China. Likewise, the Third Plenum of the 14th Central Committee, held in 1993, announced the goal of building China into a “socialist market economy.” Most recently, during the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee in 2013, unveiled the framework of comprehensively deepening reform. These reforms pertained to transforming the hukou system, reforming state-owned enterprises, loosening the one-child policy, overhauling the judicial system, bridging the urban-rural divide, and so on.

These meetings, which bring together the Party elite, have traditionally taken place in late autumn. So it was anyway rather unusual that the Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee was being held in July. More importantly, it came at a time when the Chinese economy is facing deep structural challenges.

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