Fully Grasping the Requirements for Formulating and Implementing Medium- and Long-Term Plans

Formulating medium- and long-term plans to guide economic and social development is an important approach with which the Communist Party of China (CPC) governs the country. As China’s most important medium- and long-term planning tool, five-year plans represent an arrangement for advancing the strategy of socialist modernization. They serve as both a blueprint and an action plan for economic and social development. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, our Party has formulated and implemented a total of 14 five-year plans, all of which have helped drive China’s economic and social development, increase its composite national strength, and raise people’s living standards.

The year 2025 is a pivotal year in China’s five-year planning cycle, as we work to well complete the goals and tasks for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) and formulate the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). By fully harnessing the strategic guiding role of five-year plans, we can lay a solid foundation for basically achieving socialist modernization by the year 2035. 

I. Understanding the formulation and implementation of five-year plans as China’s important political strength

While many countries draw up medium- and long-term economic and social development plans, China’s ability to consistently formulate and execute five-year plans toward predetermined goals and achieve remarkable success in doing so is extraordinarily rare. This unique political advantage has earned widespread recognition from the international community, with some noting that China has established the most ambitious planning system of our time.

Establishing a well-conceived approach for guiding economic and social development with CPC’s latest theories

During the course of its modernization, China has developed, through experimentation, an institutional framework for formulating and implementing five-year plans. Under this framework, the CPC Central Committee proposes planning recommendations, the State Council then drafts a five-year plan, which is reviewed and approved by the National People’s Congress, before being released to the public for implementation. Through this process, the CPC is able to effectively translate its latest theories and propositions into national commitments and coordinated social action. In contemporary China, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era serves as a powerful theoretical tool for guiding China’s sustained and healthy economic and social development, as well as a sound guide for the formulation and implementation of China’s five-year plans. This important thought encompasses a host of new ideas, viewpoints, and conclusions, which include the following: We must ground our efforts in the new stage of development, implement the new development philosophy, create a new pattern of development, and pursue high-quality development. It also defines the CPC’s position on major issues, including its political stance, values, and development model and path. All of this helps ensure that our five-year plans are forward-looking, strategic, and well-conceived.

The Resolution on the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 was adopted at the Fourth Session of the 13th National People’s Congress, March 11, 2021. The 14th Five-Year Plan marked the start of China’s new journey toward the Second Centenary Goal of building a modern socialist country. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER ZHANG YUWEI

Helping to pool resources behind major undertakings

Since 1949, China has accomplished a raft of urgent, complex, dangerous, and critical tasks relating to major engineering projects, scientific and technological research, poverty alleviation, coordinated regional development, disaster response, and other areas. Our success in this regard has come from our strength of being able to pool resources behind major undertakings. By formulating and implementing five-year plans, we have been able to ensure the CPC Central Committee’s centralized, unified leadership over economic and social development. Moreover, we have ensured the mobilization and coordinated action needed to plan and accomplish major initiatives. During the process of formulating five-year plans, we have planned out measures and built broad consensus by soliciting extensive feedback. In implementation, our planning system, which is guided by five-year plans, has enabled us to advance national objectives by breaking them down into sub-goals for different levels and sectors, thereby effectively mobilizing the resources and energies of all sectors to move the country forward as a coordinated whole.

Nighttime view of a business services center in Xiong’an New Area, Hebei Province, March 15, 2025. The establishment of Xiong’an New Area represents a major policy decision by the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core. The 14th Five-Year Plan sets out important arrangements for applying high standards in the construction of the area. Evolving from a blank canvas to a thriving reality, this city of the future is now enjoying rapid growth. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER MU YU

Guaranteeing full follow-through on our blueprint

Chinese modernization cannot be achieved in a single stroke. Rather, it must be steadily advanced through the completion of successive stage-based objectives. Five-year plans not only establish objectives and implementation roadmaps for each period but also ensure policy stability and consistency in terms of core themes and tasks, approaches, plans, policies, measures, indicators, and projects, thus creating a relay-like approach for achieving long-term goals. Through the implementation and execution of successive five-year plans, China has made steady progress toward modernization and is now embarking on a new journey toward the Second Centenary Goal.

Giving better play to an efficient market and an effective government

In line with continuous improvements to the socialist market economy, China changed its approach to five-year plans, reflecting that it has moved away from managing microeconomic activities to ensuring stronger macro and strategic guidance. This shift has given rise to the need to better balance the relationship between the government and the market, so as to ensure that market vitality is fully unleashed and government regulation becomes sounder and more effective. On the one hand, the government takes the lead in allocating public resources and channeling private-sector resources in order to meet binding targets in the five-year plans, which cover major engineering projects, public services, ecological protection, and other areas, while market entities actively participate in these endeavors with a view to generating synergy. On the other hand, market entities take on the primary role in accomplishing tasks relating to projected targets, industry development, and structural adjustments, with the key role of the government being to create a favorable policy, institutional, and legal environment. 

II. Understanding President Xi Jinping’s dynamic approach to formulating and implementing medium- and long-term plans

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, China has faced a complex international landscape along with the challenging tasks of advancing reform and development and ensuring stability at home. Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, it successfully accomplished the objectives and tasks set out in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015), marking a significant step forward in its modernization efforts. The 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016–2020) coincided with the timeline for completing our goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. President Xi personally studied and reviewed the overall framework, fundamental approach, guiding principles, and important contents of the recommendations for the 13th Five-Year Plan, producing a well-conceived blueprint and action plan for our national development during the decisive phase of building a moderately prosperous society. This helped ensure that China successfully accomplished its First Centenary Goal on schedule.

Following the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, the development challenges and opportunities faced by China were both unprecedented. As the global economy followed a complex path to recovery, China’s primary development task was to address the imbalances and inadequacies in its development. With an accurate grasp of the features of this phase, President Xi put forward important conclusions and gave instructions on the development of China’s national planning systems. In September 2018, he presided over the fourth meeting of the CPC Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, where the commission deliberated and approved the Guidelines on Better Utilizing the Strategic Guiding Role of National Development Planning Through the Unified Planning System. This document established institutional arrangements to streamline planning relationships and enhance planning management. In doing so, it helped clearly define the functions of different types of planning, standardized procedures for formulating plans, and made implementation mechanisms more mature. 

The period for the 14th Five-Year Plan from 2021 to 2025 covers the first five years of our new journey to build China into a modern socialist country. To formulate a master blueprint for this critical historic juncture, President Xi set out fundamental guidelines for drawing up a high-quality plan through a series of important meetings and initiatives. He presided over meetings of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and its Standing Committee, the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, and meetings of the drafting group for this plan, to study matters relating to its formulation, as well as other major issues concerning China’s medium- and long-term development. He conducted extensive research at the local and primary levels and chaired a series of symposiums to hear the opinions and suggestions of various sectors of society, including entrepreneurs, experts in the economic and social spheres, prominent citizens without political party affiliation, scientists, primary-level representatives, and experts in education, culture, health, and sports, while also convening a meeting on promoting integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. He also personally reviewed and revised the recommendations for the 14th Five-Year Plan on several occasions. 

In implementing the 14th Five-Year Plan, China reached numerous targets ahead of schedule despite facing grave, intricate international developments and a series of immense risks and challenges. We have already completed 99% of the planned objectives for more than 5,000 individual projects falling under 102 major development programs. In 2024, China’s GDP surpassed the 130 trillion yuan mark for the first time. New quality productive forces developed steadily as a raft of major technological breakthroughs emerged in rapid succession. The high-tech and equipment manufacturing sectors increased their shares of the total added value of large-scale industrial enterprises to 16.3% and 34.6%, respectively. China climbed to 11th place in the Global Innovation Index, and its economic strength, capacity for sci-tech innovation, ability to meet people’s basic needs, and international influence all continued to rise.

III. Understanding President Xi’s important instructions regarding the formulation and implementation of medium- and long-term plans

Since 2012, President Xi has introduced a series of new ideas, viewpoints, and conclusions on the formulation and implementation of five-year plans at important venues, including the fifth plenary sessions of both the 18th and 19th CPC Central Committees, as well as special seminars. He has stressed that “Our principles, policies, and development plans should all reflect the people’s will, aspirations, and expectations.” He has underscored the importance of balancing the five relationships between inheritance and innovation, the government and the market, openness and self-reliance, development and security, and strategy and tactics. He has emphasized, “Implementation should always be our top priority. To this end, detailed plans should be made and responsibilities should be clarified to ensure no task is left undone.” He has also highlighted the need to “refine the mechanisms for dynamic monitoring, midterm assessment, and final evaluation.” These statements and many others have clearly defined the values, principles, methodologies, and practical requirements that must be followed in formulating and implementing five-year plans. They are a distillation of our Party’s invaluable governance experiences. 

Taking both domestic and global perspectives into consideration 

Five-year plans are primarily focused on China’s domestic economic and social development. That said, China cannot develop in isolation from the rest of the world. We must fully consider the international environment and accurately define China’s global strategic position. As President Xi has said, “To create a top-level design, we need to have a deep insight into global development trends, accurately grasp the common aspirations of the public, and thoroughly study the laws governing economic and social development. This will ensure that the resulting planning and policy frameworks are current, follow the laws of development, and brim with innovative thinking.” This statement reflects clear strategic thinking.

Remaining both goal- and problem-oriented

The implementation of five-year plans is ultimately achieved through specific development strategies and major tasks. At the same time, these strategies and tasks should be determined on the basis of addressing key issues. They must be developed and carried out through an integrated goal-oriented and problem-oriented approach. President Xi has emphasized the need to both work backward from strategic goals to “clarify tasks that must be completed by specific deadlines” and work forward from pressing problems to “identify paths and methods for overcoming challenges.” This statement embodies clear dialectical thinking.

Coordinating overall planning and focusing on priorities

As they encompass all aspects of economic and social development, five-year plans must be underpinned by coordinated planning and unified implementation. At the same time, they should also focus on key priorities and serve to pool resources for overcoming major challenges. President Xi has emphasized, “We must not only work to comprehensively advance economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress, as well as opening up, national defense development, and Party development, but also focus on weak and underdeveloped areas, concentrate efforts on making breakthroughs, and propose feasible approaches and practical measures.” This is a reflection of President Xi’s systematic thinking.

Strengthening top-level design and conducting extensive public consultation

Strengthening top-level design helps enhance the consistency and synergy between objectives, tasks, and policy measures. At the same time, conducting extensive public consultation helps reflect public opinion, pool collective wisdom, and consolidate public support. As President Xi has noted, “We need to solicit public opinion and draw on collective insights. While strengthening top-level design, we should also conduct extensive public consultation to give full consideration to social expectations, public wisdom, expert opinion, and primary-level experience during the formulation of plans.” This statement encapsulates the advantages of China’s whole-process people’s democracy.

Better leveraging the strategic guiding role of national development planning

Five-year plans are a concentrated expression of our national strategic intentions, medium- and long-term objectives, as well as our tasks in a given period. They are effective tools for macroeconomic governance under the conditions of the socialist market economy. For this reason, President Xi has called for “accelerating efforts to establish a planning system that is institutionally sound, well-regulated, and operationally effective, to develop mechanisms for coordinating development planning with fiscal, financial, and other policies, and to better leverage the strategic guiding role of national development planning.” This indicates the path we should follow to improve the macroeconomic governance system.

Columns seeking public suggestions and recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan on the official websites of the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and China Media Group. In his instructions concerning the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan, President Xi Jinping stressed the need for sound, democratic, and law-based decision-making as well as the importance of integrating top-level design with extensive public consultation. China launched an online public consultation to gather opinions for its next five-year plan on May 20, 2025.

IV. Understanding how to effectively formulate plans and requirements for the 15th Five-Year Plan period

The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026– 2030) represents a crucial phase for achieving basic socialist modernization. When chairing a meeting on social and economic development during the  15th Five-Year Plan period for certain provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, President Xi set forward important instructions on the plan’s formulation. He emphasized the need to step up research and discussions and build broad consensus. He laid out clear requirements for formulating the plan with a focus on several key aspects, such as understanding the specific requirements for this phase, optimizing the economic layout, developing new quality productive forces, and regarding the people’s wellbeing as the fundamental value.

Understanding the specific requirements for the 15th Five-Year Plan period

At its 20th National Congress in 2022, the CPC laid out a two-step strategic plan for building China into a great modern socialist country, with the first step being to basically achieve socialist modernization by the year 2035. With a firm commitment to this goal, we should work sector by sector to define appropriate objectives and tasks and develop approaches and measures to further clarify the specific requirements for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. In recent years, with a focus on the goal of basic socialist modernization, the CPC Central Committee has put forward a series of tasks, such as giving initial shape to a high-quality education system. At its third plenary session in July 2024, the Central Committee also set forth over 300 reform measures, all of which need to be completed within the 15th Five-Year Plan period. For these established objectives and tasks, we need to conduct thorough analyses in each sector against the benchmarks and standards we have set to ensure they are well-conceived and achievable within the set timeframe. At the same time, we also need to coordinate planning for other objectives and tasks, ensuring we accurately grasp the key and decisive factors, carefully manage the timing and pace of progress, and ensure alignment with overall objectives.

Optimizing the economic layout in line with evolving circumstances

At present, profound, all-encompassing changes of a kind unseen in a century are accelerating worldwide. The international environment is becoming increasingly unstable, uncertain, and unpredictable. Unilateralism and protectionism are seriously undermining the international rules and order. All this is making China’s external development environment more severe and complex. Only by keenly grasping the strategic trends in the external environment can we determine targeted development approaches and strategic measures that will ensure we firmly maintain the initiative in development. We need to look ahead to see how evolving international developments will affect China and move proactively to optimize our economic layout in line with the evolving circumstances. We must resolutely handle our own affairs well, remain firmly committed to expanding high standard opening up, and take measures to stabilize employment, enterprises, markets, and expectations. By doing so, we will be able to effectively keep the fundamentals of the economy stable, accelerate the creation of a new development dynamic, and advance high-quality development across the board. We should also pay greater attention to coordinating development and security. We must ensure that high-quality development and greater security are mutually reinforcing through highly efficient governance and ensure that our new development dynamic is underpinned by a new security architecture.

Giving greater strategic prominence to developing new quality productive forces in line with local conditions

Developing new quality productive forces is integral to Chinese modernization. Today, global competition in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is intensifying. We must give greater strategic prominence to developing new quality productive forces in line with local conditions, allowing technological innovation to chart the way and taking the real economy as our foundation, so as to continue forging new growth drivers and strengths. Only in this way can we firmly retain the initiative for development in our own hands. To accelerate the development of a modern industrial system, we need to make moves to simultaneously transform and upgrade traditional industries, actively develop emerging industries, and make forward-looking plans for future industries. We need to refine our national innovation system, making sustained efforts to strengthen basic research and our capacity for original innovation, while working faster to secure breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, as well as frontier technologies, so as to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology. We should pursue the integrated development of education, science and technology, and talent to ensure we provide the foundational and strategic support needed for the development of new quality productive forces.

Regarding the people’s wellbeing as the fundamental value

The ultimate aim of development is to enhance people’s wellbeing. Chinese modernization is socialist modernization that delivers common prosperity for all. Therefore, we must ensure and improve the people’s wellbeing through development and steadily advance toward common prosperity. In the new era, people’s needs for a higher quality of life are growing, and their aspiration for a better life has become even stronger. To steadily increase incomes for people in both urban and rural areas, we need to conduct thorough research on effective measures for optimizing the regional layout, promoting coordinated regional development, consolidating and expanding our achievements in poverty alleviation, advancing all-around rural revitalization and integrated urban rural development, and accelerating agricultural and rural modernization. We should study ways to roll out a series of well-balanced, accessible public wellbeing policies with a focus on addressing the pressing difficulties and problems that concern people most. All policy measures must be concrete, practical, and truly effective and adhere to the principle of doing our utmost within our means.

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 12, 2025)