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18-24 February 2024

Weekly newsletter tracking high-level policy signals sent by China’s top leaders. For more information, visit About Five Things.

Commentary

China’s leaders were straight back to work after celebrating spring festival, holding a meeting of the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform on Monday 19 February.

Not only was the report of that the most widely circulated item in official media last week (Chinese report here; English here), but its importance was underlined with a commentary piece on the front page of Economic Daily that appeared the same day (report here; machine translation).

The messages of both pieces, however, were surprisingly muted. Though both highlighted the importance of reforms – stating, for example, that “speeding up establishing a foundational system for all-round innovation is an important measure for deepening structural scientific and technological reform and achieving greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology” – neither spelled out what should be done in anything but the vaguest of terms.

Indeed, while officials down the hierarchy should be “coordinating planning and utilization, refining policies, improving efficiency, [and] speeding up the establishment of a foundational system for all-round innovation”, they must “improve the system under which the CPC Central Committee exercises centralized, unified leadership over science and technology work”.

They must also use the “new system for mobilizing resources nationwide to make key technological breakthroughs”, and “focus on prominent issues concerning the coordination of entities, the allocation of elements, incentives and constraints as well as opening up and security”.

To test things, “pilot reform projects should be launched first to usher in any major reform”, but at the same “Systematic integration should also be strengthened, and the evaluation of the consistency of policy orientation should be conducted on newly launched measures and newly formulated institutions, so as to ensure consistent efforts to form synergies.”

It's hard not to interpret the overall message as anything “be careful”.

That could be because question marks have appeared over just about everything to do with China. As the country’s property crisis continues to unfold, can those who benefited most from the country’s economic leap forward expect to hold on to their gains? What are the prospects for its better educated young people? Can better ties with the Global South really offset deteriorating relations with the US and Europe?

Official backing may have helped China’s stock markets claw their way back in the last week or so, but can those gains be maintained? The same question can be asked of the renminbi. Only central bank support is holding it at 7.2 to the dollar. That figure, however, is already down nearly 3% since the start of 2024, and it is likely to come under further pressure through this year, especially if Donald Trump were to become US president again and deliver his on his promise to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 60%.

Faced with all these difficulties, can China’s leaders put together a coherent body of policies that will guide their country through its next stage of development?

If any Chinese body should be doing this, it is the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform. Xi explicitly established this agency at the start of his tenure as China’s top leader to draft and oversee the country’s top reform projects – initially as a leading group before it was subsequently upgraded to a commission.

Yet the account of its most recent meeting and the line argued in Economic Daily’s opinion piece point rather to a government that is struggling to come up with a concrete programme.

Perhaps answers will emerge at this year’s National People’s Congress meeting, due to open next week on 5 March. But the indications so far are otherwise, and that only further uncertainty lies ahead for those down the Chinese hierarchy.

Top-ranked articles for 18-24 February 2024
% = percentage of publications monitored carrying the article

1. Xi Jinping chairs fourth meeting of Central Committee for Comprehensive Deepening Reform
习近平主持召开中央全面深化改革委员会第四次会议
Xinhua News Agency, 19 February 2024
Chinese / Machine translation / 73%

2. CPC Central Committee issues “Regulations on the Inspection Work of the Communist Party of China”
中共中央印发《中国共产党巡视工作条例》
Xinhua News Agency, 21 February 2024
Chinese / Machine translation / 63%

3. Painting a new picture of Egret Island
擘画鹭岛新画卷
Xinhua News Agency, 21 February 2024
Chinese / Machine translation / 49%

4. CPC Central Committee issues “Regulations on the Study and Education of Party History”
中共中央印发《党史学习教育工作条例》
Xinhua News Agency, 19 February 2024
Chinese / Machine translation / 45%

5. Xi Jinping sends greeting cards to Muscatine High School students visiting China
习近平复信美国马斯卡廷中学访华代表团学生
Xinhua News Agency, 24 February 2024
Chinese / Machine translation / 44%

For more information about Five Things on China’s Leader’s Minds, visit About Five Things on China’s Leaders’ Minds or email fivethings@bilby.ai.