The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened its third plenary session in Beijing last month, marking a significant milestone in China’s ongoing efforts to further deepen reforms and opening up in comprehensive manner, and carry forward the Chinese modernization endeavors.
The 3rd plenum, through active and thorough deliberations, produced both Communique and Resolution calling for comprehensive reforms to shape the future development of China, and outlined the goal of building a socialist market economy over the next decade, identifying several key areas as priorities for reform and opening up. By 2035, China will have finished building a high-standard socialist market economy in all respects, further improved the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, generally modernized the system and capacity for governance, and basically realized socialist modernization. All these efforts will lay a solid foundation for building China into a great modern socialist country by the mid century.
The plenum emphasized the instrumental role comprehensive reforms and opening up can play to navigate through the headwinds and choppy waters. It introduced more than 360 reform measures as the phase-wise targets to be accomplished by 2029. Highlighting the CPC’s mandate on and commitment to improving and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, the Plenum aimed to push ahead with all-round economic reforms, enhance democratic governance, foster a strong socialist culture, improve people’s livelihoods and advance its global outreach. The Plenum pledged to improve the institutions and mechanisms for fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions, for promoting full integration between the real economy and the digital economy, for developing the service sector, for modernizing infrastructure, and for enhancing the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains.
The plenum announced that the Party and Government of China will bank on innovation, sustainable development and domestic consumption as the keys to the country’s future growth. It stressed that education, science and technology, and talent function are the basic and strategic underpinnings for Chinese modernization, and stated that the country must fully implement the strategy of invigorating China through science and education, the strategy of developing a quality workforce, and the innovation-driven development strategy, making coordinated efforts to promote integrated reform of institutions and mechanisms pertaining to education, science and technology, and human resources, and improve the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide to make key technological breakthroughs.
The plenary session also called for the promotion of green development through carbon reduction, pollution reduction, and improvement of environmental governance systems and low-carbon development mechanisms, in an effort to achieve the peak carbon by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, making the green economy a major long-term area of growth.
The moot touched upon stimulating cultural innovation and creativity, including drawing upon traditional Chinese culture, and reaffirmed that the Chinese modernization is about both material abundance and cultural-ethical enrichment, with the aim of promoting all-round social progress and full human development, noting that China must stay abreast of the latest trends in information technology, cultivate a vast pool of talented human capital in the field of culture, and ignite the cultural creativity of the entire nation.
On foreign policy front, it merits mentioning that the CPC session reiterated that the Chinese modernization is the modernization of peaceful development, declaring that China remains firmly committed to pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace and is dedicated to promoting the Belt and Road international cooperation. The Communiqué stated that by holding dear humanity’s shared values, China will pursue the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, and call for an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, so as to build better a community with a shared future for humanity.
The plenum provided the general principles, guidelines and roadmap on priorities and key areas for implementing reforms in all respects, together with building up a higher-standard open economy. The session adopted a holistic approach and the action plan to realize the Vision of 2035 in providing strong systematic and institutional support for setting China on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects, and moving toward national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization.
The Chinese modernization is essential to nation-building and national development. It covers a huge population of over 1.4 billion, a number that is larger than that of the developed countries combined. It works for shared prosperity for all, which means to meet the people’s growing expectations and aspirations for a better life, and promote equity, fairness and social justice. It aims at both material and cultural advancement, striving to improve not only people’s material well-being, but also the cultural enrichment. Chinese modernization promotes harmony between humanity and nature, responds to climate changes and environmental hazards, and ensures a sustainable development. It also commits to peaceful development, high-quality development, high-quality economic growth, cultural advancement, enabling security environment, and good institutional and capacity governance. It requires across the board reforms and opening up. Chinese modernization will make China great and provide more opportunities to the rest of the world.
The peaceful development of China is a blessing to the world, and China’s peaceful development path has set an exemplary example for other countries to learn and to follow. China’s pursuit of equality, mutual respect and win-win cooperation in international relations brings valuable lessons to the Global South and the developing countries in their development and seeking fair justice in international relations. China’s goal of sustainable development, common security and shared prosperity provides an alternative to the developing countries in their development endeavors. China’s strong political leadership, governance experience, social harmony, and policy consistency can be shared by other countries in their modernization drive.
The CPC 3rd plenum also has positive impact on the development of China-Pakistan relations. Pakistan, as an all-weather strategic cooperative partner of China, and an important country in South Asia, can certainly benefit and get dividends from China’s Three Major Initiatives and its modernization. The Belt & Road Initiative and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has tremendously shaped the energy and infrastructural landscapes of Pakistan. As the CPEC ushers in phase 2 development, the bilateral cooperation will further expand into agricultural modernization, industrial growth, mining and mineral resources exploration, science and information technology, educational and cultural partnership, transforming Pakistan’s socioeconomic development. The Global Development Initiative will bring more Chinese support into Pakistan in poverty alleviation endeavors, capacity building efforts and green transition. China shares aspirations with Pakistan in achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The Global Security Initiative calls for a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, featuring dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance and win-win outcomes over zero-sum games. In implementing the GSI, China will continue to lend political, diplomatic, economic and security help to Pakistan in countering the menace of terrorism, maintaining political stability and financial stabilization, fostering peace and security in the region. The plenum has showcased China’s strength of power and strong commitment to securing regional stability and world peace. The CPC Moot will further China’s collaboration with Pakistan into technology and space research, uplifting the bilateral friendship from the land, sea and air boundaries into space frontier.
The Global Civilization Initiative upholds the importance of cultural exchanges transcending estrangement, mutual learning transcending clashes, and peaceful coexistence transcending emotions of superiority. After the plenum, more Pakistani young students will go to China to learn modern agricultural technology and receive the IT and AI-related professional training from China. Academic exchanges, cultural interactions and people-to-people contacts will also keep a pacing growth.
Upholding that further deepening reforms in comprehensive manner is the most effective weapon to realize the Chinese modernization in all respects, and that the Three Major Initiatives are the gateways to build a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind, the CPC 3rd plenum has injected a new impetus to the development of China-Pakistan relations. The unbreakable brotherhood, deep-rooted historical bond and strategic partnership between the two countries will become stronger, closer and yield more fruitful results in the years to come. The rest can be left to implementation and delivery.
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