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On July 18, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded the Third Plenum of its 20th Party Congress. Held in a secured military conference hotel on the western outskirts of Beijing, proceedings closed with a ritual appearance by top leader Xi Jinping. Third Plenums, so called because they’re the third meeting of the party’s five-year cycles, cover economic policy; outcomes are scrutinized by cadres and global businesses alike.
On July 18, the Communist Party of China (CPC) concluded the third plenum of its 20th Party Congress. Held at a secure military convention hotel on Beijing’s western outskirts, the discussions ended with a ritual appearance by no-nonsense leader Xi Jinping. The III plenums, so called because they are the III assembly of the party’s five-year cycles, cover economic policy; The effects are under intense scrutiny from global executives and companies.
This third plenary session duly addressed the economy, but also broke with the previous one: when the conclave was not scheduled for the same time last autumn, the hypothesis revolved around delays due to partisan purges and economic headwinds. , we can now analyze speeches and documents to better understand Beijing’s economic thinking and assess how CCP institutions have behaved under Xi’s rule-circumvention regime.
One of the recurring slogans of this consultation is “reform and opening”, a term with a rich history but which today is invoked in cases very different from those of the time of its original creation. In 1978, Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping picked up the pieces after Mao Zedong’s chaotic rule. Deng sought to create solid situations for economic growth. He sidelined Maoist cadres who advocated “class struggle” and favored reformers who were willing to experiment economically. The opening speech of the Third Plenum of 1978 marked the turning point of Deng’s victory. With his Sichuan accent, speaking in the same military hotel, Deng called on China to open up to foreign capitalists and foreign production enterprises. This new policy of “reform and opening-up” has generated decades of growth, lifting the masses out of poverty. and to integrate the People’s Republic into the global economy.
While official meetings were abnormal under Mao, Deng sought a more normal rhythm. The terrors of the Cultural Revolution were waning; Executives found some solace in bureaucratic rituals. The emblematic occasion of the party calendar is the National Congress; Following the trend established after Mao’s death, it is celebrated in October of the years ending in 2 and 7. (Xi, for example, became general secretary of the CCP in 2012, won a second term in 2017 and an unprecedented third in 2022. )In a full congress, thousands of delegates gather in Beijing to ratify decisions concerning leadership and ideology, before the eyes of 99 million party members.
Once the Congress is over, subsidiary plenary sessions are convened for the next five years until the next full session. These provisional assemblies usually bring together a few hundred CCP bigwigs and determined experts and have traditionally been held five to nine times (most commonly seven) before the next part of the Congress, a decade later. Plenums cover party nominations (first plenum), workers’ governing body (moment), economic reform (third), party-building activities (fourth), progression of a new five-year plan (fifth) , the control of culture and history (sixth). . and a final summary (seventh) before the next Congress. Each assembly also resolves the delicate partisan issues that arise in the meantime. Since the second plenum in early 2023, several members of Xi’s leadership team (including the defense and foreign ministers) have disappeared into the CCP’s disciplinary apparatus, caught up in corruption and other indiscretions. During this plenary session, his destiny was final. Some criminals, disenfranchised from their party club, now face trial for criminality. Others have come out more lenient: Last week, former Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who had been absent for a year, officially lost his membership in the elite Central Committee. But in an official document he maintained the nickname “comrade,” a degradation without general shame. In the end, these individual plots matter less than the overall tone: the “party line” and the “main tune” of propaganda. In previous times, plenary topics reflected more collective leadership. Today, this schedule largely follows Xi’s own will.
Ever since Deng’s breakthrough in 1978 set the tone, observers have eagerly watched the Third Plenaries for replacement omens. The effects have varied. During the 1980s, a Third Plenum expanded economic reforms from the countryside to the cities, but as inflation rose, the following Third Plenum strengthened state wage controls and capped commodity prices. After the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989 froze political reforms, the 1993 Third Plenum signaled that economic reforms would continue: the communiqué left rhetorical space for capitalism by advocating a “socialist market economy. “: the dismantling of many public corporations and the end of the “iron rice bowl” of social security for more than 20 million people. In retrospect, the Third Plenums of 2003 and 2008 were sheer nonsense: missed opportunities to update China’s style of expansion and rectify an undisciplined (and rarely greedy) party apparatus.
When Xi took power in 2012, his colleagues gave him the mandate to ensure the CCP’s long term by controlling corruption and implementing structural reforms. Xi’s first Third Plenum as leader (in November 2013) raised high expectations. The conclave announced big changes: a plan to end the one-child policy and a determination to let market forces play a “decisive” role in the economy. Outside observers, squinting to see China’s economic modernization moving toward convergence with the West, hailed the plenum as a masterstroke and Xi as an ambitious “reformer. “
The one-child policy was abandoned after several years. But the CCP deteriorated in the face of market mechanisms after Chinese inventories fell in 2015, threatening the stability of the economy as a whole. The State reacted with difficult measures: sales of difficult stocks and arrests of financial journalists. At the same time, partisan establishments have become more visual in daily life and have acted more assertively toward personal enterprises. The repressive measures have trapped human rights lawyers and journalists; Government regulators have humiliated China’s burgeoning technology sector. Politics took priority – and – over the economy.
In 2018, Xi abolished term limits on the presidency of the People’s Republic, a position he held alongside the CCP’s more vital role as general secretary. Although the position is a name of state (technically outside of bureaucracy and the party’s calendar), the move appears to have disrupted the normal rhythms of party politics. The third plenary session of 2018 took position early, in February instead of in autumn. Unusually, this assembly focused on the problems of the workers’ body rather than the economic problems.
Today, a look back at Xi’s Third Inaugural Plenum in 2013 shows the limits of predictions based on this or any other party meeting. Some plans have been implemented. In other cases, unforeseen occasions may have overturned the most productive intentions. But whatever the rhetoric, more than a decade later, the truth tends towards more state intervention in the economy than less intervention. Xi has been a reformist, although rarely in the direction that Western observers would have expected. Since Xi took the force and held his inaugural third plenum as scheduled, the next two third plenums have been held outdoors in the same previous season. Xi is now in power indefinitely, having amassed more official titles and non-public influence than any leader since Mao.
At the just-concluded third plenum, Xi and his comrades affirmed the expected themes with a series of slogans, some of which – such as “reform and opening up” and “modernization with Chinese characteristics” – reflected Deng’s legacy. The documents emphasize security and, although they call for “high-quality development” in key sectors, such as green technologies and semiconductors, are considered very important for long-term growth. Some recurring issues resurfaced after being discussed in the previous third plenary session, but were never addressed.
In 2003 and 2013, press releases advised an asset tax to increase local government revenues for health and welfare expenditures, but no comprehensive policy has borne fruit. Today, a crumbling real estate sector threatens to plunge into a debt crisis for local governments. and the economy as a whole. In 2024, the CCP now seems more lukewarm on market forces than it did in 2013, echoing the 1993 slogan of a “socialist market economy” while calling for “order in the market” and lightly mentioning the personal sector.
Even in 1978, significant political campaigning was carried out behind the scenes before Deng’s third inaugural plenum. In Deng’s opening speech at the end of the session, although he suggested his comrades to “liberate [their] thinking” and “look to the future,” he did not mention the word “reform and opening up,” but instead cited Lenin and praised to Mao. He framed his new projects in the language of Mao, announcing that to pursue true Marxism, cadres will have to “seek the fact in the facts. ” Deng’s call for a foreign investment law came last on a list of spending covering non-unusual issues such as forestry, factories and labor. The radical effects of Deng’s reforms have only become evident over time, through movements rather than words.
This might have been the case at the 2013 Third Plenary, when Xi formulated his ambitions in the language of his immediate predecessors. Regardless of what is said on the podium, Chinese policymaking ultimately depends as much – if not more – on personalities and the tension of the occasions as it does on flagship party or state meetings.
This year’s Third Arrhythmic Plenum has so far produced a 5,000-word communiqué and a “decision” document, as well as a large number of documents, comments and clarifications to elucidate the will of the CCP. They welcome Xi’s “comprehensively in-depth reforms” but so far offer few details. Whatever the long-term Chinese politics and economy, Xi’s central role in both spaces is assured.
Nick Frisch is a Resident Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project.
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