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Hello and welcome to the panel discussion of World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
Top Chinese leaders have adopted recommendations for the country's 15th Five-Year Plan during the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
The plan will guide China's economic and social development from 2026 to 2030.
According to the session's communique, the Blueprint will emphasize high-quality growth innovation, green development, modern industry, national security and a better education and healthcare.
Senior officials say the next five years will be crucial for laying a solid foundation for China's long-term development.
In this edition of the program, we will take a look at how China envisions its development for the next five years, as the country is faced with both opportunities and challenges.
To listen to this episode again or to catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching World Today.
So joining us now on the line are Li Lun, assistant professor of economics with Peking University.
Dylan Lo, associate professor from public policy and a global affairs program, Nanyang Technological University, and Yao Shujian Chang Kong, Professor of Economics and Deputy Director of the Department of Social Sciences Chongqing University.
So, thank you very much for joining us today, gentlemen.
Professor Li Lun, to start with you, the meetings communicate that over the next five years, China aims to make significant advancements in high-quality development, in Scientech self-reliance and strength, and breakthrough in deepening reform, among other things.
Over a longer term.
The communique has repeated a more specific goal that China aims to achieve a per capita GDP similar to a moderately developed country by 2035.
I guess in practice that particular goal would require China's per capita GDP to more than double from the 2024 level.
So to achieve that goal over the longer term, what do you make of the importance of China's economic and social development over the next five years?
Yeah, so you're absolutely right that to achieve that goal, I think you need to at least double our GDP per capita.
So right now our GDP per capita is around 13 to 14,000 US dollars.
So to become a moderately developed country, you need at least 22,000.
So but by 2035, you know, the other countries will grow as well.
So I think a rough estimate is that we need to double our GDP per capita for the next 10 years.
So how do we achieve that?
I think the most important thing is, of course, productivity growth.
So, whether we're investing in RD, in education, in science and development, in advanced manufacturing, in high-tech sectors, in AI, These all needs to contribute to the total factor productivity, meaning that for any given level of capital and labor input, we need to be able to make more goods and products and also provide more valuable services.
So how do we achieve that?
We're already seeing some of that in data.
For example, in terms of industrial upgrading.
We're seeing a lot of that in the data as well.
So for the first nine months of 2025, we're seeing that the equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing are growing for almost 10 year on year.
So this is much higher than the overall growth for industrial output, which is at 6%.
So I think in the future, we're going to be seeing more and more growth in terms of, for example, humanoid robots, in terms of AI, in terms of smart equipment, EVs and so on.
So that's, I think, one very important driver for future growth.
Another important driver is how to stimulate domestic demand as well as the service sector.
Because service sector.
I think it's especially going to be more important in the future, because it not only provides jobs, it also provides a very high disposable income to people and which would further stimulate people to spend money in other areas.
So how do we basically achieve that?
I think it definitely needs a lot of reform, a lot of policy.
But I'm very optimistic that we are able to achieve that goal over the next 10 years.
Your point is well taken.
So Professor Yao Shujie, going to you.
I mean for the 14th five-year plan ending this year.
China pledges that its economic growth would reach a reasonable range, but there is no quantitative target for actual GDP growth.
So for the next five years.
How do you think China should have managed the relationship between statistical level economic growth and the quality of the growth?
Yes, China is now coming to a higher level of economic development.
Any significant advance requires a lot of concerted effort, not only to make the real growth in the economy so that people can benefit as the economy expands, not only the quality of life of the people, but also the so-called equality among the different regions, different clusters of the population, different professions and so on and so forth.
This we consider to the so-called quality of growth and also the environmental improvement.
I think the concerted effort in this different aspect requires a lot of intensive input, not only investment, but also the improvement of management system, not only for the government, the community and also the society.
Now for the statistical growth, it is a real growth in terms of the quantity.
For example, like agricultural output, industrial output, the services and so on, and also export and technological innovation, real investment.
Now, every aspect contributed to the overall growth of the country's economy.
If you look back over the last five years, China has endured the COVID-19 and decoupled pretty well, and we aim to by the end of this year, the fulfillment of the 14th Five-Year Plan will be successfully met.
But we made this plan without ease.
Actually, we made this plan with lots of difficulties and challenges.
So we look ahead for the next five years.
The constraints and also the challenges are not going to diminish.
It's going to increase, intensify over time.
So it means that, on the one hand, the KOMNIC is very ambitious to achieve the doubling, the middle way of the doubling of per capita GDP by 2035.
But the 15-5 years plan is a critical period.
We have to maintain a reasonable growth, something like 5 or at least 45, although it doesn't actually quantify at this stage and this growth have to be coupled with the improvement of the environment, with the improvement of technology, with the improvement of people's living standard and also people's happiness.
So it is a very critical five-year period.
So you asked a good question.
How about the statistical development and also the quality of development?
Yes, we are aiming to have both of the quantity and the quality. uh but again we have a very good surely foundation and also experience for the 47 years of opening up an economy reform i think not only the central government the people have every confidence like with hard effort we should be able to meet the 15th five-year plan which set the surely foundation for achieving the moderate uh you know modernization the moderate you know advanced or developed countries level uh pre-captured gdp or this current level something like over 20 000 uh us dollar and with inflation maybe 25 000 or 26 000 us dollar uh you know by 2035 and in 2030 i think we should be able to manage something like 20 000 us dollars uh in column price so this is the concept thing that we are aiming for Dr. Lo, the communique says China should build a modernized industrial system and reinforce the foundations of the real economy.
What do you make of the role played by the manufacturing industry in these efforts?
Right.
We cannot talk about China's economy without talking about manufacturing base, because in China it is the backbone of the real economy.
And what does China has that many other countries does not?
It is industrial manufacturing capacity and power.
No one does scale, no one does volume across a wide range of products like China does.
So they're quite rightly and, I think, adeptly tapping on expanding and reforming how the next lap of growth should and would look like.
It is not only also restrained within the economy.
I think it's quite clear from the communique that it is also a foundation of national power, because this is clearly associated with its drive to achieve technological, scientific self-reliance and manufacturing.
Advanced manufacturing, modernized industrial system is at the heart of it.
I think this entails a couple of things that need to happen.
And I think signals are sent quite clearly from the statement that was released.
The next lap, its emphasis will be placed much more on quality over just a sure volume.
Of course, you can have both.
Ideally, you want to have both.
You want both high quality and the mess that you can bring to bear with what you already have the industrial capacity and manufacturing power and capacity that you already have.
So to move up to the global value chain and to earlier panelists have already spoken about this to double its per capital GDP, it needs to move on much quicker, much more rapidly, into mastering advanced high-tech, complex and perhaps even products or areas that are not yet existing today.
I think the signal that I got was China wants to be at the forefront of any frontier products and frontier technology because it has all the right ingredients, It has the superstructure, so to speak, with its massive advanced, highly developed manufacturing capability to take advantage of that to make the first mover advantage in whatever new product areas there are.
Moving up on the scale of quality, pivoting and emphasizing a little bit more on the quality, on advanced products, more than just share volume, even though the share volume part will remain and to ensure, I think, the other point, national resilience against supply chain shocks.
This is where the sort of geopolitical element comes in as well, because in this move to further advance its manufacturing capabilities it's not purely entirely done for domestic economic growth.
Of course, a key driver is that.
But it is done with the geopolitical context in mind, where countries turn more protectionist, where China, I think, has already experienced how other powers are prepared to cut of particular products from China in its view to stymie its growth in particular areas.
The move then, and the desire, the urgency to further its industrial upgrading, to further its manufacturing capabilities, is that much more urgent.
And that's why I said earlier that this move has to be seen in tandem with its parallel move to achieving self-sufficiency and resilience as well.
So, Dr Li Lun.
Currently, we know a focal point for the Chinese policymakers is to is to transform China into a high-end manufacturer, with advanced manufacturing playing a leading role in this country's industrial system.
As we can read from the meetings communicated.
So what opportunities does China's efforts in this regard bring to the rest of the world?
Yeah, so I think, similar to you, know how China participated in terms of through the Belt and Road Initiative to other countries' infrastructure construction.
I think as China climb up the ladder in terms of advanced manufacturing, it can also have a very big spillover effect for other countries.
So when we basically scale up our production in terms of our EVs, in batteries, in these AI-powered robots and other high-tech equipment that we may not have imagined yet, when we basically scale up the production and lower the cost of these products, basically we can accelerate and distribute these products to other countries and nations and basically help other countries or nations build up their supply chain and help them to accelerate their innovation process.
So, for example, as far as I know, a lot of countries are using the humanoid robots manufactured by Unitree for their own scientific research, because the Unitrix robot only provides a hardware where you can program your own software.
So similar things will happen to EV and batteries.
So, instead of building an entire EV factory on its own that covers all the procedures, you can, for example, design your exterior and let the Chinese suppliers provide the batteries and other equipment, and so on and so forth.
And I do think globalization is a process that can't be reversed.
So our supply chain is becoming more and more interdependent between China and the rest of the world.
So all of these specialized components and services and all of these experiences from China is definitely going to help other region, basically through the spillover of the knowledge you know learning, transferring of the technology or, you know, learning of the know-how you know also help, you know, the foreign small and medium enterprises in terms of their startups, in terms of their industrial system, in terms of software and materials.
So I think these are all areas where Chinese firms can help other governments or other entities in other regions to also increase their productivity along the process.
Professor Yao domestically, in terms of ensuring ample, high-quality employment which, according to the meetings communicate, represents a very important aspect of people's welfare, of people's well-being.
Do you think the development of advanced manufacturing here in China is going to provide enough job opportunities for this country's people?
And in the meantime, what about China's services industry, in terms of this sector's future potential in job creation?
Yeah, advanced manufacturing usually is technology and capital intensive.
It's not necessarily labor intensive.
So the more we produce, maybe the less we actually employ.
For example, like the modern EV vehicle production, it requires fewer and fewer people because it's based on automation, based on low bus and other, you know, modularized technology.
There is a dilemma here.
On the one hand, you moved on the technological ladder and it become more and more technological and capital intensive and labor less intensive.
But I think the industrial and the service and the labor market have to work together, because the more you produce, the more you require people for services.
So labor training, job skill training, diversifying traditional employment into new employment, for example, like modern services, production services.
This is a very important issue for the next five years.
As we move from the lower advanced to the higher advanced manufacturing, We have to prepare that more and more people are moving out of the traditional manufacturing industries towards the modern service sector.
In this transition in order to create more jobs, more opportunity for employment.
I think we have to look at the macro level, top-down and also bottom-up approach.
The top-down approach to see the trend of which area will create more jobs, where it can have lucrative employment, that people get a job and also have good return.
On the other hand, you have to look at the job market, the labor market, the people skill.
Are they quickly adapted to the new employment situation environment?
If not, then you have to have this on-job training and government improve government efficiency to quickly identify Where is the bottleneck.
Where is the employment mismatch?
Where they can create more jobs and where the people have to be moving out?
So it is a fairly complicated systematic system.
It's not like saying, okay, I want more jobs, then you have more jobs.
You have to create jobs.
You have to create income-gaining jobs so that people not only get the job, but also they have good, decent income.
So this also requires a lot of effort, not only for the manufacturer, for the people who provide a job in the service sector, but also for the local government, for the labour market to become more flexible, including rural-urban migration, the restriction on the hukou system, and also accommodation and housing schooling, hospital all these kinds of things have to be combined.
So Dr Lo shifting gears a little bit, we know.
The communique also says that China should achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology and steer the development of new quality productive forces.
So, in your opinion, how can tech innovation generate new sources of economic productivity and growth for the Chinese economy?
I think that the communique signals to think very clearly policy intent and policy belief.
Policy intent, meaning that there are certain plans afoot, and in many ways, the statement represents a blueprint for how you will get there and the belief that tech innovation can will be this decisive new source of productivity and growth.
The emphasis, or rather reinforcement or re-emphasis of new quality productive forces, I think has become a core part of economic philosophy and it's a modus operandi.
The way that I think China wants to make the next leap into achieving its ambitious goals in 2035.
Five is to try to get not only more output from the same inputs and I think our previous panelists have already spoken about some of the problems and limitations with capital, labor and people and so forth.
New quality productive forces is the one that, in theory ideally, will be able to extract greater productivity from what the existing infrastructure, from what the existing resources that China has, replacing volume with high quality and with velocities.
Not just cheap labor, not just cheap products, but algorithms, advanced materials.
So, the way I see it, there are three things that I see how this could be done, which is the first part I really hinted to earlier, which is optimizing, increasing efficiencies.
Expanded move towards applying cutting edge technology.
The things that China is very big in artificial intelligence, big data, things that are already there and you expand, you double down.
Another example, China is a leader quite clearly in the energy sector.
It was mentioned earlier by panelists EVs sort of panels.
You can easily translate those talent, capital and the know-how that you already built into adjacent domains.
That also is part of this energy frontier technology, energy grids, smart grids, carbon capture technologies and so forth.
The second part of it is creating new frontiers.
With the new high-quality productive forces.
You want to be able to be positioned to take advantage of the next leap in technology quantum computing.
It's quite clear that there is this move towards investing more, doing more, generative AI.
China is already a leader there.
I think there's scope for it to be expanded further.
So it's not just doubling down on the things that China is already doing.
That is at the cutting edge, but also in having targeted sectoral domains that China can be a true game changer.
And The final part, which I actually mentioned earlier in my answer to the earlier question, is that geopolitics also inform a lot of the new quality productive push and in its move contained in a lot of statements in the joint communique.
Self-reliance mentioned earlier in science and technology, in a large part is driven by what it sees as a conflict with the United States and the risk of decoupling truly manifesting.
That move to double down on high-quality productive forces and self-reliance in the broader sense is also an acknowledgement of the challenges, even though, of course, the country was not named.
It is essentially a nationwide innovation mobilization, the way I see it uh, that recognizes particular key areas.
So self-reliance in science and technology is not just and i repeat this again because i think it's important to repeat, it's not simply just for domestic growth and purely in narrow pursuit of domestic growth.
In many ways it's also a geopolitical shield, if you will, to protect it against the waves of uncertainty of supply chains, and in great power rather.
Yeah, it is also about ensuring the economic security of China, I guess.
Well, your point's well taken and let's take a very short break here and coming back, our discussion will continue.
Stay tuned.
You're back with World Today, I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
Today we are talking about China's next five-year plan, as top Chinese leaders have adopted recommendations for the blueprint.
Joining our discussion Li Lun, Assistant Professor of Economics with Peking University, Dylan Lo, Associate Professor from Public Policy and the Global Affairs Program, Nanyang Technological University.
And Yao Shujie, Chang Kong, Professor of Economics and Deputy Director of the Department of Social Sciences, Chongqing University.
So Dr Li Lun going back to you in order to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in terms of science and technology?
How should China's education field, China's research institutes and the industries work with one another?
Yeah, so I think that's a very, very good question in terms of, you know, to achieve greater self-reliance and strength.
I think the key part, or the crucial component of that is to have a technology that's unique, to have something that's advanced and to basically have all the patents, have all the business models and have basically the bridge between the several sectors.
So in China we already have a lot of you know masters and PhD students being educated, graduated every year.
And a lot of them are in science, engineering, agricultural medicine areas.
So this is very good news that you know we have a lot of STEM major graduates every year how to basically transform these newly graduates in terms of higher productivity or more innovation.
I think one effort is that we need to establish a lot of joint labs in terms of having some of the PhDs either doing their last couple of years in industry or doing a postdoc that's co-founded by an industry partner and a university.
We need to have some sort of collaboration between schools and other, for example, sectors to train better engineers and better problem solvers.
So I think these are very important.
Also, I think something that's oftentimes overlooked or not paying enough attention is that we still have to collaborate with the rest of the world.
That's both in terms of publishing research results, research papers, but also exploring the business models that can allow Chinese researchers and Chinese institutes to kind of find a way that's suitable for our stage.
One successful example is for Chinese biotech companies.
For example, we are seeing that outlicensing has become a very common model for Chinese drug firms.
Basically what it does is that it's selling very early stage drug candidates to global partners, usually very big pharmas, so that we don't have to go through all the risk and all the funding problem in order to make a drug candidate into a marketable drug.
But we can focus on, For example, the early stage, exploration stage of the drug innovation and basically participate with some of the multinationals so that in one hand we kind of develop our own strength and technology and all the know-how to grow some of the big pharma of ourselves in the future.
But on the other hand, I think it also is a mutually beneficial business model that can also help the other countries and other nations.
And, for example, humankind as well, because the new drugs can benefit all the patients across the globe.
So I think similar business models and explorations.
In terms of these, global collaboration is also very important.
Then, with regard to expanding domestic demand in China, Prof Yao, the communique says China should closely combine investment in Objects with investment in people.
What is your understanding?
I have read about this analysis by Citigroup, for example, and according to, The Chinese government actually needs to invest 20 trillion yuan, or more than 28 trillion US dollars, over the next five years to really address this imbalance between supply and demand in the Chinese economy.
What is your take on this?
Yes, if you look at the Chinese economy and society, it comes to a point that we see a lot of advancement in terms of materials and the objects, for example, like the transportation system, the housing, construction sector.
You know the physical infrastructure everywhere, especially the modern transportation sector, which is now uh, even better in, in my view, than some of the advanced economy.
But you will look at the living standard.
You look at the difficulties that people are still facing in your daily life is somewhat different from the hardware, the so-called objects or the physical output that we put in place.
For example, people with children, people about to get married and also to have family.
They are facing a lot of challenges which, as a person myself, I have living experience in the West and also living in China nowadays I see that there are lots of things that we need to improve.
For example, the family spends lots of money on children and children have to work so hard from the very morning to the evening.
Is it going to real train the people?
Can we have a second thought on how the system is working?
And also the people from the primary school to the secondary school the selection process, the anxiety of the parents.
That's one issue.
The other issue is the healthcare.
I mean, lots of good hospitals are located in the metropolitan area, but at the medium and small city the hospital quality either it is lower or people don't have much trust.
In a good hospital, you have a long queue, But the lower quality hospital, there are fewer patients.
So how can we actually equalize and overall improve the hospital system uh, the efficiency, uh all these kinds of things?
You know, it is um fairly different from what we thought in the high speed train, easy convenience of air transport and also the highway modernization.
Even underground transportation now is fairly modernized.
So we certainly have a gap.
How can we focus on the people from a bottom-up approach?
Everything we do, we have to think how we improve people's lives.
And by improving the people's lives.
It should be counted as GDP rather than not being counted as GDP.
So how we do the statistics, how we measure the social welfare These kinds of ideas have to be, you know, have to be sought.
In the next five years' plan.
I think I'm very pleased that the central committee have recognized this that we should invest not only in the objects but invest in the people, but how we understand invest in the people.
This is a very critical issue.
We have to really understand it in full and how we actually implemented in policy action And where we should invest for the people.
It is a system investment, some sort of improvement of the management system, or we invest, let's say, in school, in hospital, in the teachers, in the doctors, or in the terms of improvement of local government efficiency, changing their mindset of how to service the people better, and invest in the system that can have more efficient services to our people.
And if we want to become an advanced developed economy, I think this is probably the so-called bottleneck that we have to break through.
So, Dr Lo, how could China's goal in terms of building a unified national market help with the country's task in terms of boosting consumer spending?
And, in your understanding, what are the main obstacles, the main barriers and choking points for building a unified market here in China?
I think you're quite right and a very good question as well.
Unified national market is indeed a critical piece of its strategy to boost consumption, and it does address the long-standing issues of fragmentation that has historically plagued China, in terms of not only its economy, but in the social domain as well.
The way I see how a unified national market can boost consumption is that it reduces certain costs and it increases choice.
When you bring together what was previously fragmented places, centers of production, centers of consumption, concentrated places of wealth, and you try to unify them, you create economies of scale.
And rather than producing regionally, as some industries still do.
If you were to create a coherent entity and in theory allow for mass production for mass consumption, in theory you can have lower consumer prices.
That would stimulate more spending.
At the same time, when you remove certain regional protectionist barriers which is one of the choking points as well then it means that companies must compete.
You compete or you die.
And you force companies to ideally innovate or produce higher quality products.
Of course, the reverse can be true.
You force companies to reduce, cut prices and have a race to the bottom, and you need to have some safeguards for that as well.
It is a much more efficient way in which resources flow as well if, in theory, you can create a coherent, unified single national market.
That would mean that data land capital, labor can flow much more freely across provincial borders.
You can allocate in theory capital much more effectively and identify which areas are much more productive.
And in many ways, it's also about information.
You know which areas need more support and which areas do not do so.
Logistics costs, I think that's quite straightforward as well.
If you have some sort of standardized regime, checking regime on each of these previously more protectionist barriers, so to speak, you lower supply chain costs and you enable the full potential of one unified population to be unleashed quite significantly.
Now, that is what exists in an ideal state.
There are many obstacles, I think, and it will take quite a bit of time to completely ameliorate or mitigate some of these One of which is regional protectionism still exists.
If not directly then indirectly.
Where you have stand local standards, local certifications, local requirements, where you need pre-existing one see your relationships.
That's already built there.
That makes an outsider coming into your particular region or a province difficult to set up shop.
That remains and I think that a lot of work and effort will need to be done to remove these invisible walls or invisible barriers.
I think that the hukou system I think this is well known is by no means novel needs to be rethought or changed or tweaked or modified such that it can help in a truly realization of the unified national markets.
This is not easy to do.
I mean, the problems are well known with the current hukou system.
While there are tentative steps being made.
Perhaps this calls for a stronger, more sustained reform towards how social mobility works.
I think the incentive system also can change with regards to local cadres and how they assess.
I think there has already been very positive steps made, for example, not just being fixated on GDP growth itself, but also in terms of environmental matrix.
If somehow that unified national market metric or benchmark, can also be factored into KPIs, I think, in its evaluation system, this creates incentives for cooperation.
Rather than viewing different regions, in very stark competitive terms.
A final point I want to make is that, while this unified national market has, when realised, has very clear benefits for economic growth, it's also, at the same time, I think, making a social statement right, because there are particular areas which are traditionally, politically and economically, the powerhouses in China.
This signal that you send, that I want to create a unified national market, seems to me also to be signaling that, While their traditional position will remain, but at least the distribution of growth, of maybe even resources and political power is more equitable.
And I think that also helps in the broad overall reform strategies that China has put in place.
So, Dr Li Lun, what do you make of the relationship between sparking consumer spending, on one hand, and stimulating growth for high-tech industries, on the other hand?
Does supporting the high-tech industry tech innovation mean that the Chinese government will have fewer resources to be directed at stimulating consumer spending?
Or would you say it's quite the opposite that, for example, the development of high-tech industry will in return spur consumer spending?
Yeah, so I think that's a very good question, and probably a lot of your listeners are going to have similar doubts or concerns about this.
So I think The short answer is no.
I think stimulating or supporting the high-tech industries will not prevent the government help or to stimulate consumer spending, especially in the long term.
Because, you know, I think the main reason is that the high tech industry basically redefines what the products are and what consumers can spend money on.
I think EV is a very good example.
So it's not a zero sum game, right?
These improvements in high tech technology is going to upgrade the products that we can buy.
For example, in the future maybe we'll have cheaper and better phones and we'll have new products or household robots that we have never, ever imagined before.
And those are going to come into people's everyday basket of consumption.
So that's one aspect of why that statement is is not accurate.
And another is that we do need fiscal power or taxation revenue for the government to provide more stimulus spending program, for example the trading program or the other consumption coupons.
These high-tech industries are future growth drivers and we do need them to provide taxation for the government to fund these future programs.
I do think that depending on short-term coupons or discounts can only front load some of the sales, meaning that people are simply moving the future purchases upfront to today.
It's not a, people can't change their phone every day, right?
So we need something more sustainable, something stronger to kind of support longer-term growth.
And what would those policies be?
I think some of them would include supports to childcare healthcare, as Professor Yao has mentioned, and also in terms of social insurance.
And the purpose of those programs is to remove people's doubts and boost their confidence when they're about to spend money.
We don't want them to worry about discretionary spending in terms of taking care of their kid or worrying that the elderly may get sick.
So they basically have some of the money or resources saved up to prepare for a rainy day.
So we want to kind of provide better support to remove some of that concerns.
And finally, in terms of spillover, having advanced manufacturing can basically release some of the employment into service sector and actually basically provide a better service to the society.
It's similar to how agriculture used to require a lot of people in participation to prepare for the food.
But gradually, as technology advances, we need fewer and fewer people into the sector.
So I think in the future, the manufacturing sector will be very similar to agriculture.
Fewer people is going to produce more goods so that we can have also at a cheaper price.
So we can have a greater population enjoying the cheaper products and also doing the other things that enjoy doing in the future.
Actually talking about agricultural sector.
Professor Yao we know the community case says China should accelerate agricultural modernization and advance all-round rural revitalization.
We know, China launched its rural revitalization strategy in 2017 and since then, it has implemented a series of targeted policies or initiatives to drive rural development and improve the the living standards in rural communities.
So how do you think rural development will benefit the Chinese economy and society in return over the next five years?
Yes, from the very top level.
Socialist modernization cannot be fully achieved without modernizing the rural and agricultural sector, without quickly improving the living standard of the farmers.
LULU revitalization is an important component of the development goal of 2035.
The revitalization is to consolidate the Council of Poverty Eradication that was achieved in 2020.
And this rural revitalization program, is a consolidation of the process, continue to improve the quality of life and also the agricultural sector to be modernized, so that the agricultural sector will become more productive, uh become more profitable for the farmers and also the countryside the rural area will become a modernized uh you know living sector not only for the local rural residents but in the future probably It will be also suitable for some people retired from the urban sector to go back to the rural society.
Rural to urban migration is still in a large scale.
Every year we have about nearly 300 million people who are moving from one place to another.
And most of these migrants, they are rural people.
So there are lots of things that need to be done in order to revitalize the rural area.
First of all, how to accommodate the floating population from the countryside to the local township and also the metropolitan large city areas is one thing.
So you have this trend.
The urbanization rate is going to increase steadily.
Probably by about one percentage point.
And secondly, I think, the agricultural sector.
Traditionally we use a lot of labor with a lot of very low quality input material into the agricultural sector, but in the future actually in the past or over the last few decades and you will continue into the next stage is to modernize the agricultural sector and not only reduce the physical labor input but also improve the kinds of agricultural yield per hectare of output, using lots of modern input and also automation machinery and so on and so forth.
Now for the countryside, the actual living space, how we actually construct the modernized village to improve the living environment and also the ecosystem, so that in the future the countryside will become a more amicable area for people wish to live, not only to accommodate a large number of farmers who live in the city, but also there will be a reverse migration from the urban to the rural area just to seek for higher quality of living environment.
And one aspect of rural revitalization is to build a very beautiful countryside.
And I think relevant to that is that The meetings communicate says that China should accelerate the green transition across the board in efforts to build a beautiful China.
So Dr Lo.
Currently, China is already the global leader in EVs or solar panel, wind turbine, these sorts of green technologies.
From the perspective of green industries, what do you make of the new opportunities that could be generated by China's continued green transition over the next five years?
Thank you.
Another very good question.
I think, first of all, I have to applaud the move towards focusing on the green transition as well, because this is high on the agenda for many countries around the world, big and small.
I think there are plenty of opportunities because obviously China is not doing this only because of altruistic reasons for the rest of the world, because there are certain economic benefits to be had with its own green strategies.
First, it can tap on and I think it will be able to deploy next generation technological system and also benefit from it in the way that we see China benefiting by being a leader in EVs, by being a leader in solar panels.
So one of the areas I think is energy storage systems.
China is already one of the leaders in this segment, and I think that there's potential for mobile, especially mobile energy storage systems to play a much more consequential and important role, as many countries most countries are on track and want to achieve their net neutral carbon zero goals.
I mentioned this earlier, actually one of the questions you asked.
I think the move towards smart grid digital energy is also one of the key areas that I'll watch out for.
And I think there's a lot of research.
My esteemed colleagues mentioned about the educational system where you have so many people with PhDs.
There's a lot of talent.
At the same time, China is actively recruiting some of the best and brightest back to China as well.
And this will only have a positive spillover effect in its efforts to establish itself as a leader not just in narrow domains, as they are now in EVs and solar panels, but widely, energy storage systems, smart grids.
The other ones that I look at and see great potential is in advanced nuclear reactors.
Many countries, including Singapore, where I am, is exploring and thinking of small modular reactors that are not your traditional nuclear power plants.
But because of advancement in these areas, it means that the risks of any sort of nuclear fallout is much more contained.
And as these countries, including Singapore, are seriously thinking about these more advanced safer, smaller modular reactors, there is certainly a role to play because the infrastructure, because the talent and the know-how is already there.
So, while there are very clear economic domestic reasons for China to develop further, in advancing this beautiful China goal and strategy there will be some positive benefits quite a lot actually for regional countries.
The key friction I see is that, in the process of developing and creating and investing in these sectors, other actors, other countries in different parts of the world may feel challenged, especially when China brings its own industrial might and manufacturing capacity to bear in these areas and it may crowd out regional players that have similar aims as well, and something that I think we have to await and see how this eventually plays out.
So when we talk about China's next five-year plan, one thing we have to mention is that Western policies tend to work on election cycles, but in China, policymaking operates on planning cycles.
So, finally and briefly, Dr Li Lun, what do you think is the strength of this particular planning system in China?
Yeah.
So a lot of observers or commentators think that you know the Chinese pattern, the Chinese mode is, you know, planning versus.
You know the Western pattern mode is free markets.
So I don't think China versus the Western world is a market versus planning per se.
I do think the advantage of this planning is that it provides a very credible multiple year commitment.
So promise is made, promise is kept.
It's that of a on again, off again, oftentimes whimsical policymaking.
So these credible plans.
It has certain level of seriousness and also have, For example, a task allocation or follow through process, because the plans are usually very specific in terms of setting targets for each sector and also for each province, for each municipal, so it's very easy to coordinate.
And they're not very rigid either, because there's room for mid-course correction in the middle, because there's going to be annual work reports and mid-term reports and so on.
So finally, I'd like to say that these planning also boost confidence for international investors, because they know that the Chinese government would not easily change its course of development over the next five years.
So this provides some guidance for investors. both foreign and domestically as well.
Well, a big thank you to our panelists, Dr Li Lun, joining us, from Peking University, and Dr Dylan Lo from Nanyang Technological University and Professor Yao Shujian from Chongqing University.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
I'm Dinghan in Beijing.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
