Opinion: What the Third Plenum means for China's next decade
January 09, 2014 | BY
clpstaffXi's solution to China's many challenges seems to be to let the market become the decisive force in the economy. Professor Connie Carter believes that persuading the Party to support that move will be difficult
In 2012, President Xi Jinping proposed the idea of the Chinese Dream when he took office during the country's once-in-a-decade leadership transition. Expectations were high: Xi the Reformer? Xi on a par with Deng Xiaoping, the father of China's modern economic development?
Everyone waited eagerly for Xi to define the China Dream. Arguably he did that in November 2013 at the Third Plenum of the Party's 18th Central Committee and in his Explanatory Notes, which outline the country's direction for the next decade.
Before the 2013 Third Plenum, many people recognised that China was at a crossroads: The export-driven economy which powered China's unprecedented economic rise for 35 years is unsustainable. Nowadays, the world has less appetite for cheap China-manufactured goods. And China is no longer the world's factory because wages have risen, the working population is growing older, wiser and more middle class, and is demanding social justice – with blue skies and green cities.
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