Kathmandu. The fifth plenum of the Communist Party of China, that will include the participation of 19th Central Committee that was elected in 2017, has commenced in Beijing. The four-day session will primarily review the 14th Five-Year (2021-2025) Plan for Economic and Social Development, and seek to endorse an economic policy termed as the “2035 vision.” The plenum will also reportedly focus on approving new working guidelines for the Committee.

The Committee that consists of more than 300 members generally discusses these ideas in a closed-room setting, whereby the media is not allowed in the meeting hall, quite possibly done to prevent information leaks. The details will be made public by a Chinese media outlet, after the session is concluded. The meeting is being held as the Chinese economy moves on a path to recovery from COVID-19, and it has been hinted that Beijing will be encompassing a wide range of points within the overarching target of economic growth. It is expected that the plan will include a greater inclusion of environmental protection and self-sufficiency in technological development, to lessen its reliance on US technology.

After Beijing repeatedly slammed Washington for environmental degradation, President Xi Jinping announced in a shocking turn of events had announced in September that China will faze out its carbon emissions by 2060 in a bid to “scale up its intended nationally determined contributions,” to the 2015 Paris Agreement “by adopting more vigorous policies and measures.” The five-year plan may address this commitment and detail the plan of action in order to obtain this goal.

Additionally, Samm Sacks, a Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow at New America, a think-tank based in Washington D.C., noted how the United States of America had built its stance against Huawei, and commented that there was “an important shift coming in the next five years.” She mentioned that, “The government is now looking to keep more of the advances of its homegrown tech sector inside China, especially R&D and expertise gleaned from foreign companies.”

The BBC has also recorded the views of analysts who have reflected on Xi’s supposed ambitions to be a “president-for-life.” According to Benjamin Hillman, who is a Professor at The Australian National University (ANU), the 2035 vision is a blueprint for Beijing to achieve a “high-income status” by 2035, but the “very idea of a 2035 manifesto has also prompted speculation that Xi intends to lead China through this period, becoming, essentially, president-for-life.”

The plenum is an important decision-making body that is comprised of Beijing’s top officials. It was during the plenum in 2018 that the two-term presidency rule, which was instituted in China’s constitution, was scraped by the body allowing Xi Jinping to continue in his role as the President. It becomes needless to mention that the decisions issued by the body by the end of the session will hold wide economic and political consequences.