A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #10-26 - China: A Celestial Transition. A Five-Year Plan Under the Banner of Confucian Restoration (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In his end-of-year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that 
China's 15th Five-Year Plan will be entirely focused on Artificial 
Intelligence. The recently concluded 14th Plan (2021-2025) focused on 
the "dual circulation" strategy (domestic market + foreign trade), 
driving economic growth not only through exports but also through 
investment in the domestic economy, particularly by targeting 
technological independence. The new plan will continue to push for 
technological independence, but this time through the deployment of AI 
in industrial processes, consumer products, healthcare, education, and 
digital governance. The plan aims for AI to be as ubiquitous as 
electricity or the internet by 2030, thus becoming a major driver of 
economic growth. The government claims China will become a "smart 
society" by 2035.

Earlier this year, the Chinese government held its annual "two 
sessions," or lianghui, during which China's political elite approves 
the economic policy agenda for the coming year. The term "two sessions" 
refers to two important political meetings: the Chinese People's 
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory 
committee, and the National People's Congress (NPC), China's highest 
legislative body.

These are Chinese state assemblies, formally independent of the 
Communist Party. The consultative conference is largely symbolic, with 
prominent business figures and local leaders participating in 
pre-arranged discussions. The real heart of the meeting is the assembly, 
which officially decides on economic policy. In reality, it merely 
approves what the ruling elite of the Communist Party has already 
decided in advance. With approximately two-thirds of its members 
belonging to the Communist Party, the NPC has never rejected a 
party-proposed bill.

This year's "Two Sessions" were notable for approving economic policies 
for the current year and also greenlighting the 15th Five-Year Plan, 
intended to guide the Chinese economy until the end of this decade.

The Chinese government has set a real GDP growth target of approximately 
4.5% to 5% for 2026. This is the first time since 1991 that the target 
has fallen below 5%. In presenting the economic goals, Prime Minister Li 
explained that the target had been revised downward due to uncertainties 
surrounding world trade and the geopolitical situation. Nevertheless, 
the growth target is modest, and the leadership appears confident of 
achieving it.

In 2025, China's real GDP growth was 5%, more than double that of the 
United States and triple that of other major G7 capitalist economies.

Since 2020, the government has set the goal of transforming China into a 
"middle-tier" economy (according to the World Bank's definition, 
economies with a per capita gross domestic product of $20,000 at 2020 
prices) by 2035. This effectively means doubling per capita GDP over the 
next 15 years. China is clearly on track to achieve this goal, as it 
only requires China's per capita income to grow at an average annual 
rate of 4.17% from now on. But even if this goal were achieved, China's 
per capita GDP would still only be 27% that of the United States.

China's GDP and growth rates are challenging mainstream Western 
economists, as well as some economists on the heterodox left. The 
prevailing view, confirmed by analysts at the International Monetary 
Fund and the World Bank, is that the Chinese economy is slowing to a 
near standstill, heading toward Japanese-style stagnation, and may even 
collapse into a debt-fueled spiral. We are also told that China has 
"excessive" production capacity and is suffering from "involution," 
causing prices to fall and flooding world markets with cheap goods that 
threaten the market shares of major economies.

Economists have been repeating their recipe for years, and in recent 
years, China's production has grown without experiencing the crashes 
that have devastated the most advanced economies. China has avoided any 
recession or crisis over the past 50 years, even during the COVID 
pandemic, despite numerous errors and economic policy swings by the 
autocratic communist leadership. The key to China's economic success 
undoubtedly lies in its vast state-owned sector, capable of stimulating 
investment and thus achieving the goals of the national plan. This 
demonstrates the economic role of public ownership and government-led 
investment within a national plan.

Communist Party leaders define the Chinese model as "market socialism 
with Chinese characteristics," and for many analysts, this is sufficient 
to define China as an economy in transition to socialism.

To resolve this debate, it is not enough to look at the performance of 
the business cycle, gross domestic product growth, and the achievement 
of the five-year plan targets. Paradoxically, it is precisely the 
increase in GDP that can be considered an indicator of the growth of the 
market economy in China: as ownership of the means of production 
(including land) shifts from the state to private individuals, the 
market's weight in the economy increases. Thus, goods that previously 
passed from one state-owned production unit to another, and therefore 
were not recorded in the GDP calculation, are now transformed into 
commodities and passed between various private production units in the 
form of commodities through purchase and sale, signaling an increase in 
GDP that is not the result of an increase in the mass of production.

Piketty offers us a table showing ownership of the means of production 
from 1978 to 2018. According to this table, Chinese state ownership 
(both central and peripheral) increased from 100% of enterprises (listed 
and private, of all sizes) in 1978 to 55% in 2017, while Chinese citizen 
ownership grew to 33%, with the remaining 12% held by foreign investors. 
If the arrow of time has any meaning, it shows that China is an economy 
in transition... toward private ownership!

But there is an even more important element than the trend in GDP and 
ownership of the means of production, and that is the power of the 
working class. Because socialism is not higher wages or full employment, 
but the emancipation of the working class from the slavery of wage 
labor. Not only is the wage system in full swing in China, but there is 
also a lack of tools, such as councils, that allow actual producers to 
have a say in production.

The Chinese model is a holistic one based on the Communist Party, around 
which are organized the government, planning structures, large 
state-owned financial groups, large private companies, and small and 
medium-sized businesses with their Party cells. The goal is not to 
ensure maximum profit, but to guarantee social stability, with its 
pyramid and hierarchies. For this reason, it is necessary to avoid 
upheavals, crises, and wars as much as possible. China's transition 
reinterprets, in modern terms, some characteristics of the Asian mode of 
production, with state control over the basic means of production and an 
authoritarian and paternalistic form of government. Throughout China's 
millennia-long history, this philosophy has inspired most governments, 
but, despite everything, dynasties have often been overthrown by 
revolts, a sign that heavenly peace cannot reign in a class-divided society.

This Chinese model can easily be defined as reactionary, and its 
alliance with the equally reactionary regime in Tehran is natural.

Tiziano Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/cina-transizione-celeste-un-piano-quinquennale-allinsegna-della-restaurazione-confuciana/
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