China’s Global Times, in “CPC Leadership Sets Out Economic Priorities for H2 2024,” reports on the meeting today the Communist Party of China leaders, chaired by President Xi Jinping, to implement the policies developed and adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee over July 15-18. Today’s meeting took up the nuts and bolts that will guide the Chinese economy to reach its 5% growth target for the second half of 2024, and to implement the science- and innovation-intensive policies that are increasingly fostering the Chinese economy.
Furthermore, reported Global Times, the CPC Central Committee held a symposium with non-CPC personages to seek opinions and suggestions on the country’s current economic situation and economic work for the second half of the year; Xi presided over the symposium and delivered an important speech on Friday.
Scholars summarized that China’s economic plans could encourage other Global South countries to follow an independent development path, which they considered in many ways could facilitate developing countries, as Global Times put it: to “leapfrog to more advanced levels.”
Global Times spoke to some individuals about the meeting, on their evaluation of the trajectory of the Chinese economy. “Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of Germany-based political and economic think tank, the Schiller Institute, told the Global Times that the economic development blueprint put forward by the CPC leadership has laid the foundation for China’s increased productivity and technological breakthroughs. She voiced strong optimism that the world’s second-largest economy will sustain its recovery momentum this year, channeling a sense of continuity and certainty to the Global South.”
The feature notes some of the challenges the Chinese economy faces, such as, “there are still risks and potential dangers in major sectors, as well as challenges resulting from the replacement of traditional growth drivers with new ones,” referring to the shift to higher scientific platforms. They also report that the CPC third plenary adopted a Resolution on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively To Advance Chinese Modernization, “with economic reform as the spearhead, [that] includes more than 300 important reform measures, all of which involve reforms across systems, mechanisms, and institutions.”
Global Times concludes its feature: “Zepp-LaRouche said that she was impressed by the innovation-driven strategy China put forward through the conferences, which puts the development and expansion of emerging industries and future industries at the core. She suggested all countries across the Global South apply the principle of continued innovation in the same vein as China, so they ‘don’t have to repeat a prolonged process of industrialization.’”
