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BEIJING — China’s Communist Party elite vowed Thursday to build a modern industrial system and make more efforts to achieve technology self-reliance, which it sees as key to bolstering its position in its intensifying rivalry with the United States. As expected, the Party’s Central Committee also promised more efforts to expand domestic demand and improve people’s livelihoods — long-standing goals that in recent years have been little more than an afterthought as China prioritized manufacturing and investment. The Chinese economy’s overreliance on exports at a time of heightened trade tensions with Washington might push Beijing to find a better policy balance in coming years, although analysts expect efforts to be slow. A communique from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, after the Party leaders’ four-day closed door meeting, known as a plenum, outlined China’s priorities in its next five-year development plan, which will only be released in full at a parliamentary meeting in March. “The country will be in a period (2026-2030) where strategic opportunities coexist with risks and challenges, and there will be an increase in uncertain and unpredictable factors,” Xinhua reported, citing the communique. “We should maintain a reasonable proportion of the manufacturing sector and establish a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as its backbone.” The communique said Beijing will strive to improve people’s welfare and the social security system, but did not provide details on how Beijing intends to achieve that or where the funds would come from. Uncertainty over the timing, pace, funding and size of such policies is likely to keep economists and investors concerned over the government’s ability to rebalance an economy in which household consumption lags global averages by about 20 percentage points of GDP. Also on Thursday, the Party’s elite Central Committee released a statement announcing the replacement of 11 members, Xinhua reported, marking its highest personnel turnover since 2017 amid an ongoing military anti-corruption purge. Veteran Chinese general Zhang Shengmin, 67, was promoted to second-ranked vice chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, the statement said. Zhang, who currently serves on the CMC, replaces He Weidong, the former second-ranked vice chair who was expelled from the Communist Party on Friday on corruption charges along with eight other People’s Liberation Army generals. It was the highest turnover at a single Central Committee meeting since 2017’s Seventh Plenum, when a record 11 members were replaced. Since coming to power in 2012, President Xi Jinping has spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign targeting the Party and government. Eight of these generals were also Central Committee members, and some of their investigations had not previously been disclosed. He Weidong, formerly the second-ranked vice chair of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), was thought to have been a close military confidant of Xi. Both men served in Fujian province in the 1990s. His removal is the first of a sitting general on the CMC since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. He Weidong was also part of the 24-member Politburo. The formerly seven-member CMC headed by Xi has lost three members since 2023 in a string of anti-corruption purges.
