After more than half a year of delay, China’s State Council finally announced on May 1 that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee’s third plenary session will be held in July. The focus will be on further comprehensively deepening reform, advancing China’s modernization, and promoting integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta.
Marxist Economy and Its Challenges
Officially, the CCP claimed that efforts will be made to better adapt the country’s production relations to the productive forces. According to Marxist political economy, production relations must correspond to the productive forces. This implies that given China’s current stage of development, adjustments are needed in the relations of production.Mr. Zheng said that another focus of the plenary session would be on China’s social development. The governance of Chinese society during former CCP leader Mao Zedong’s era was extremely simplified due to the centrally planned economy. However, the current society is much more complex, and it cannot be governed the same way as under the planned economy.
Mr. Zheng further stated that this 3rd Plenary Session is a very significant meeting, and its significance should not be underestimated compared to previous ones. From the released information, it’s clear that it’s a balanced result achieved after significant internal struggles within the party.
Shi Shan, columnist and senior editor of the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times, said on the show regarding adjusting the relations of production in China, the CCP hopes that the country will move forward, but it cannot be ruled out that they might regress, promoting the state-controlled economy vigorously and then reforming the political system backward.
He explained that the third plenary session was likely postponed last year due to the terrible shape of China’s economy. In 2024, the official data for the first quarter seemed good, but China is still showing declining investment. Since China’s economy is investment-driven rather than consumption-driven, the dominant factor in China’s economy is investment. However, investment declined by 10 to 20 percent in the first quarter, which raised significant concern.
Xi’s Dream of Regional Integration
Li Jun, an independent Chinese TV producer, said on “Pinnacle View” that this third plenary session also has a special point, which is to promote the so-called “integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.”“After reading many reports and articles from the CCP, so far no one has explained clearly what integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta entails,” he said.
Mr. Li mentioned that the initial model of the so-called integrated development was proposed by Xi to integrate Shanghai, a major economic center in China, with the surrounding regions. Thus, he proposed the concept of integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta, which is centered around Shanghai. In 2018, Xi elevated this concept to become a national strategic development plan. However, from 2018 to now, no specific measures have been implemented to achieve this goal, nor are there any actual plans.
The CCP Elites’ Mafia-like Structure
Guo Jun, editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times Hong Kong edition, said on the show that this is a paradox of the CCP’s authoritarian system since there are independent regional market divisions in China, which is uncommon in the rest of the world. For example, in some places, they restrict goods from other provinces and impose certain restrictions on goods and investments from another part of China.“Some people say that the market divisions between EU countries are even smaller than the divisions between different regions in China, which is a very ironic reality,” she commented.
Ms. Guo explained that under the CCP, the regime’s officials and elites essentially owns everything, and therefore the top official in each locality acts like a mafia boss. This is evident when each province in China has its own famous brand of cigarettes and liquor, which are vigorously promoted by the local authorities. Essentially, those enterprises are backed by the local government and its elites, and restricting similar products from other provinces lead to a localised and extremely profitable monopoly.
“To increase local revenue, local governments set various local regulations to increase local finances, which eventually become a hindrance [for the whole country],” she said. “Since Xi took office, he has been promoting regional economic integration. In addition to the Yangtze River Delta, there’s also the integration of the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, and others. These have been proposed for over ten years, but they haven’t achieved much.”
