“The Long View” - 10-Year Outlook Imagining China in 2035 as the Next Key Modernization Milestone

06-20-2025 3:00 PM - 06-20-2025 3:45 PM
Economic
Finance

Amid China’s continuously difficult post-Covid economic recovery as well as persisting structural issues such as the real estate market, industrial overcapacity and local government debt, this webinar deliberately takes the “long view”, providing a 10-year outlook and imagining China in 2035 as the next key modernization milestone – the mid-term goal announced as part of the 14th Five-Year-Plan in March 2021. This has been only the second time a regular Five-Year-Plan takes a planning horizon beyond the regular five years, the previous one being the 6th Five-Year-Plan (1981-1985) which proposed goals for the four ensuing Five-Year-Plan periods until the end of the century with the goal of quadrupling China’s GDP.

 

By 2035, and by accomplishing the goals of the 15th and 16th Five-Year-Plans, Chinese planners seek to achieve the “basic socialist modernization” (基本实现社会主义现代化), which in its core wants to – again – double China’s GDP, over the period from 2020 to 2035, which assumes a sustained year-on-year average real growth of 4.7% GDP, plus increase the share of China’s middle income group from 35% to 50% as some of its most important policy goals.

 

With leading expert on China’s national development policymaking Prof. Zhang Dandan, CMG wants to explore the following key topics:

  • How to understand current economic difficulties when seen from a long-term planning and structural reform perspective?

  • In hindsight, how «radical» were the decisions adopted by the CCP’s “Third Plenum” in July 2024?

  • Which parts of the 14th Five-Year-Plan have been most effectively implemented when measured against the respective ambition level?

  • How should foreign business take into account a policy planning goal for 2035?

  • What are the key “make-or-break” reforms to achieve the 2035 goal such as China’s demographic transition?

  • NDRC stresses that “changes unseen in a century” must be duly considered in long-term planning, what long-term scenario(s) do planners use?

  • What are key policy shifts and changes to be expected by the upcoming 15th Five-Year-Plan?

  • Referring to the 20 KPIs of the 14th Five-Year-Plan, what new set of KPIs will be the “right” ones to help guide development up to 2035?

  • What role do governmental research versus societal inputs (e.g. the citizen issue collection, 政民互动问题征集) play in long-term planning?

     

This webinar wants to help European and foreign business to more tangibly imagine “a China in 2035”, explore the key “make-or-break” reforms as risk factors and gain understanding in how mechanisms of long-term planning work to – in turn – better inform their respective corporate long-term planning and strategy design.

Register for webinar HERE

Speaker
Zhang Dandan, Professor in Economics and Deputy Dean at the National School of Development (NSD) of Peking University
Venue Name
Online
Venue Address
Webinar