Background and notes

The 2013 Third Plenum

In November 2013 the Communist Party of China held the third plenary session of its current central committee, which had been elected at the Party’s eighteenth national congress in 2012.

The Third Plenum, and the Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform it adopted, has been heralded by Chinese commentators as one of the most critical junctures of national policy-making since the beginning of China’s reforms.

The Decision, they point out, places unprecedented emphasis on the ‘decisive’ role of the market in Chinese economy, and paves the way for a government that will ultimately confine itself to macroeconomic and market regulation, public services, social administration and environmental protection.

This Third Plenum has frequently been compared to the famous Third Plenum held in December 1978, which marked the end of the Maoist era, confirmed Deng Xiaoping as China’s paramount leader, and marked the beginning of the far-reaching reform process that has since transformed China both domestically and internationally.

Key questions about the Third Plenum

The conference will address several questions raised by international commentators about the Third Plenum and its impact.

• Does it really compare to the plenum held twenty-five years earlier?
• Does it presage a new stage of China’s reform process, one that will enable China to overcome the many economic, financial and social difficulties it now faces, and take it to the point where it is an advanced economy and a leading regional and world power?
• Are the Decision’s statements of intent supported by sufficiently strong and far-reaching policy reforms in such vital fields as state-owned enterprises, capital markets, investment and consumption, local and corporate debt, social security, labour mobility, natural resources and the environment?
• Has the plenum really addressed critically important reform issues in a sufficiently farsighted and concrete manner?
• What are the consequences of Third Plenum policies for China’s expanding relations with New Zealand and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region – relations in which Chinese trade and investment play an increasingly essential role, and Chinese political and social influence are of growing significance as well?
• What does the Third Plenum and its aftermath tell us about the power of the new leadership in China, and in particular about the authority, policies and intentions of President Xi Jinping, whom some see as already more powerful than his immediate predecessors?

Why the Third Plenum matters

China’s growth over the past three decades, and particularly in the past ten years or so, has presented New Zealand and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region with extraordinary new opportunities in terms of trade, investment and people flows.

It has also posed serious questions; however, about how China’s burgeoning influence is to be best managed.

Much depends on the course of China’s own economic, political and social development from this point on, and much of that will depend on decisions taken by the current Party leadership.

This is why a deeper understanding of the policies adopted – and also the policies not adopted – at the 2013 Third Plenum is essential for anyone engaging with China and the Chinese today.