From October 20 to 23, 2025, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was successfully held in Beijing. This session came at a critical juncture, as China is about to accomplish the main goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan and move to consolidate the foundations and advance on all fronts toward basically achieving socialist modernization. The session reviewed and adopted the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development.
Covering the years 2026 to 2030, the 15th Five-Year Plan period will be a decisive phase for China's modernization drive. The external environment will remain complex and challenging, but China will stay focused on managing its own affairs well and continue to create new miracles of rapid economic growth and long-term social stability. The major targets for economic and social development during this period are sevenfold:
- significant achievements in high-quality development;
- substantial improvements in scientific and technological self-reliance and strength;
- fresh breakthroughs in further deepening reform comprehensively;
- notable cultural and ethical progress across society;
- further improvements in quality of life;
- major new strides in advancing the Beautiful China Initiative;
- and further advances in strengthening the national security shield.
Building on this, we will work hard for a further five years to see that by the year 2035 China's economic strength, scientific and technological capabilities, national defense capabilities, composite national strength, and international influence will all be markedly stronger, that its per capita GDP will be on a par with that of a mid-level developed country, that its people will live better and happier lives, and that socialist modernization will be basically realized.
This plenary session served as a new mobilization and strategic deployment for advancing Chinese modernization. The Recommendations laid out policy directions and key tasks across areas including industrial development, scientific and technological innovation, domestic market , economic systems, opening up, rural revitalization, regional development, cultural progress, livelihood improvement, green transition, security and national defense.
I wish to emphasize that China remains committed to its fundamental national policy of opening up and to building an open world economy through concrete action. The Recommendations made important arrangements on promoting high-standard opening up and creating new horizons for mutually beneficial cooperation. It calls for steadily expanding opening up at the institutional level, safeguarding the multilateral trading system, promoting broader international economic flows, advancing reform and development through greater openness, and sharing opportunities and achieving common development with the rest of the world. In the next five years, we will continue to take the initiative to open China wider, promote the innovative development of trade, create greater space for two-way investment cooperation, and pursue high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. China's door to opening up will not be closed; it will only open wider.
Since 1953, China has formulated long-term plans for national economic and social development, with each plan covering a five-year period. These plans serve as blueprints for the country's long-term development, setting goals and visions for major national projects and economic growth. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, over the past seven decades and more, we have been working from generation to generation on the same blueprint to make it a reality. We have no intention to challenge or supplant anyone. Our focus has always been on managing China's own affairs well, improving ourselves, and sharing development opportunities with all countries across the world. And that is an important secret to our success.
Looking back on the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's development has been truly remarkable and extraordinary. Facing a complex international landscape and tough domestic reform, development, and stability tasks, China has effectively addressed major risks and challenges and achieved new leaps in economic strength, scientific and technological capability, and overall national power. China's economy has maintained a sound growth momentum, with GDP exceeding 110 trillion, 120 trillion, and 130 trillion yuan in successive years and expected to reach about 140 trillion yuan this year. Its contribution to global growth has remained around 30 percent, and it has led the world in manufacturing output for 15 consecutive years.
China's economy is moving toward innovation. Ranking 10th in the Global Innovation Index, it has the world's largest pool of R&D personnel, and is one of the fastest-rising innovation economies. China continues to build a higher-standard open economy, sharing development opportunities with the world. It has established 22 pilot free trade zones and signed 23 free trade agreements with 30 countries and regions, while removing all restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing. The Hainan Free Trade Port will complete its customs closure by the end of this year. Moreover, China has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with over 150 countries and 30 international organizations.
Chinese modernization is an ambitious and arduous endeavor. Its grand blueprint requires grasping the essentials while attending to details, combining strategic vision with meticulous execution. Whatever changes may unfold in the world, China will continue to contribute stability and certainty to a turbulent world through steady efforts. An open and developing China stands ready to share opportunities and pursue common development with all countries—including Israel. We look forward to enhancing mutual understanding and deepening innovation cooperation between China and Israel, leveraging China's high-quality development and Israel's strengths in innovation to advance practical cooperation and bilateral relations, and together move toward a community with a shared future for humanity.
Xiao Junzheng is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of The People's Republic of China to the State of Israel.
