• Series of measures to advance reforms approved by the
18th
Communist Party Central Committee third plenum
By Claudia
Fonseca Sosa
CHINA continues to surprise. The government of the nation which,
in the not so distant future, could displace the United States as the first
economy in the world has announced a new reform package which seeks to reorient
its growth model toward internal consumption and limit the country’s dependence
on external markets.
In 1979, a process of socioeconomic transformations designed to
unleash the country’s productive forces began. The development model implemented
was based on stimulating foreign investment and exports, with excellent results
sustained over the years, which allowed it to accumulate a surplus of billions
of dollars.
The Chinese economy was also able to maneuver in order to survive
the explosion of the international financial bubble in 2008.
However, the Asian giant now has a dream: to double the gross
domestic product and per capita income by 2020, comparing these indicators with
those attained in 2010 when the country grew by 10.3%. For that, President Xi
Jinping has stated that the country must make strategic readjustments to its
economic structure and increase efficiency in state supervision mechanisms.
The government aspires to the entire population of 1.3 billion
Chinese equitably enjoying the benefits of development and the measures
announced by the 18th Communist Party Central Committee in its recent third
plenum are directed toward this goal.
"The fundamental objective of the reforms approved is to improve
and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics and to move forward with the
modernization of the system and the capacities of the country’s government,"
states a communiqué read in the event’s closing session.
The document places emphasis on the need "to establish an
appropriate relationship between the government and the market" in order to
grant the latter more decisive participation in the assignation of
resources."
According to the official press, the Communist Party of China
(CPC) is to create fair, open and transparent market regulations, as well as to
improve the mechanism of market prices so that businesses can operate in an
independent manner.
At the same time, China is to undertake fiscal reforms, lower the
threshold of foreign investment, intensify the development of free trade areas
and increase the opening of interior, coastal and border areas, with a view to
creating a new kind of relationship between industry and agriculture.
Other measures approved will allow small farmers to enjoy more
property over land and production means, establish a sustainable social security
system, create new urban-rural relations in order to solve difficulties arising
from large waves of internal migration, and increase the population’s standard
of living in terms of access to health and education services.
Also announced was a modification of the family planning policy,
taking into account demographic changes in the country with the highest number
of inhabitants in the world – and the oldest – to satisfy the desire of many
families to have more than one child, which has been the established limit.
The communiqué also announced the decision to direct more
resources to the army and to promote scientific and ecological development.
But what is the nature of these reforms?
As Cuban analyst Eduardo Regalado, at the International Political
Research Center, explained to Granma, given the financial crisis in its
principal markets (Europe and the United States), the Chinese leadership has
been obliged to reduce its dependency on foreign capital and strengthen the
internal market, one of the largest in the world.
Chinese products which, prior to the crisis, sold very well given
that they were cheaper, began to be prejudiced by the competition of European
and U.S. products (in other words, from the same countries to which they sold
them). At the same time, Chinese acquisitive power has increased and this raises
the question of why sell to others if the same goods can be purchased in
China.
For Regalado, these adjustment measures seek to further raise the
population’s standard of living and to close the gap in development between
rural and urban areas. They would also provide a solution to the country’s
internal difficulties, which have occurred as a consequence of development
itself, such as environmental contamination, migration from rural areas to
cities, among others.
Moreover, an important transformation within the projections of
Chinese leaders is to transition from a rapid growth model - with the country
growing as more factories open - to a model of intensive growth, in which
science and technology play a significant role in production processes, a model
which, at the same time, is to address ecological issues and depends less on
external markets.
November 22, 2013
