China maps the future by building consensus

The CPPCC allows a broad spectrum of society to help determine policy

Everyone loves a plan. It helps us organize our lives, earnings, budgets, trips and leisure time. So, why not have a plan for everything? When you have a market economy as big as China’s, yes, you need a plan.

As the fourth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference convened, China’s 14th FiveYear Plan topped the agenda of Chairman Wang Yang’s opening speech.

After a year of living dangerously with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are looking at a world now totally transformed. Networks of globalization built over decades once taken for granted, have been decoupled. This is the outcome of both the pandemic and narrow political interests of certain Western political leaders inebriated by populist nationalism.

Sanctions and trade wars have hurt nations, including China. However, these interventions have allowed China to understand the missing links in its own technology chains and address these with research and development to move all technology innovation and production onshore.

Essentially, a core aspect of this Five-Year Plan is for China to become totally self-sufficient on all aspects of technology from creative innovation to production of all parts and chips required for manufacturing tech products.

Technological self-sufficiency will allow China to advance in areas of broad social healthcare and fast-track the transition from fossil fuels to green energy under the policy of ecological civilization, as such require extensive big data collection and management.

The 5G-network revolution will create unprecedented efficiencies that will lead to both business and social transformations.

Sanctions against Huawei in the USA and some European countries will in turn advance China’s domestic transition to 5G and further its outbound business projections to other developing nations in the Belt and Road network, which will become the new cyber Silk Road.

With the launch of the first sovereign-backed digital currency, China is breaking new ground in the post-COVID-19 world — a transition no less than that after World War II, when the Bretton Wood system was set up. As China’s yuan goes global with a digital avatar, it could become the clearing currency for the Belt and Road, seeing one planet have two financial systems and two reserve currencies.

The future global recovery will depend on China. That means a stable rebooting of the economy through careful fiscal and stimulus policies. An expected 1.6 trillion yuan ($246 billion) in local government bonds will bring the deficit ratio up to around 3 percent to 3.6 percent, which is perfectly manageable. China’s internal debt conundrum underwent several years of “deleveraging” and in the upcoming Five-Year Plan will enter a new phase of “stabilized leveraging”, signaling financial stability rather than volatility.

Domestic debt will be invested into local and regional infrastructure, which can bring about the transformation of backward areas into ecological cities with smart transport and green energy, with a new burgeoning of technology investments with particular emphasis on AI, creating new jobs for a tech-oriented youth.

Realistically, China can expect an average 4.5 percent unemployment rate in the coming years based on current projections, which is manageable, given the comparative global situation.

All of this apprehending, planning and implementation comes from consensus building that draws from multidisciplinary feedback of the CPPCC. This body is not always understood by outside observers, Western journalists or political analysts. It is a consultative congress — a vast network of professionals from all walks of life, offering their sector or regional proposals to the National People’s Congress or legislative body, to be turned into law or policy. Two phrases could best describe the CPPCC function: multidisciplinary and consensus building.

The CPPCC members are drawn from all walks of society, a vast crosssection of professionals and sector representatives including scholars, scientists, doctors, healthcare workers, researchers, lawyers, bankers, farmers, private entrepreneurs and State-owned enterprise leaders. The CPPCC structure is both vertical and horizontal, meaning the national organization is mirrored at each level of government — province, city, township — creating a pyramid structure of views and suggested policies.

This advisory organization’s multidisciplinary nature allows it to gather a vast matrix of suggestions from all of society to show policymakers and legislators the needs, aspirations, concerns and inhibitions of 1.4 billion people in a society undergoing some of the most massive social and economic transitions in the history of the modern world.

Key to navigating these transitions is consensus building. By synthesizing the views across sectors and regions over the course of each year through a continuum of local and regional meetings, the CPPCC can draw together the quintessential points that form a blueprint for the year ahead. Multiple meetings and group work sessions help articulate common concerns and aspirations to policymakers and legislators who will put the blueprint into action.

This process of consensus building frontloaded into each year prevents the narrow bipartisan quibbling and reactionary behavior characterizing certain Western political systems, where inertia results from stagnation due to ideological prejudices and political party deadlocks or corporate capital buying policy through lobbying. The CPPCC navigates around these by building consensus among all sectors and regions ahead of actual policy and legislative implementation.

The very nature of consensus building largely explains China’s rapid and successful response to COVID-19. Where other systems in certain Western countries may have politicized the pandemic to the point of delineating party affiliations by whether people wear face masks or not, China built consensus on handling the crisis quite early.

The CPPCC, through its vast network of representatives, played a part in reaching out to the broader spectrum of society, having its pulse on social reaction while building consensus, which was that there is only one enemy — COVID-19. Meanwhile, political bickering polarized and thus paralyzed any coherent response in many Western countries.

That is what this CPPCC meeting in Beijing is all about. No bipartisan bickering and stale rehashing of the same policy reports from think tanks that brew rancid coffee. A little consensus building and planning can go a long way over cups of Dragonwell tea. Others might want to try some too.

By the sectors synthesizing views and across regions, the CPPCC can draw together the quintessential points that form a blueprint for the year ahead.