By H.E. Jiang Zaidong
Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan
From October 20th to 23rd, 2025, the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) convened its fourth plenary session in Beijing. The most significant outcome of the meeting is the deliberation and adoption of the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, which provides a top-level design and strategic plan for China’s economic and social development from 2026 to 2030, and marks another overall mobilization and deployment for the advancement of Chinese modernization. Achieving socialist modernization in China is a historical process of gradual and ongoing development. The objective of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035 will be accomplished through the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the 15th Five-Year Plan and the 16th Five-Year Plan.
This year marks the concluding year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China’s total economic output has consecutively exceeded the thresholds of RMB 110 trillion, RMB 120 trillion, and RMB 130 trillion. Its per capita GDP has exceeded US$13,000 for two consecutive years. Its contribution to world economic growth has been maintained at an average of around 30% annually. In the first three quarters of this year, China’s total GDP has already surpassed RMB 100 trillion, and the total for the year is expected to reach RMB 140 trillion.
Building upon the solid foundation and good start established during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the period covered by the 15th Five-Year Plan will be critical in this process as we work to reinforce the foundations and push ahead on all fronts toward basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035. It will thus serve as a key link between the past and the future. To this end, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping personally served as the leader of the drafting group for the documents of the fourth plenary session, playing a decisive role in drafting the Recommendations. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era constitutes the fundamental principle and core spirit permeating the Recommendations.
We owe all these historic achievements in advancing China’s socialist modernization in the new era to the CPC Central Committee with Secretary General Xi Jinping at its core, which has been at the helm charting the course, and to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which has provided sound guidance to advance our cause. Currently, we are thoroughly studying and implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech and the guiding principles of the fourth plenary session, and striving vigorously to break new ground in advancing Chinese modernization. In this process, we stand ready to deepen exchanges and cooperation for shared development and progress with our ironclad friend Pakistan. First, we stand ready to strengthen the exchange of governance experience with Pakistan and act as partners in advancing national modernization.
Both China and Pakistan are developing countries, shouldering the mission of boosting economic development and improving people’s wellbeing, and there is ample scope for mutual learning from each other’s experience and practices. For China, the scientific formulation and successive implementation of Five-Year Plans constitute a crucial experience of the CPC in governing the country and a key political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Sound assessment of the situation is a critical prerequisite for scientific decision-making. We believe that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China’s development environment will face profound and intricate changes: relations between major countries have an important bearing on the international landscape, the dynamics of which will in turn exert a profound impact on the domestic development of every country. China is in a period of development where strategic opportunities exist alongside risks and challenges, and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising. Nevertheless, changes engender opportunities. We must therefore seize this time window, gain strategic initiative amid fierce international competition, and strive for major breakthroughs in strategic tasks pivotal to the overall advancement of Chinese modernization.
To this end, the Recommendations put forward the following requirements: We must continue to pursue economic development as our central task, with high-quality development as our main focus, reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force, meeting the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life as our fundamental goal, and full and rigorous Party self-governance as the fundamental underpinning for all our efforts. We must promote higher-quality economic growth while achieving an appropriate increase in economic output and make solid headway in promoting well-rounded personal development and common prosperity for all. All of this will allow us to secure decisive progress toward basically achieving socialist modernization. In advancing and implementing these requirements, we will unswervingly uphold the Party’s overall leadership, put the people first, pursue high-quality development, comprehensively deepen reform, promote both an efficient market and a well-functioning government, and ensure both development and security. These efforts are aimed at sustaining the enhancement of China’s comprehensive national strength, elevating its international status, and delivering a better life for its people.
We are pleased to note that Pakistan is also advancing its “Uraan Pakistan” Five-Year Plan. The two sides share a high degree of convergence on such concepts as putting the people first, comprehensively deepening reform, and ensuring both development and security. It presents broad prospects for strengthening governance experience exchanges and joining hands to advance the modernization of both countries. In particular, as major agricultural nations, addressing issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents is of paramount importance to both China and Pakistan. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China secured a decisive victory in the tough battle against poverty, lifting 98.99 million rural poor people out of poverty and eradicating absolute poverty entirely from Chinese soil. To consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, China established a five-year transition period to synergize efforts toward the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. Meanwhile, we deeply recognize that the modernization of agriculture and rural areas represents our most critical shortcoming that needs to be addressed as a priority. To this end, the Recommendations emphasize that addressing issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents is the top priority of the Party’s work. We need to promote integrated urban-rural development, and secure faster progress in building up China’s strength in agriculture.
We should make coordinated efforts to establish regular mechanisms for preventing rural residents from lapsing or relapsing into poverty, maintain the overall stability of fiscal and financial support policies. We will scientifically and precisely identify the rural residents in need of assistance, help those with working capacity achieve prosperity through industry and employment support, and ensure the basic livelihood of those without working capacity through social assistance. Given that Pakistan has made agriculture and poverty alleviation key priorities in its governance agenda, we stand ready to share our experience in targeted poverty alleviation with Pakistan while deepening cooperation in agriculture and poverty reduction. For example: We will expand contract farming cooperation with demand orientation and market principles, facilitating more exports of high-quality Pakistani agricultural products to China; We will launch a “Sweet Initiative” in major date palm-producing regions, by donating agricultural machinery and providing relevant training. This initiative is expected to directly benefit 13,000 farming households; We will implement the project of “Strengthening Maternal and Neonatal Health in 100 Health Facilities across Balochistan”, by distributing over 80,000 pieces of medical equipment. The project is expected to benefit more than 6 million local people. Second, we stand ready to deepen high-level practical cooperation with Pakistan and be a practitioner in promoting universally beneficial development.
In the context that peace and development remain the underlying trend of our times, development is always the master key to solving all problems for developing countries including China and Pakistan. In this connection, the Recommendations have laid out a comprehensive plan for China’s economic and social development in the next five years, highlighting two keywords, namely “faster” and “high-standard,” such as “working faster to boost China’s strength in manufacturing,” “moving faster to foster a new pattern of development,” “achieving high-standard self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” and “promoting high-standard opening up.” These highlight the theme of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, which is to pursue high-quality development with a sense of urgency.
Among the strategic tasks, the Recommendations have prioritized “building a modernized industrial system and reinforcing the foundations of the real economy,” because the real economy is what has underpinned China’s development and will continue to be the main driver of our growth in the future. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the added value of China’s manufacturing sector rose from RMB 26.6 trillion to 33.6 trillion, contributing to over 30 percent of global manufacturing growth. During this period, China’s first domestically-built aircraft carrier with electromagnetic catapult was launched; China’s first domestically-built large cruise ship started its voyage; China’s first space station, Tiangong, was completed and put into operation; and China’s self-developed large passenger aircraft started its commercial service.
These achievements are a vivid illustration of the strengths of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the advantages of an ultra-large market, a full-fledged industrial system and rich human resources. In the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we will build on the momentum to optimize and upgrade traditional industries such as chemical, machinery and shipbuilding. It, according to preliminary estimates, will create about market space of RMB 10 trillion in the next five years. We will nurture and strengthen emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, aviation and aerospace, and low-altitude economy. It will create several trillion-yuan or even larger markets. We will make forward-looking plans for future-oriented industries such as quantum technology, biomanufacturing and the sixth generation mobile communication (6G). It will in the next ten years create a market of the scale equivalent to the size of China’s entire high-tech industry today.
Pakistan is making efforts to grow its manufacturing industries and IT sectors. The strategic plan China is advancing in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, especially the specific measures for developing the real economy, will not only bring about new development in China, but also create new opportunities for China-Pakistan cooperation and deliver new benefits to the people of both countries, particularly the people of Pakistan. Last month, our two countries issued the Action Plan to Foster an Even Closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era (2025-2029), which identifies 63 measures in 7 areas for the next 5 years, including building an upgraded version 2.0 of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, promoting cooperation on agriculture, industry and mining, and deepening cooperation on IT, AI and big data. These areas are highly consistent with the priorities in China’s real economy development. We are ready to work with Pakistan to deliver on these measures and take our practical cooperation to a new high. For example: on industrial park cooperation, the Haier-Ruba Special Economic Zone reaped an output value of US$400 million last year, paid tax of US$120 million and created 6,000 jobs.
Haier plans to invest another US$400 million in a new home appliance industrial park, which will have an annual production capacity of about ten million units and create over 10,000 jobs. The Chinese textile company Challenge Group plans to invest US$150 million in a new textile industrial park, which will bring about an annual export volume of US$400 million and create about 20,000 jobs. We are also happy to learn that on October 25th, the Balakot Hydropower Project, undertaken by Chinese company, reached a milestone and successfully achieved river closure. The project has already created over 2,000 local jobs and is expected to provide green electricity to about 1.8 million people each year when completed. In a word, we are ready to keep working with Pakistan to consolidate, deepen and expand our cooperation, support Pakistan in pursuing greater development and growing its national strength, and help meet the people’s aspiration for a better life. Third, we stand ready to work with Pakistan in upholding the multilateral trading system and becoming practitioners in advancing economic globalization.
At present, as unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and global industrial and supply chains are under strain, a certain major country is wielding the tariff stick and imposing sanctions and pressure at will, severely undermining the international economic and trade order. Confronted with the backlash against economic globalization, China has always been pursuing an opening up strategy of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes, and has continuously offered new opportunities for global development with the new achievements of Chinese modernization. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China has maintained its position as the world’s largest trader in goods, with its trade volume exceeding the thresholds of US$5 trillion and 6 trillion, and remained the world’s second largest trader in services, with its trade volume surpassing US$1 trillion for the first time in 2024.
In the same year, China has become the major trading partner of more than 150 countries and regions, and has granted zero-tariff treatment on 100 percent of tariff lines to all least developed countries having diplomatic relations with China. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s imports of goods and services are set to exceed US$15 trillion. China’s outbound investment has ranked among the world’s top three, with a cumulative tax contribution of over US$300 billion to host countries, generating massive employment and promoting local industrialization and modernization. China has continuously shortened its negative list for foreign investment access, reduced its overall tariff level to 7.3 percent, utilized over US$720 billion of foreign investment, and saw the establishment of more than 240,000 new foreign-invested enterprises.
Practical experience has fully demonstrated that opening up is a defining feature of Chinese modernization, and drawing momentum from opening up to propel reform and development is a vital magic instrument for China’s constantly renewed achievements. Meanwhile, as a responsible major developing country, China has aligned itself with the trend of economic globalization. China has declared that while remaining a developing country, it will not seek new special and differential treatment in current and future negotiations at the World Trade Organization. China is promoting shared openness with its own opening up, so as to bring more certainty and positive energy to the world.
High-standard opening up has become and will remain a cause that benefits both China and the wider world. President Xi Jinping has stressed that China is steadfast in advancing reform and opening up, and China’s door will only open wider. The session made dedicated plans for expanding high-standard opening up, sending a strong message about China’s commitment to opening up and cooperation for mutual benefit. The Recommendations set forth measures including opening China wider to the outside world, promoting the innovative development of trade, expanding two-way investment cooperation, and pursuing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. These measures will surely keep increasing the level of opening up and expanding the space for growing Chinese modernization.
As ironclad friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, we are willing to let China’s high-standard opening up benefit Pakistan first. China has been Pakistan’s largest trading partner and largest source of investment for many consecutive years. In the first three quarters of this year, Pakistan’s export of marine products, rice and sesame to China rose year-on-year by 23 percent, 63 percent and 87 percent respectively, illustrating the vitality of trade cooperation between our two countries. Going forward, we will work with Pakistan to upgrade the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement to enable all sectors in Pakistan to benefit more from China’s huge market. At the same time, we will work with other like-minded countries to practice true multilateralism, uphold the global system of free trade and the stability of industrial and supply chains, promote universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and jointly create a bright future of prosperity and development.
A vast journey unfolds, a blueprint extends forward. Under the strong leadership of the CPC, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is now on an irreversible historical course. The magnificent scroll of Chinese modernization is unfolding, revealing immensely bright prospects. Standing at the new historical starting point, we will persist in following the blueprint to the end, with each generation building on the work of the last, continuously advancing the great cause of building a great country and achieving national rejuvenation.
2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan, presenting a significant milestone and fresh opportunities for the all-weather strategic cooperation between our two countries. We will work with Pakistan to fully implement the important consensus reached by our leaders, further deepen high-level political mutual trust, high-level practical cooperation, high-level security cooperation and high-level international coordination, so as to set an example for building a community with a shared future with China’s neighboring countries, and contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.
