Experts see reversal
Five-year Plan: China wants to be independent
Special steel production in the district, Haibowan in the North of China. Photo: Li Zhipeng/XinHua/Reuters
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The sanctions of the USA and the Corona-crisis China shows how vulnerable it is. The new Five-year Plan to make the second largest economy in independent and difficult times to equip. New opportunities for German companies.
China wants to make itself less dependent on the Rest of the world. In view of the commercial and technology war with the United States and the global economic downturn, by the Corona pandemic to make of the new Five-year Plan, the country of the self-employed.
Which has long been the most significant realignment of the second-largest economy, brought the leadership of the Communist party to the completion of four days of discussions in Beijing on the way.
At the plenary session of the Central Committee of heads of state and party chief Xi Jinping had explained previously, the recommendations on how the state media reported. He followed the strategy of “dual circuits” that emphasise the Opening up of China, but the promotion of the domestic market as the main engine and the own Innovation for a greater independence to highlight.
Experts spoke of a “significant turning point in China’s economic policy”, which was explained as a response to the pressure of the US and Anti-globalization Trends.
The Plan could open up new opportunities for German companies, for China, in 2019, the most important trade partner. “Investment and research cooperation in areas of strategic importance for China in view of the geopolitical environment is more important than ever,” said Max Zenglein from the China Institute Merics in Berlin, the German press Agency. “German companies want to participate in it, is rolled out China of the red carpet.”
The focus of the project is the promotion of domestic demand, as well as research and development for the “internal circulation” as “the main pillar of the economy”. The “external circuit” – i.e. the international trade and investment from abroad – will be awarded to a supporting role. 14. Five-year Plan for the period from 2021 to 2025 will be approved in March at the annual session of the national people’s Congress.
“China now realises that it is vulnerable,” said Wang Huiyao, an Advisor to the Chinese government and founder of the center for China and globalization, the financial Agency Bloomberg. He referred to the American sanctions against Chinese technology giants, such as the largest network supplier and the second largest Smartphone manufacturer Huawei. “That’s why the leaders need to be prepared for something of a technological decoupling.”
China wants to according to the Merics experts Zenglein but not of the world economy replace. “The pursuit of autonomy is not to be equated with a decoupling process,” he said. “In the expectation that it will rise against the wind blowing from abroad, it sets China’s leaders to absorb global value chains.” Beijing is aware of the importance of foreign companies in China for economic development “quite aware”.
The plenary meeting was the highest party since the outbreak of the Corona-pandemic almost a year ago. Infections were for the first time in December in the Central Chinese city of Wuhan, discovered. With strict measures to quarantine, Entry bans and mass tests has brought the most populous country in the world, the Virus is largely under control. There are only very few, small outbreaks. So could normalize the economy again.
Since the country has the Coronavirus in the handle, should it reach is the only major economy this year, a growth. After a strong slump at the beginning of the year, China’s economy grew in the third quarter compared to the prior-year period, to 4.9 percent. Since the beginning of the year it has achieved a growth of 0.7 percent.
The new Five-year Plan also aims to draw Lessons from the – at least initially inadequate – dealing with the Corona outbreak and health system strengthening. The Covid-19 pandemic have an incomplete report and monitoring system for contagious diseases, insufficient training of medical staff and an unbalanced distribution of resources between city and country revealed, said the epidemiologist Zeng Gang of the Chinese health Department (CDC) of the newspaper “Global Times”.
In addition, China’s objectives in the fight against climate change are to be written. President Xi Jinping had announced in September that China, “she said, before 2060,” the climate-neutrality. Also, emissions of carbon dioxide should reach “before 2030” the climax not only “around 2030”, as China had said in the Paris climate agreement. Climate neutrality means that the use of fuels or human activities have no influence on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, therefore, is not climate are harmful.
