From July 15 to 18, the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing.

This plenary session is a very important meeting held by the Communist Party of China on a new journey in the new era, firmly holding high the banner of reform and opening up, and closely focusing on promoting Chinese modernization and further deepening reform comprehensively.

Held at the end of 1978, the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was an epoch-making event, ushering in a new era of reform, opening up and socialist modernization in China, and setting the country on a path of rapid development.

While the third plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in November 2013 was another epoch-making event, ushering in a new era of comprehensively deepening reform and promoting reform through systematic design, and opening up a new situation in China’s reform and opening up.

China ensured medium-high and steady growth despite changes in the complex international political and economic situation, completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects on schedule, and historically solved the problem of absolute poverty that had plagued the Chinese nation for thousands of years.

The third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee demonstrates the strong determination and strong mission bearing of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core to reform in the end, and it is a re-declaration of what flag to hold and what path to take in the new journey of the new era, which is of great and far-reaching significance to build a great country and move toward national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization

The most important outcome of this plenary session is the adoption of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization. The Resolution scientifically plans the overall blueprint for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization, and defines the guiding ideology, overall objectives, and major principles for further deepening reform comprehensively.

It was stated that the overall objectives of further deepening reform comprehensively are to continue improving and developing the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China’s system and capacity for governance.

The Resolution put forward a total of more than 300 important reform measures, all involving the institutions mechanism, and system, some are the improvement and upgrading of the current reform measures, and some are based on practical needs and pilot exploration of new reform measures. In the next five years, that is, by 2029, the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the reform tasks proposed in this Resolution will be completed.

At the same time, the Resolution clearly put forward seven “focus”, that is, focus on building a high-standard socialist market economy, advancing whole-process people’s democracy, developing a strong socialist culture in China, raising the people’s quality of life, building a Beautiful China, advancing the Peaceful China Initiative to a higher level, and improving the Party’s capacity for leadership and long-term governance

The above seven focuses are not only the strength points for promoting the Chinese modernization, but also the focus points for further deepening reform comprehensively.

However, economic structural reform is the top priority. China should take the new development philosophy as the guide, focus on the breakthroughs and key points of promoting high-quality development, and inject reform impetus for continuously creating a new situation of high-quality development.

The goal is to build a high-standard socialist market economy in all respects by 2035. The Resolution is not only the practical continuation of the deepening of reform across the board since the Third Plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, but also a new era of the new journey to advance Chinese modernization, and is another important programmatic document in the history of the Communist Party of China.

Opening-up is China’s basic state policy. Reform and opening up complement each other, and promoting reform and development through opening up is China’s successful practice. Focusing on higher-standard open economy, this latest plenary session made important plan for promoting high-level opening up and expanding the use of foreign investment, mainly in the following three areas:

First, China will steadily expand institutional opening-up. China needs to take the initiative to align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, harmonize rules, regulations, management and standards in the fields of property rights protection, environmental standards, labor protection, government procurement, e-commerce and finance, establish an efficient, convenient and secure mechanism for cross-border data flow, and create a transparent, stable and predictable institutional environment. China will further improve the system for facilitating residence, medical care and payment for people coming to China for business and tourism.

Second, China will further relax market access. China will implement as soon as possible the “zero” restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, expand the catalogue of industries for encouraging foreign investment, and rationally reduce the negative list for foreign investment access.

China will further open up the service sector, fully implement the negative list for cross-border trade in services, and promote orderly opening up in telecommunications, the Internet, education, culture, and medical care, and accelerate the development of offshore trade.

Third, China will effectively protect the national treatment and legitimate rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises. China supports the development of domestic and foreign enterprises on an equal footing, and ensures that foreign enterprises receive national treatment in terms of access to factors of production, licensing, standard-setting and government procurement.

In recent years, many good cases have emerged in various parts of China in protecting the trade secrets and intellectual property rights of foreign-funded enterprises, effectively protecting the investment rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises.

At present, economic globalization faces huge challenges. It is the shared responsibility of governments and enterprises around the world to oppose unilateralism and protectionism, maintain the global economic order and the security and stability of industrial chains and supply chains. China remains a fertile ground for investment.

China will continue to improve its market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, refine the mechanisms for high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, build new advantages of an open economy at a higher level, actively participate in the reform of global economic governance, and share development opportunities and create a better future with Pakistan and other countries in the world.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024