Prepared by the researcher – Dr. Islam Aiadi – Assistant Professor – Arab American University – Researcher in Chinese Affairs
Democratic Arab Center
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced in November 2020 that China will be the pioneer of global economic openness, warning of the risks that the world is facing at the present time due to the new Corona pandemic, and this announcement came during the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
This summit was held via closed-circuit television due to the emerging Corona virus, and this forum includes 21 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean, including the two largest economies in the world are the United States of America and China, which represents about 60% of GDP. China has become the main engine of this organization in recent years after Washington began withdrawing from the multilateral organizations under Donald Trump administration, who pursued America’s policy first.
At a time when the world was preoccupied with the American elections, and the impact of it results on the international system and on the standing of the United States, the Chinese Communist Party met and issued what is known as the Fourth Five-Year Plan, a watch that included a group of internal surroundings, a watch that will leave a great impact on the economic and strategic equation in the world especially after losing weight and winning President Joe Biden in the 2020 US election.
The five-year plan is used as a road map to achieve the major aims of China and mobilize its energy, and all sectors, public and private, participate in its implementation, and its inputs come from many parties, including think tanks and research, universities, professionals, and the suggestions submitted by millions of citizens. This plan has set a major aim for itself, which is the achievement of Chinese leadership in the world economy, as it is a reflection of a number of developments that the world has witnessed over the past years, especially the attempts of the Trump administration to blockade China and impede its rise.
The plan includes many strategic aims, and it will have a major impact on China’s position and the balance of power in the world in the coming years, and among these aims, the following are:
The first aim is China’s planning to depend in its economic growth on the domestic market and not only on export. For many years, the main reliance of the Chinese economy was on exporting abroad, and it became the largest exporting country in the world, but the Corona pandemic came and stopped the global trade movement and closed foreign markets, as well as an escalation. Nationalist, populist and re-globalization tendencies to place restrictions on the entry of Chinese products into many world markets, and then the five-year plan set a goal to expand the domestic market and increase the purchasing power of its Chinese consumers, as the size of the middle class in China reaches four hundred million citizens, in order to be a substitute for any strategy in order for the economic growth process to continue even if exports decline.
The second aim is to achieve technological independence or more self-reliance in the fields of science and technology, meaning that China will develop its own technological base, which it will use in implementing its strategic plan to produce high-quality technological goods, in which the West still enjoys comparative advantages, and this goal came In response to the United States and many Western countries to impose sanctions on Chinese technology companies, and to place restrictions on the export of some types of advanced technology.
The third aim is to achieve the largest possible separation from the United States of America, as the Chinese economy is still largely dependent on the American market, but the trade war launched by the Trump administration, and the adoption of the goal of economic separation from China, made China also adopt the same goal in the face of the United States.
China works quietly, absorbs the lessons of the past, and believes in the saying of someone who wants to be big sets great goals for himself. Therefore, the coming years will witness a huge transformation in China’s economic position, in line with its size and ambitions. This is what it can lead the world economically.
