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What to Expect at China’s Biggest Meeting of the Year

What to Expect at China’s Biggest Meeting of the Year: QuickTake

(Bloomberg) -- It’s been almost two years since President Xi Jinping last convened a full meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. But at this week’s closed-door session, which ends Thursday, Xi looks poised to pick up where he left off: solidifying control over the ruling party and the country of almost 1.4 billion people. State media have reported that the so-called plenum would discuss issues related to maintaining and improving China’s socialist system and national governance. That suggests a sweeping agenda focused on further centralizing power around the president.

1. What’s the plenum?

Often the most important event in the political calendar. Power in China is rooted in the Political Bureau of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, known as the Politburo. Its supreme, seven-member Standing Committee, headed by Xi, usually meets weekly. The full 25-person Politburo meets about once a month. The plenum happens once or twice a year when the entire Central Committee -- more than 200 officials from the government, military and state-owned enterprises and almost as many alternate members -- meets behind closed doors. It provides the party’s wider elite their last opportunity to discuss plans, assess political odds and engage in horsetrading before decisions are made. The 3,000-member National People’s Congress meets each spring to give those decisions the force of law, as more of a rubber stamp.

2. Why does it matter?

Past plenums have ushered in some of the most consequential changes in modern Chinese history, including the launch of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1978 and the removal of leaders following the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In 2015, the Central Committee approved a landmark easing of China’s one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children. The last time it met, in February 2018, Xi secured its blessing to repeal presidential term limits. The move represented one of the party’s sharpest departures from the model of collective leadership embraced after Mao Zedong’s tumultuous and personality-driven rule. Some leadership roles could be shuffled after this year’s plenum, although the possibility seems remote.

3. What’s on the agenda?

Some observers had expected the meeting to focus on economic policies. But the state-run Xinhua News Agency report in August suggested a more political focus. Xi also has repeatedly warned against complacency, complaining in September that some cadres were “weak-kneed and unwilling to fight” against the party’s growing and long-term challenges.

4. What challenges?

China this year is projected to see the slowest growth in gross domestic product in almost three decades -- a trend made worse by an ongoing trade war with the U.S. China’s list of economic headaches also includes factory-price deflation, a fragile financial system and spiraling food costs in the wake of the catastrophic spread of African swine fever among the nation’s pig herd. Xi needs to make sure the party’s -- and thus his -- rule can endure the coming downturn. On top of all that, the leadership will have an opportunity to discuss other issues such as the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

5. Why now?

Xi has waited 20 months since the last plenum -- the longest interval since Deng launched his far-reaching campaign of market-economy reforms more than 40 years ago. China has offered no explanation for the change. But the meeting follows a series of triumphant anniversaries for the ruling party this year, in which China surpassed the Soviet Union as the world’s longest-lasting Communist state. It also could serve to bolster Xi politically amid concerns about the economic slowdown, trade pressure from the U.S., diplomatic tensions over the Hong Kong protests and American military support for Taiwan.

6. What to watch for?

The party usually releases a communique to sum up actions taken behind closed doors, with more details leaking out over subsequent weeks. Although it may provide important signals about where China’s political system and its economy are headed, it’s unlikely to answer key questions over issues like as a graying population and the merits of freer internal migration of labor. These reforms could be more important than imminent policy loosening in ensuring a steady performance of the economy in the longer term.

The Reference Shelf

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Peter Martin in Beijing at pmartin138@bloomberg.net;Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Paul Geitner

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With assistance from Bloomberg