China at the crossroads

Geopolitical equations as seen by China do not, as yet, seem to justify a more accommodating posture towards India

- SHYAM SARAN

The third plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now meeting in Beijing. We will know of its key decisions on economic reform and restructuring only when it concludes on July 18. Its basic orientation is already known from the Chinese official media. The outcome document, namely the "Decision on Further Comprehensive Deepening of Reforms and Advancing Chinese Style Modernization", has already been discussed in draft form in the CCP's Politburo and is unlikely to see major changes at the plenum itself. The CCP will lead the reform and modernisation process and this means that the recent trend towards greater centralisation of authority will continue. The focus of economic strategy will remain on what President Xi Jinping has called the "new productive forces", or the arena of high technology. He has often declared that technology will be the "battlefield of the future", and China must seek to occupy its commanding heights. Further, that the champions of this strategy will be state-owned enterprises (SOE), with the private sector playing second fiddle. This strategy is also dictated by a perception of growing external threat, including technology denial, reduced market access, and an all-round containment policy against China by the United States (US) and increasingly the West in general. Xi Jinping appears to be ready to pay the price of slowing growth while doubling down on what many analysts, including in China itself, regard as a risky gamble.