Whole-process people's democracy key to finalizing new five-year plan: China Daily editorial

That nearly 3,000 deputies to the 14th National People's Congress will be taking part in the annual gathering of the country's top legislature, which begins on Thursday, once again demonstrates the vitality of China's whole-process people's democracy.

High on their agenda will be the finalizing of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30). China's five-year plans stand out for the structured breadth of input that precedes their adoption.

Between May 20 and June 20 last year, authorities conducted an online consultation on the plan that generated more than 3.11 million public submissions. The drafting process was further informed by 60 field research missions involving 1,020 national lawmakers, producing 50 sector-specific reports. Meanwhile, the NPC Standing Committee reviewed 22 oversight reports over the past year, adding another layer of scrutiny.

From a governance perspective, a notable feature of this input is its institutionalized participation across multiple channels. Direct elections at the county and township levels involve more than 1 billion voters and produce over 2.6 million grassroots deputies. Sixty neighborhood legislative contact points funnel local feedback directly into national lawmaking. Structured political consultation through the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee — the country's top political advisory body — meanwhile organized 98 consultative activities in 2025 alone, including 13 biweekly forums and 18 expert consultations on topics related to the plan.

Taken together, this forms a full-chain model — linking agenda setting, drafting, deliberation, implementation and oversight. The institutional logic is straightforward: in a vast and diverse country, reducing information asymmetry and aligning policy with long-term development objectives requires formalized channels for pooling collective wisdom and expertise.

Ultimately, governance models are judged by outcomes. When China launched its first five-year plan in 1953, its GDP was estimated at roughly $30 billion. Last year it stood at about $20 trillion. Over more than seven decades, the five-year planning mechanism has functioned as a rolling road map for industrialization, urbanization and technological upgrading through pragmatic reforms and down-to-earth actions. For many observers, it offers a key to understanding the logic of China's economic transformation.

China's progress has been achieved amid profound domestic adjustments and a turbulent global environment spanning decades. Likewise, the 15th Five-Year Plan will unfold against fresh headwinds. But as the spokesperson of the 14th NPC Standing Committee pointed out at a news conference on Wednesday, it has been through overcoming one difficulty after another that China has developed to be what it is today.

Indeed, whether the forthcoming plan's prescriptions will succeed in practice will depend on implementation. But China's track record suggests that predictability itself can become a macroeconomic asset. Investors value clarity about regulatory trajectories, industrial priorities and macroeconomic guardrails. China's five-year plans delineate sectoral priorities, from advanced manufacturing and digital infrastructure to agricultural modernization and expanded social services. By articulating medium-term goals and rolling out to-do lists, they help anchor expectations.

The contrast with policy volatility elsewhere is striking. In some major economies, fiscal standoffs, sudden tariff shifts or regulatory U-turns can unsettle markets overnight. In a world marked by geopolitical uncertainty, speculative policymaking and self-serving partisan struggles in some countries, China's model that emphasizes continuity and iterative adjustment produces a much-desired stability dividend.

That China is now a major trading partner for about 150 countries and regions reflects the coordination of domestic development with international engagement — an approach that integrates internal modernization with participation in global supply chains — a key requirement for the 15th Five-Year Plan.

The NPC session, therefore, is a focal point in a broader governance ecosystem that blends grassroots electoral representation, cross-sector consultation, centralized strategic planning and coordinated local implementation. It is conducive to balancing short-term objectives with long-term goals, managing structural adjustments and narrowing regional disparities, while sustaining productivity gains.

When a single social media post can rattle the economy in some countries, the world's second-largest economy's consistent emphasis on scientific policymaking contributes stability and certainty to the world.

By drawing on the wisdom of the whole nation, China's development path signals that modernization is a collective and inclusive national endeavor requiring broad-based effort with the people as the beneficiaries.