By Stephen S Roach

The Chinese planning season is in full swing. Ahead of the formal release of the 15th Five-Year Plan (running from 2026 to 2030) in March 2026, early signs coming out of the just-completed Fourth Plenum of the Communist Party of China suggest that it will be more of the same: a focus on continuing China’s extraordinary industrial and technological ascendancy, driven by what Chinese President Xi Jinping has called “new productive forces”.

That would be a mistake in the following sense: China’s techno-industrial prowess is so well established that it is unnecessary to dwell on the obvious. The planning exercise should instead aim to tackle the country’s most dauting challenge: a long-awaited consumer-led rebalancing. To that end, the 15th Five-Year Plan should set an

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