China’s first plan pushed industrialisation, but after the country became the ‘world’s factory’, focus has shifted to advanced technologies
Though China moved away from a command economy decades ago, its successive five-year plans have remained a pillar of macroeconomic policymaking.
Despite that seeming contradiction, under the 14 plans implemented since 1953, Beijing has turned what was a limited industrial capacity into a scale of mass production that has earned China a reputation as the “world’s factory.”
Beijing is now endeavouring to move higher in the value chain and become a global hub for innovation in cutting-edge sectors – and the next five-year plan, the 15th, is expected to be an important part of that process.
The previous iterations of the plan, covering more than seven decades of policy shifts, offer a convenient survey of the country’s long and complex economic history. To help illustrate and explain that trajectory, we have curated several milestones from these foundational documents.
