‘The biggest story in Chinese politics right now’ – silence over Communist Party’s autumn meeting
- Lack of announcement may reflect leaders’ busy schedule but uncertainty persists over country’s direction and its response to economic headwinds
- This autumn meeting has often been the stage to unveil major reform programmes
As China’s ruling Politburo wrapped up its October meeting on Wednesday, there was still no word on a key autumn meeting of the Communist Party, which according to party convention should be taking place soon if not convened already.
Analysts said the likely delay of the Central Committee meeting – expected to focus on mid to long-term economic policies – might suggest a lack of consensus among the Chinese leadership over how to battle the growing headwinds facing the world’s second-largest economy.
The autumn plenum that comes a year after the party’s national congress is largely seen as the most important full meeting of the party’s roughly 400-strong political elite, who gather behind closed doors at least once a year.
In recent decades, it was often an occasion when Chinese leaders revealed major reform programmes and new economic blueprints.
It was at this plenum in 1978, for instance, that late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping launched the “reform and opening up” that placed China on its path of economic liberalisation. Another autumn plenum in 1993 endorsed the concept of the “socialist market economy”, which dismantled a large part of China’s state-owned sector.
But this year, as China reaches the 40th anniversary of Deng’s reforms, a cloud of uncertainty and anxiety is hanging over the country’s future path.