China starts reform plans strongly in 2015

In the midst of an adjusting economy and various domestic challenges, China has vigorously advanced its grand, but arduous, reform plans in 2015.

In the world's eyes, China seemed to be in a contradictory situation in the new year. In the January edition of Vanity Fair, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote that China has just "overtaken the United States as the world's largest economy". "China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever".

However, some economic data released by China at the beginning of 2015 also led to overseas worries about China's economic development.

Irrespective of the praise or worries, China has focused on its own issues, with Chinese leaders stressing on many occasions that this is an important year for implementing a series of reform plans and advancing the rule of law.

It is the last year of the country's 12th five-year plan. In addition, there are only five years before 2020, the point by which the leadership has been aiming to have built "a moderately prosperous society in all respects".

"Efforts should be made to ensure the reform measures work and actually solve the problems," said Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Xi Jinping during a meeting of the central leading group for deepening overall reform in January.

Reform initiatives are already being rolled out. The State Council has publicized plans concerning raising the salaries of public servants and staff in public-funded institutions.

The adjustment coincides with efforts to unify the pension system for private sector employees, civil servants and employees of government-sponsored institutions.

On Jan 28, the first Circuit Court of the Supreme People's Court was established in South China's Shenzhen City, a move widely viewed as a key step towards optimizing the judicial sector.

At the beginning of February, a key annual policy document made plans for reforms concerning rural areas and agriculture.

Maintaining confidence plays a major role in implementation of reform.

According to China's official statisticians, the country's GDP in 2014reached 63.65 trillion yuan ($10.23 trillion), up 7.4 percent year on year, a record low since 1990.

However, China still achieved its GDP goal, and for the first time its GDP surpassed the threshold of $10 trillion.

The moderation of growth speed in China reflects both profound adjustments in the world economy as well as the laws of economics. With a larger base figure, a growth even at 7 percent will produce an annual increase of more than $800 billion at current prices, larger than that of five years ago, when GDP growth rate was around 10 percent.

When attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the Chinese economy has "entered a state of new normal". Growth is shifting from high speed to medium-to-high speed, and development needs to move from low-to-medium level to medium-to-high level, he said, stressing that this makes it all the more necessary for China to press ahead with structural reform. Implementing reform plans requires effort from officials at all levels.

At a workshop on the rule of law for major provincial or ministerial-level officials on Feb 2, Xi said officials at all levels take heavy responsibility in advancing rule of law, and achieving rule of law depends on those "vital few" people playing their roles.

Wang Yukai, professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, agrees. Only when officials, especially leading ones, abide by the law themselves, can the rule of law be fulfilled, Wang said.

Governance of China's more than 2,800 counties is key to governance of the whole country. Xi, who served as Party chief of Zhengding County in Hebei Province in the 1980s, used his direct experience to give a workshop for some counties' Party chiefs in January.

Implementation of reform plans also needs a clear understanding of problems, one of which is corruption.

Xi said at the fifth plenary session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in January that significant achievements were made in anti-graft work in 2014, but "no overwhelming victory" was achieved and official corruption, although decreased, has yet to be eradicated.

Some have predicted that China's leadership will soon call a halt to the anti-graft campaign. They fear that it risks undermining the base of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) ruling status by fuelling too much resentment among officials at the withdrawal of former "perks".

However, Xi's remarks about "no overwhelming victory" suggest he is resolute about continuing the campaign.

In fact, he wants to step it up. The president has ordered an improved intra-Party monitoring system so detect graft.

The central leadership is also paying attention to the methodology of implementation. On various occasions Xi has mentioned the "four all-round ways": "building a well-off society in an all-round way", "deepening reform in an all-round way", "advancing rule of law in an all-round way", and "ruling the Party strictly in an all-round way".

Xin Ming from the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said the "four all-round ways" sets out a new strategy for the country, with a prosperous society as the goal and the other three ways being means of achieving that.

Chinese leaders have also gone deep into the grassroots, visiting villages to learn about life for ordinary people. Xi made one such tour in January, saying in southwest China's Yunnan Province that authorities must expedite poverty relief work with more action than words.