WILL THE Communist Party save China’s storm-blown economy? That is the question on the minds of investors, analysts and businessfolk—as well as ordinary Chinese. It is being asked with increasing urgency, as the sectors that powered the country’s long economic boom look ever more vulnerable. Doubts are growing whether China’s rulers are willing to design and execute an effective response. When the party’s 376-member Central Committee convenes on July 15th, it will be a chance for China’s leaders to ease such concerns. It seems as likely, though, that the meeting will only highlight the gap between the party’s lofty rhetoric and its disappointing actions.
The meeting in July will have all the same trappings of past party conclaves. Amid red carpets and party standards, men in drab suits (over 90% of the committee is male) will honour the latest party-speak about “high-quality development” and “new productive forces”. The outcome will then be summarised in a cryptic communiqué that will be pored over by analysts and party apparatchiks.
But this meeting is special, not only because the situation in China demands action. It will be the committee’s third plenary session since its members were selected for a five-year term in 2022. Previous third plenums have led to momentous changes. At such a meeting in 1978, Deng Xiaoping set a poor and insular China on a path to reform. The third plenum in 1993 entrenched the party’s goal of creating a “socialist market economy”. These gatherings do not draft the details of new policies. Rather, they set the party’s direction on big issues. And just now the issues that confront China are very big indeed.
