Recently, the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee held a meeting to analyze and study the current economic situation and economic work. Chinese media interpreted its significance as sending a strong signal of "responding to the uncertainty of the rapidly changing external environment with the certainty of high-quality development."
China Central Television (CCTV) interviewed several prominent economists on this meeting in its prime-time program Topics in Focus, an in-depth investigation program focusing on hot topics in Chinese news. We present the main viewpoints for readers.
The meeting held that since the beginning of 2025, all regions and departments have pooled their efforts to tackle tough issues, and various macro-policies have worked in concert. As a result, the economy has shown a positive trend, social confidence has been continuously boosted, high-quality development has been steadily advanced, and the overall social situation has remained stable. The meeting pointed out that while the Chinese economy has shown positive development, there are still challenges. The external economic environment has become more complex, and it is necessary to strengthen bottom-line thinking, make full preparations, and do solid work in economic affairs.
Li Xuesong
"China's economic growth momentum was relatively good in the first quarter of this year, achieving a growth rate of 5.4%, which is a good start. Meanwhile, it shows a positive trend in both the short-term and medium-to-long-term. However, the Trump administration has raised tariffs on many countries, and the tariffs on China have also been raised to a very high level. Under such circumstances, this meeting is of great significance for stabilizing domestic employment, enterprises, the market, and expectations."
Zhu Min
"This expectation is not only to stabilize China's expectations but also those of the world. This meeting is very important and timely. Currently, a major challenge facing the world is the trade war initiated by the U.S.. The capriciousness and volatility of the Trump administration's policies are unprecedented, leading to great uncertainty worldwide. In the face of this uncertainty, this meeting conveys a very important message that China is fully prepared and has made arrangements."
Facing the situation of "increased impact of external shocks", the meeting for the first time proposed "coordinating domestic economic work and international economic and trade struggles". Compared with the "economic and trade frictions" in 2018, the term "economic and trade struggles" reflects the latest judgment of the Central Committee on the severity, long-term nature, and arduousness of the current international situation. Based on this judgment, the meeting proposed to "unswervingly do our own things well and unswervingly expand high-level opening-up to the outside world".
Zhu Min:
"The two unswervings are complementary and of great importance. We should do our own things well, continue to maintain our core competitiveness, expand domestic demand, and develop the service industry. At the same time, in the face of the unilateral trade war of the Trump administration in the U.S., China should adhere to globalization and the community with a shared future for mankind. In this sense, China has to continue to open up, not only continue to open up but also lead the future development of globalization."
Wei Qijia:
"To unswervingly do our own things well requires us to implement the established relevant policies in the face of the complex and diverse situation. The specific measures in each aspect proposed reflect the continuity and stability of policies. Using continuity and stability to hedge against the uncertainty of the current external environment is the strength of policies."
How to respond to the uncertainty of the rapidly changing external environment with the certainty of high-quality development? The meeting gave the answer by proposing the "Four Stabilities": focusing on stabilizing employment, enterprises, the market, and expectations. The meeting proposed these "Four Stabilities" for the first time, fully demonstrating the Party Central Committee's comprehensive and scientific grasp of the economic situation and sending a strong signal to solidly stabilize the overall economic situation.
Zhu Min:
"What comes first? It is to stabilize employment and enterprises. That is to say, from past experience, when a trade war usually breaks out, foreign-trade enterprises will be directly affected. In this process, it is particularly important to introduce policies in a timely manner, including stabilizing employment and enterprises, which can help enterprises gradually adjust and stabilize. Chinese enterprises have core competitiveness. As long as they can be stabilized and readjusted, they can continue to move forward."
Since September 2024, under the influence of a package of policies, the economy has shown a positive trend, and social confidence has been continuously boosted. The re-emphasis on "stabilizing the market" and "stabilizing expectations" this time indicates that "stability" will remain an important goal of macro-control in the future.
Wei Qijia:
"These four 'stabilities' actually emphasize the goals to be achieved in the process of implementing the current package of incremental policies. Ultimately, it is to stabilize the development expectations and accumulate positive energy for the continuous upward and positive development of the economy."
How to implement the "Four Stabilities" effectively? The meeting proposed several measures. First, it emphasized the need to step up the implementation of more proactive and effective macro-policies and make full use of more proactive fiscal policies and moderately loose monetary policies.
Zhu Min:
"The Central Committee putting macro-policies first is actually the bottom-line safeguard for the Chinese economy, which is particularly important. It allows everyone to know that we have fiscal policies in place and sufficient monetary liquidity, so people can have confidence. There have also been many new developments in specific technical aspects. In terms of fiscal policy, appropriate adjustments have been made to support economic development, people's livelihoods, and enterprise growth."
Li Xuesong:
"There is currently a large space for fiscal policies. It is necessary to accelerate the issuance of local government special bonds and ultra-long-term special treasury bonds to form actual workloads as soon as possible. In terms of monetary policy, interest rates and reserve requirements should be reduced in a timely manner. There is still considerable room for the implementation of fiscal and monetary policies."
The meeting also introduced many new policy "toolkits", such as "creating new structural monetary policy tools, setting up new-type policy-based financial tools to support scientific and technological innovation, consumption expansion, and foreign trade stability", and launching "Science and Technology Innovation Board" in the bond market.
Zhu Min:
"Structural monetary policy can be used to specifically support the industries in need. In the future, when facing trade wars, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises becomes particularly important. Therefore, structural monetary policy is very important. Green transformation is also an important aspect. These structural monetary policies will play an important role in increasing liquidity, stabilizing finance, and supporting enterprises in the future."
The more the economic operation is under pressure, the more important it is to stabilize the basic employment situation and help enterprises out of operational difficulties. The meeting proposed practical measures such as "continuously improving the policy toolbox for stabilizing employment and the economy", "strengthening financing support", "increasing the proportion of unemployment insurance funds returned to enterprises that are greatly affected by tariffs", "accelerating the promotion of the integration of domestic and foreign trade", and "creating a number of emerging pillar industries" to directly address the urgent concerns of the people and the issues that enterprises care about.
Wei Qijia:
"From the perspective of policy orientation, in addition to the strength of policies, there is also a strong sense of policy-care. It effectively emphasizes the guarantee of the people's livelihood areas, which is also an important manifestation of supporting specific business entities to hedge against risks. The care for people's livelihood is reflected in all aspects of dealing with uncertainties. The government's action, of course, also hopes that enterprises will be more confident in such a context."
"Comprehensively expanding domestic demand" is a key task of this year's economic work of China. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee mentioned that "it is necessary to increase the income of the middle-and low-income groups, vigorously develop service consumption, and enhance the role of consumption in driving economic growth." In 2024, the proportion of per capita service consumption expenditure of Chinese residents in per capita consumption expenditure was 46.1%. Compared with developed countries, there is still much room for growth. Therefore, this meeting not only attaches importance to the policy orientation but also has practical countermeasures. The meeting specifically mentioned that it is necessary to quickly clean up the restrictive measures in the consumption field, set up re-loans for service consumption and elderly care, increase financial support, expand the scope and improve the quality of the implementation of the "Two New" policies, and intensify the implementation of the "Two Major" constructions.
Zhang Monan:
"In recent years, China has been actively promoting the development strategy of expanding domestic demand. The most important thing in expanding domestic demand is to expand consumer demand. In the past, it mainly met the people's commodity demands for food, clothing, housing, and transportation. However, there can be higher-level supplies for service-related, cultural, and spiritual demands. In terms of effective demand and effective supply, the growth of high-quality services and supplies can be continuously expanded, which is also conducive to promoting the growth of domestic consumer demand."
The most important thing to do one's own things well is to solve the problems in development through deepening reform and opening-up. The meeting emphasized strengthening services for enterprises to "go global" and, together with the international community, actively safeguarding multilateralism and opposing unilateral bullying practices.
Zhang Monan:
"In the process of global trade protectionism, China has become an active advocate and strong supporter of globalization. By opening up its market wider, China can attract global resources and, at the same time, provide a more open platform for global partners, serving as a more stable anchor for growth."
The meeting proposed to "accelerate the construction of a unified national market". On April 24, the new version of the negative list for market access was released. According to the statistics of the National Development and Reform Commission, compared with the first version in 2018, the number of items in the new version has been reduced by about 30%. Many restrictive management measures have been cancelled, and many regional barriers are being broken down. The construction of a unified national market is accelerating.
At the same time, China is steadily expanding its independent and unilateral opening-up, doing its own things well, and injecting more certainty and stability into the world. Not long ago, China released 155 pilot tasks to promote the opening-up of the service industry. The opening-up of the telecommunications, medical, and financial fields to foreign investment has attracted worldwide attention.
Zhang Monan:
"At present, some high-tech, service-type, and financial enterprises around the world still have great confidence in the Chinese market. The opening-up of the service industry can further enhance the market confidence and returns of investors in attracting foreign investment. The opening-up of the service industry and the development of service trade still represent a huge growth engine."
Wei Qijia:
"This meeting also mentioned using the methods of reform and opening-up to hedge against some uncertainties in the current economic development, especially external shocks. We have also done a lot of work, including the in-depth promotion of a unified national market, shortening the negative list for market access, expanding the pilot opening-up of the service industry to the outside world, and docking with high-standard international economic and trade rules. These specific measures one after another use the methods of reform and opening-up to find new economic growth points for economic development."
Risks should not be overlooked. The meeting emphasized the need to continuously work hard to prevent and defuse risks in key areas. Continue to implement the package of debt-resolution policies for local governments, and accelerate the solution to the problem of local governments' arrears to enterprises. Continuously consolidate the stable situation of the real estate market. Continuously stabilize and activate the capital market. According to the changes in the situation, promptly introduce incremental reserve policies, strengthen extraordinary counter-cyclical adjustments, and fully consolidate the foundation of economic development and social stability.
Zhu Min:
"Doing our own things well, such as continuously upgrading the technology of enterprises, continuing the development of foreign-trade enterprises, and continuously opening up the domestic consumer market and the service industry, etc., has been extensively arranged in this meeting. This is of great importance for stabilizing the Chinese economy and dealing with external shocks."
Responding to the uncertainty of the rapidly changing external environment with the certainty of high-quality development is China's solution to the problem. In the face of difficulties and challenges, unswervingly doing our own things well is the best response.
The views don't necessarily reflect those of BeijingReviewDossier
