China’s 15th Five-Year Plan: Continuity continues

This article is based on content originally published on our partner platform Seerist, the augmented analytics solution for threat and risk intelligence professionals.

China's 15th Five-Year Plan for national development was approved on 12 March, at the annual session of its National People's Congress (NPC - legislature). These plans are very important but a lot of the noise surrounding them is misleading. FYP season always generates demand for pundits to declare “exciting new directions.” But those expecting a brand-new strategy or specific detailed policies are usually disappointed.

Several analysts have framed the 15th plan as a major shift, citing its emphasis on high-quality development as well as quantitative growth, technological and scientific self-reliance, economic security and resilience. The FYP will focus on these areas, but this is certainly not a “new direction.” These themes distinguished the 14th FYP in 2021 and have driven policy for years. They began dominating Beijing’s thinking amid the shocks of the first Donald Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. The historic shift was from the 13th Plan to the 14th. The 15th will be about adjusting and updating this existing vision and improving execution.

Don’t expect details

The FYP is an extremely broad, high-level document that covers almost every aspect of China’s social and economic development. More details will emerge in sectoral and regional plans that will be finalised in the months following the overall document’s adoption, in line with its priorities and targets. 

Key features of the 15th FYP are clear from the outline issued earlier this month and the “Recommendations” for the plan were issued at a leadership plenum in October 2025. The Recommendations give a flavour of the level – or lack – of insight that the FYP will give into future policy. For example, sections on the energy sector give no specific details, and instead state (or in most cases restate) broad intentions such as “A new clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy system should take shape” and “We should accelerate efforts to foster robust market and pricing mechanisms for a new energy system… [and] work toward reaching peak consumption of coal and petroleum.” 

One vision

This continuity is unsurprising. The FYP is heavily guided by pre-existing, even longer-term goals, which look ahead to 2049 (the centenary of the People’s Republic of China). One set of goals outlined in 2021 was for 2035 (the midpoint between the 2021 and 2049 centenaries) and informs the 15th FYP.  

More recent indicators, especially the leadership third plenum in 2024 (which set an updated blueprint for the economy), also doubled down on existing strategy despite rising calls for a more “pro-growth” policy pivot. Outcomes of the third plenum outlined a vision closely reflected in the 15th FYP Recommendations. Now, as then, China’s leadership is keen to show both domestic and international audiences that it remains calm and in control despite geopolitical disruption. 

If there is a tone shift in the new FYP, it is an even greater preoccupation with projecting the confidence to capitalise on this upheaval, as well as with boosting resilience. This includes calls to  

This is not much stronger on specifics than in the past, but it follows more explicit political messaging on RMB internationalisation in recent months. There are also signs that Belt and Road Initiative investment could see a resurgence. 

Consuming questions

Innovation, technology and manufacturing will remain key pillars of economic strategy, with yet more industrial achievements targeted. Beijing still sees these as drivers of economic growth and productivity, at a time when other growth engines are faltering or harder to boost. They also offer both offensive leverage and defensive resilience in the geopolitical competition with the US. 

Another major focus for China’s investors and trade partners is domestic consumption prospects in the world’s second-largest market. Boosting household consumption has been a government target for almost 20 years, to “rebalance” growth away from reliance on infrastructure and real estate investment (and now exports and external demand). Redoubled efforts on this front are a key area to watch this year.  

Tech titans

The 15th Plan will maintain and intensify China’s industrial policy push, while updating industry priorities and adjusting execution.  

Besides calling for the modernisation of traditional industries (upgrading efficiency and sustainability, not just output quantity), the Recommendations highlight two groups of priority industries for the next five years: 

In industries of the future, Beijing will introduce new regulation, develop venture capital investment, “increase funding and share risks”, and “nurture unicorn companies”. The coming years will see more breakthroughs in China’s semiconductor catch-up and break-out firms like DeepSeek, but not full decoupling of most supply chains.  

China may lead in diffusion of some technologies such as autonomous vehicles, and agentic and embodied AI. External attention will focus on the potential speed and scale of growth, but in many cases political caution about the resulting disruption will also create regulatory speedbumps, for example, due to concerns about employment and social impacts.  

Beijing could get more serious about reforming the tax, welfare and hukou systems (the latter restricts labour movement), focusing on long-term structural measures to incrementally boost incomes and spending, rather than radical stimulus measures. However, plans are vague and it is not clear how far Beijing will go with politically difficult trade-offs such as major fiscal reform, redistributive policies and higher welfare spending. A real consumption surge would also need stronger real estate and employment trends, which may stabilise but remain unlikely to rebound substantially. 

Given the limits of domestic consumption, China’s strong manufacturing and exports will fuel tensions with trade partners. This was underlined by China’s record trillion-dollar trade surplus in 2025, and the continued global rise of its top firms in sectors like EVs. Given US barriers to Chinese imports, greater impacts may be in Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, Mexico and BRICS+ markets. 

At home, overall economic growth is very likely to keep slowing in the coming years. A 2026 GDP growth target of 4.5%-5% was set at the NPC on 5 March, down from the previous annual target of “around 5%”. For the coming five-year period, the Recommendations call for growth “within an appropriate range”, but other draft targets imply an average annual rate closer to 4% than 5% over 2026-30. 

Still open for business

Beijing is well aware of the challenges it faces and has always sought to balance priorities, not make a binary choice between manufacturing or consumption. The 15th Plan will emphasise efforts to minimise problems associated with past phases of industrial policy, for example, by limiting provincial governments’ leeway to launch competing or overlapping initiatives. Beijing will also try to show the world the continued upsides of China’s economic growth, and boost business and investor confidence.

The FYP thus includes renewed pledges of equal treatment for private and foreign business. The draft outline says China will promote “reform and development through openness”, “an equal and orderly multipolar world”, and will “share opportunities and common development with all countries”. 

The external message is that China is a predictable actor on a stable long-term course, and that despite its focus on domestic demand and resilience, Beijing is still committed to external trade and investment – especially with countries that it regards as not being aligned with US efforts to “coerce and isolate” China.