Submit your proposals: China opens public participation for new Five-Year Plan.

By Fernando Capotondo, for 247

Pan Jiuren is an elementary school teacher at a small rural school in Hunan province, central China. His voice has always been firm in the classroom, but it is said that he trembled when he had to present his views on the education system directly to President Xi Jinping and a group of government officials. After the initial shock, he regained his composure and repeated, without hesitation, the observations he had rehearsed in front of the mirror: “There have been improvements in rural school facilities, but we have problems with talent drain in some schools, and it is increasingly difficult to find teachers for subjects such as music and art. We need to train more qualified teachers to work in regions inhabited by ethnic minorities,” the educator warned.

What Pan probably didn't imagine was that his criticisms would be praised by Xi himself, included in the latest reform of the Education Law of the People's Republic of China (in effect since 2024), and later highlighted by state media as an example of a new stage of citizen participation in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) five-year plans.

Over 1 million voices in state planning.

The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) received over 1 million online contributions from workers, businesspeople, students, academics, and farmers across the country. The goal now is to surpass that mark in the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's main economic planning body. To this end, the government launched a new digital public consultation platform last month.

In June, approximately 1,2 billion internet users were invited to submit their ideas, criticisms, and suggestions through the People's Daily, the state-run Xinhua news agency, the China Media Group (CMG), and the digital platform xuexi.cn, created by the CCP.

In addition to virtual channels, the government organized in-person symposiums with residents of poorer regions and, at the other extreme, with representatives from the productive sectors and research in innovation and economic development.

Consultations with business owners and a focus on innovation.

In Shanghai, the NDRC hosted a forum with technology companies such as BGI, Moore Threads, and Ant Group. Executives emphasized that the next five to ten years will be crucial for China's strategic advancement. They advocated for the rapid integration of scientific, technological, and industrial progress already achieved—the watchword was "urgency."

According to Xi Jinping, these actions reflect the pursuit of integrating "high-level design" with public consultation, improved research, and collective debate, in order to form a broad consensus on the country's direction.

Twenty years of increasing participation.

Popular involvement in the development of five-year plans is not a recent phenomenon. It is a process that has been under construction since the mid-2000s.

•  XI Plan (2006-2010): First participatory effort, using research, correspondence, and institutional forums.
•  XII Plan (2011-2015)The internet and social networks have become systematically used, with the support of big data to map the population's priorities.
•  XIII Plan (2016-2020)Structuring thematic symposia with farmers, businesspeople, academics, and representatives of China's 55 ethnic minorities.
•  XIV Plan (2021-2025)Institutionalization of public consultations via digital platforms and expansion of dialogue with Chinese NGOs and think tanks.

This model has evolved into a unique form of strategic planning that combines political centralism with increasing mechanisms for social participation. "Today's five-year plans make the most of the internet's role in listening to the voice of the people, stimulate public enthusiasm for national governance, and demonstrate how socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics works in the new era," explains Zhang Xiaomeng, a professor at Renmin University of China.

A model that challenges the West.

China frequently uses its five-year plans as an argument against Western criticism of its governance. According to the government, the documents are no longer written behind closed doors, but built over months of public consultation, with data collected from digital platforms, specialized forums, and popular meetings.

“The five-year plan is developed after extensive debates and becomes an action agenda known to the people, who contribute to it and expect positive results from it. This is very different from what happens in the West, where capital is more impatient because the system is guided by shareholders who demand quick profits. Therefore, the Chinese model is more democratic than the Western one,” stated British political scientist Carlos Martínez, co-editor of the platform. Friends of Socialist China, in an interview with Global Times.

Even though popular participation is on the rise, this does not mean that all suggestions are heeded or that the process escapes the control of the Communist Party — something unimaginable in the Chinese reality. 

But what seems increasingly likely to become a reality is the ancient proverb attributed to Sun Tzu: "Victory comes when leaders and people share the same goal." The phrase, written more than two thousand years ago in The art of warThis sentiment is repeated by leaders in Beijing — and, by all indications, also resonates among those at the grassroots level.