Gearing up paces
The Leading Group's influence on reform and its guiding role can be seen by a recent comment made by Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu on Sept 29.
Eighteen of the past 38 Leading Group meetings touched on reforms in rural areas, reviewed 24 reform plans regarding agriculture, issued key documents covering topics, such as property rights reform, and have established pillars supporting agricultural reforms, the minister said at a media briefing in Beijing.
The agenda of all the meetings, taken as a whole, shows long-term vision and a strong sense of priorities.
Analysts observed that annual tasks were laid out at the first meeting of each year, and a review of what was achieved was made at the year-end meeting.
Also, the first meeting of the year convened right after each year's plenary session of the CPC Central Committee elaborated on how to effectively carry out the latest reform measures decided by the session.
Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the group's implementation and supervision of reforms has been a major highlight, as "great ideas could be an empty slogan forever without effective implementation".
Behind such efforts is China's strengthened awareness of the rule of law, which "allows the reform to develop in a constant, regulated and healthy manner".
Zhu noted that the Leading Group introduced its working rules and priorities for its annual missions at its first two meetings before it embarked on specific tasks, showcasing a strong sense of priorities and rule-based governance.
When chairing the 31st meeting on Dec 30, Xi summarized that a slew of major reform solutions were issued and realized in the past three years, major breakthroughs were made in reform measures on a range of key areas and sections, and the overall framework for deepening reform was "basically established".
Rwandan Ambassador to China Charles Kayonga said "the speed" of the implementation was impressive as policymakers resolve issues through the Leading Group, and a great lesson for other countries is China's "focus on the main objectives".
The diplomat highlighted the Party's progress in the area of poverty eradication and combating corruption.
The leadership is "focused on resolving problems" as it achieves "mobilizing all national resources" to solve these problems and it is also cooperating with the rest of the world, Kayonga said.
Speaking on the next five years, Li Tuo, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said although future reform measures are yet to be unveiled in detail, restructuring the economy will be further advanced as China has benefited from this already.
People could expect more ambitious plans on boosting productivity as the top policymakers have unprecedented vision in this regard, Li said.
China's further financial reforms should guard against potential risks and even attacks by international speculators, and more breakthroughs are expected in the internationalization of the renminbi, Li added.
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