Yearender: Xi leads China through a pivotal 2025

BLUEPRINT FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

While 2025 tested resilience, it also heightened the focus on what lies ahead. In October, the CPC Central Committee adopted recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan at a key Party plenum, charting the country's development path from 2026 through 2030.

The upcoming five-year plan carries unusual weight, as only 10 years remain before 2035 -- the milestone year by which China aims to "basically achieve socialist modernization." This marks the first goal in Xi's two-step blueprint for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects by mid-century.

"Socialist modernization can only be realized through a historical process of gradual and ongoing development," Xi told the plenum. "It requires the unremitting hard work of generation after generation."

In the months leading up to the meeting, Xi toured factories and communities to refine priorities for the next five years. From a steel mill in Liaoning to a bearing plant in Henan, he stressed that the real economy remains the backbone of national strength, calling for greater self-reliance in core manufacturing technologies.

The recommendations put "building a modern industrial system and strengthening the foundations of the real economy" first among a dozen priority areas.

Security features just as prominently. Early last year, Xi told senior Party leaders that both development and security are vital. In Jilin province, he underscored northeast China's responsibilities in safeguarding national defense, food, ecological, energy and industrial security. In Henan province, he emphasized food security.

The October plenum elevated "ensuring both development and security" to a core principle for 2026-2030 development, calling for consolidating security alongside development and pursuing development in a secure environment.

The well-being of 1.4 billion Chinese has always been the centerpiece of China's modernization drive.

Over the past year, Xi visited grassroots households across the nation. In mountainous Guizhou province, he chatted with villagers about incomes; in the border province Yunnan, he spoke with shopkeepers about business. Alongside this, he has pushed a people-centered urbanization drive, calling for cities that are innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, culturally vibrant and smart.

Accordingly, the recommendations highlighted "promoting well-rounded human development" in the guiding philosophy for China's development over the next five years, calling for greater investment in human capital and more inclusive public services.

"When the happy hum of daily life fills every home, the big family of our nation will go from strength to strength," Xi said in his New Year message.