Five-year plan brings China watchers out to play

The country has steadily grown into people's consciousness over the past few years as old attitudes are dissolved

Enter "China Five-Year plan" into Google and you get 29.4 million results thrown up in 0.39 seconds.

Fantasy stuff for those of us of a certain age (digitally speaking), but meat and drink to the battalions of China watchers whose job it is to comb through the latest details of the world's second-biggest economy and help make sense of it all. And what a feast it is.

Some 30 years ago, journalists and analysts would have to comb through reams of paper, sniffing out the nuggets and finding out what the real story was. It took forever. Not just with China, either.

More years ago than I care to remember, Reuters used to await Budget Day, when the British chancellor of the exchequer stands in Parliament and goes through his plans for the year ahead, line by line, in a speech that often takes about 90 minutes.

The British Treasury, ever careful to prevent leaks that could have sent a particular market up, down or sideways, contrived a plan that involved a senior civil servant and his assistant setting up camp in the Reuters office, and feeding carefully vetted and selected journalists the speech page by page, a minute or so ahead of delivery, so that clients got it as the government minister was addressing his colleagues in Parliament.

Remember, this was in the days before Parliament was televised, and reporters and editors used typewriters instead of laptops or smartphones. Grueling stuff.

Now, in the age of instant news, we get it on a plate.

Yes, I know, someone out there still has to wade through the stuff and pick out the bones, but the Internet, among other things, has made it so easy.

Take the case of China. I'll wager that 30 years ago or more, before the country's development and entry into the wider world, finding out details of the five-year plan, central to the country's future (there have been 13 of them after all), would have been as easy as finding dragon's teeth.

Not any more - we get an outline a few months before, and as it is presented to the National People's Congress we start to get the guts of it.

And that's when the China watchers dive in. Within hours, the following gems were available:

"China not heading for a hard landing, says top economic planner" - BBC

"China aims to maintain growth pace, fend off unemployment in five-year plan" - Reuters

"Understanding China's 13th five-year plan" - China Business Review

"Key takeaways from China's 13th five-year plan and annual reports" - South China Morning Post

"Four things you need to ignore in China's new five-year plan" - Forbes Magazine

"Prosperity for the masses by 2020" - PricewaterhouseCoopers

"Focus on 13th five-year plan" - Xinhua Finance Agency

"Why China's five-year plans are so important" - The Economist

"China's new five-year plan is about growth" - Fortune Magazine

I could go on, but I won't.

What I will say is that, for the first time I can remember, media organizations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are much more focused on a story that may have been downplayed in the past.

The reason, I suspect, is that China has steadily grown into people's consciousness over the past few years, and the old attitude of regarding China as the world's factory has gone.

They may not have realized it, but when Chinese officials started pushing the line of China's new normal - "Branded in China, not "Made in China" - they were shoving at an open door.

Public perceptions of China have matured in recent years as the country has opened up, and a real fascination with Beijing's economic game plan for the next five years is now the West's new normal.

Now, excuse me, I have some excellent analyses to read.

The author is managing editor of China Daily Europe, based in London. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com