China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, set to be finalized next year, will chart the country’s development path for the next five years. Dr. Geoff Raby, former Australian Ambassador to China, spoke with CGTN Europe, highlighting early signals of China’s continued commitment to openness, multilateral engagement, and support for the WTO. He noted that infrastructure development particularly in artificial intelligence and data processing will be a major focus, requiring significant new investments. At the same time, China still has opportunities for more traditional infrastructure projects, given its ongoing urbanization and uneven regional development.
00:00Well, let's get more detail on this. Dr. Geoff Rabbe is the former Australian ambassador to China.
00:07I'll be looking for the sort of key principles and guidance that the leadership through this plenum will give for the development of the 15th five-year plan,
00:19which will be signed off at next year's National People's Congress in March, April.
00:24This is the key point about this plenum. It's going to set the direction of the course for the next five years.
00:30As a former ambassador, how do you see this plenum shaping China's relationship with the outside world, the wider world?
00:39Clearly, the Trump administration has overturned the apple cart, as we would say.
00:45And I think the plenum will be very mindful of that.
00:48And the encouraging thing is most of the signals, the early signals, signals are that the Chinese leadership is very much committed to maintaining openness,
00:58multilateral engagement, supporting the WTO.
01:02I think all these are very important.
01:04China's liberalised its visa regime recently, wanting to attract more professionals coming to China.
01:11And it continues to open up to foreign investment.
01:14So I think these are the very strong signals and directions in a very uncertain world that should be welcomed.
01:22And let's look at this from the other perspective.
01:24I wonder how should Australia and the wider world interpret this plenum?
01:29Is it a commercial opportunity?
01:31Is it a strategic challenge or opportunity or both?
01:38It will lead to commercial opportunities, but it's strategic, basically.
01:43I mean, it really is about setting the course for the next five years.
01:47And this is how China has organised itself since the founding of the People's Republic.
01:52And the form of every party Congress deals with economic matters and some personnel matters.
01:59But principally, it sets the course for the five-year plan in those years when a new five-year plan is coming.
02:06Infrastructure is the big focus on the agenda.
02:09I mean, for decades, infrastructure has been a key driver of China's economic growth.
02:16How do you expect Beijing to recalibrate and repoint its plans?
02:23Well, clearly, the whole world of AI is changing very, very rapidly.
02:30Data centres, massive energy intensity of these things, I think is going to be a big focus in the next five-year plan.
02:39On China as a world leader in AI, in data processing, and all of the things that come with that.
02:47And that, I think, is going to require massive infrastructure commitment.
02:51But I also would make this point, and that is China still has many areas that are still underdeveloped.
03:00Its urbanisation rates are only in the 60 percents.
03:02That will rise over the course of this five-year plan.
03:07And so there's still a great scope left for China to continue to expand more traditional forms of infrastructure,
03:14which it's been very successful at, such as railways, transport infrastructure, and so on.
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