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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