Source: Beijing Daily

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Central Committee of the CPC, with General Secretary Xi Jinping at the core, put forward and developed a series of new ideas, new thoughts and new strategies, specifically, regarding China’s economy. These new ideas, new thoughts and new strategies mainly include the new normal of economic development, new development ideas, and structural reform at the supply side. Among them, the new normal of economic development determines the context of development; the new development ideas give the guiding principles; the structural reform at the supply side points out the direction of reform and the area from which to achieve breakthrough of reform. These elements form a logic system that is closely linked and consistent.

The new normal of economic development indicates the change in trend and evolving direction of China's economic development, and it constitutes a historic new high in the understanding about the law of development.

The judgment about the current situation is the basic starting point for putting forward new ideas and new thoughts, and the development of new strategies for governing the state. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the long cycle of development of the world economy and period characteristics of China's development and their interaction, since 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping has stated on many occasions that China's economic development is entering a new normal. He has explained the basic characteristics of the new normal, thus: the growth is changing from a high growth rate to a medium and high growth rate; the economic development mode is changing from size-and-rate oriented growth to quality-and-efficiency oriented growth; the economic structure is in a deep adjustment and transition from volume increase and capacity expansion oriented, to equal stress on adjustment of existing volume and improvement of increment volume; and the drive for development is changing from traditional growth points to new growth points. Representing a unification of logic and history, this strategic judgment indicates the change in trend and evolution in direction of China's economic development, and it constitutes a historical new high in the understanding about the law of development.

That China's economic development is entering a new normal phase is not a manifestation of medium and short cycle fluctuation of economic development, and it is not any known long cycle phenomenon of economic development, it is just a new stage in the long term process of China's economic development, and an important milestone in the path to the great revival of the Chinese nation. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that: that "to know the new normal, adapt to the new normal and guide the new normal is a major logic of China's economic development in the current and future period". In such a context, the new normal has become a basic starting point for innovating economic theories and putting forward new development ideas, strategies, and policies in the area of economic building in China.

The new development ideas represent a unification of objective orientation and problem orientation, and they are a centralized representation of the new ideas, new thoughts, and new strategies that the CPC has put forward since the 18th National Congress of the CPC.

Considering from the holistic, fundamental and direction-related and long term perspective, the 5th plenary session of the 18th National Congress of the CPC determines the new ideas for China's economic and social development in the 13th Five-year Plan period: Innovation, coordination, green, open and sharing. Among these ideas about development, the innovation idea indicates how to solve the problem of the drive for development, and it focuses on cultivating a new drive for economic growth under the new normal; the coordination idea indicates how to solve the problem of uneven development, and it focuses on healthiness of development; the green idea indicates how to solve the problem of disharmony between humanity and nature, and it focuses on sustainability of development, and development’s conformance to people's pursuit of a happy life; the open idea indicates how to solve the problem of internal-external linkage, and it focuses on making good use of the two markets (the international market and domestic market, two kinds of resources), so as to achieve internal-external development linkage; the sharing idea indicates the inherent requirements and development objective of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it focuses on solving the problem of social equity and justice. These 5 development ideas give comprehensive responses to the problems in such aspects as the objective, means, path, point of effort investment, measuring, and sharing of development. They represent the unification of objective orientation and problem orientation. They are a summary of past experiences, and they include reflective thinking about the lessons, and learning of international experiences. They represent a development idea to guide China's development practice in the next 5 years or for a longer period, and can be considered a profound change of the understanding of development, which will affect the overall landscape of China's development. The 5 development ideas are a centralized representation of the new ideas, new thoughts and new strategies that the CPC has put forward since the 18th National Congress of CPC regarding governing of the state.

The structural reform at the supply side indicates the causes of the current problems in China's economy, the challenges that China's economy faces and the basic path to solve the problems.

The Central Economic Work Conference of 2015 put forward the requirement that in addition to moderately expanding overall demand, high stress should be laid on strengthening structural reform at the supply side. This requirement was put forward based on the logic that China's economic development is entering a new normal. The long term objective of the structural reform at the supply side is to put into practice the 5 development ideas, and to eliminate the factors at the institution and mechanism level that may cause imbalance, disharmony and unsustainability. The tasks in the near future are to reduce production capacity, reduce stock, lower leverage, and lower cost, and to make up for the shortcoming part, which are all put forward in the context of the special historical background.

At the practice level, the structural reform at the supply side accommodates the requirement of liberation and development of productivity, and it is critical to China's change of its development mode and overcoming the imbalance of the economy. It represents a profound revolution in China's macro regulation means, and an important drive for institutional innovation. At the theory level, its economic and theoretic base is the political economics of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. The methodological base of the structural reform is the unification of problem orientation and objective orientation, and it accurately indicates the causes of the current problems of China's economy, the challenge it faces, and the basic paths to solve them. It is not a simple proposition, but it is a systematic economic revolution about building socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics. It is not only comprised of rich and profound policy contents, but it is also of long term strategic significance.

These new ideas, new thoughts and new strategies are put forward based on China's current situation, the historical long cycle of the ups and downs and replacement of the great powers, and an international perspective about the world situation. They are important supports to guide China's economic development and the revival of the Chinese nation. It is just because of the economic policy framework that was established based on these new ideas, new thoughts, and new strategies, accommodating the new normal of China's economic development, that we can achieve the objective of stable and healthy development of China's economy and society, in the context of the current extremely challenging and complicated global economic situation.

These new ideas, new thoughts and new strategies cannot be obtained from textbooks of western economics, nor can they be directly copied from classic works of Marxism. They can only be obtained from China's practice, and must be based on the actual condition of China. In this sense, they constitute a part of the latest achievements of contemporary Marxism, and they lay a solid foundation for building of the socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics.

(The author, Gao Peiyong, is a member of the Academic Committee of Shanghai Academy, and Director of the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)