Foreign news

The CPC’s fifth plenum and China’s 14th Five-Year Plan 2021-2025

Published

4 years ago

October 26, 2020

I’m Robert Lawrence Kuhn and here’s what I’m watching: The fifth plenum of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee, its agenda and impact.

Foreigners wonder how China is thinking, where China is going? Party plenums are clues. Party plenums are formal meetings of the Central Committee, the highest level “Congress,” as it were, of the ruling Communist Party of China, attended by more than 300 full and alternate members.

The fifth plenum marks an inflection point between China’s two centenary goals: the first, the moderately prosperous society, achieved this year, 2020, highlighted by the elimination of all extreme poverty.

The fifth plenum rolls out a framework of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, 2021 to 2025, the first five-year plan of economic and social development looking ahead 30 years to China 2050. The 14th Five-Year Plan is deemed critical, given decreasing international trade such that demand for Chinese goods is less, and a volatile global environment such that sensitivity to China’s rise is more, thus preparing the country for economic challenges at home and growing hostilities abroad.

The focus will be on what President Xi Jinping has called the “Double Development Dynamics” strategy, rebalancing toward China’s domestic market – according to leadership, to “facilitate better connectivity between domestic and foreign markets for more resilient and sustainable growth.”

Essential is high-quality growth and self-sufficiency in science and technology – hi-tech independence – especially the design and manufacturing of semiconductor chips, which undergird all the frontier technologies: artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, supercomputing, quantum computing, even smartphones. Other technologies include renewables, material science, new energy vehicles, biotechnology, and space science.

The plenum will also present a midterm economic strategy called “2035 vision,” the half-way mark to China 2050, when China intends to become a fully modernized, socialist nation and a great power in the world, particularly in science and technology and in defense. This implements what Xi stated at the 19th CPC National Congress in late 2017: China will “basically” realize socialist modernization by 2035.

According to a recent Politburo announcement, “We must seek development that has higher quality, higher efficiency, higher fairness, higher sustainability, and higher safety. We must seek a synthesis of scale, speed, quality, efficiency, and safety.”

There are cautions. China’s race for self-sufficiency in semiconductor chips, supplying vast funding, can entice non-expert companies, with the all-too-predictable failures and wastes. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission asserted that companies with no experience, no technology, and no talent should stop blindly rushing into the industry.

Advancing science and technology should be a global good in that all humanity benefits, no matter the country of origin — the COVID-19 vaccine being a prime example. The challenge for China in presenting its 14th Five-Year Plan, founded on science and technology, is to show the world why all should root for, not against, its success.

I’m keeping watch. I’m Robert Lawrence Kuhn.

Scriptwriter: Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Cameraman: Morgan Compagnon

Video editor: Hao Xinxin

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Foreign news

French Envoy Seeks Collaboration With NAN To Boost Seamless Relationship

Published

2 hours ago

February 5, 2025

The Gleamer

The new French envoy to Nigeria, Marc Fonbaustier, on Wednesday called for collaboration with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) toward strengthening the mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries.

Fonbaustier, who is the French ambassador to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, made the call when he paid a courtesy visit to Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, NAN’s Managing Director, in Abuja.
The ambassador said that his purpose of visiting was to pay tribute to the MD, and to seek collaboration in three areas with a view to promoting stronger, seamless and fruitful partnership between both countries.

He added that Nigeria and its people were hospitable, especially to the foreigners and ambassadors alike.

He added that Nigeria was a country with so much energy, strength, stamina and so many talents.

In Nigeria, with the population of this size, it is inevitable that the elites of the country are very outstanding, “and there may be a Franco/Nigeria moments now”, he jokes.

According to him, France and Nigeria can collaborate more and learn from each other.
“I could feel it particularly during the state visit of President Bola Tinubu which took place in November 2024.

“I was there and I could see the intensity, the strength and the scope of the partnership, and I am here to scale up that partnership in all sectors.

“I am coming here for three reasons, first, to pay a tribute to the NAN MD and his team for the quality of this agency. We can testify that the contents that you publish are very factual, and also very well set up and structured.

“You do fact checking and you really do try to provide the community with quality information. I think, as a French ambassador, I can recognise that as part of a living democracy,” he said.

The French ambassador said the second reason for the visit was to intimate the NAN MD of France’s eagerness to go on partnership with NAN saying he hoped for assurance of a seamless, fluid and easy relationship.

He said that his third reason stemmed from his observation that NAN recently signed some partnership framework agreements with Egypt and China, saying “it may be time to think of balancing this partnership with others”.

“Especially with French, and to talk with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to see if there’s ground for a closer relationship between NAN and AFP.

“Which is also a recognised agency like yours, and I bet you the sky will be the limit to the collaboration, ’’he said.

Responding, the NAN MD informed the envoy that the agency was African’s biggest news content provider on account of its size.

Ali gave the envoy a little details of the agency’s operation and its outreach, saying “as our continent’s biggest news content provider, we have offices nationwide and in selected African countries.

“We have offices in countries such as South Africa, Cote d’ivoire, Addis Ababa, and then we have offices also beyond the shores of Africa. We have in New York and we are the only resident wire service in the United Nations.

“At a time in the past, the agency had 11 foreign offices, including Moscow, and presently, we are trying to re-open some of our shut offices, especially in London.
“We value partnership and understanding that we have with similar news organisation such as Reuters and, incidentally, we have a long standing relationship with AFP which you just raised.
“I know for years we have exchange of news between NAN and AFP but it’s a cooperation that we will like to strengthen and with your greater involvement,’’ he said.

The MD commended the ambassador for reaching out and engaging with some Nigerians communities to douse the tension of the allegation made by the Nigeriens.

He also lauded the envoy’s leadership and visibility to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, “which has helped to douse the perception and misconceptions about France, especially in the Sahel”.
“I think you have helped to reverse some of this perceptions. I thank you for the kind words that you said about the agency and about our management.

“We also see partnership as an important tool in checking the spread of fake news.
“We’ve seen instances where fake news has done great deal of damage, and with the coming of social media it has done even greater damage.

“Our country is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the increasing insecurity, and the social media has been used by those who do not want to see our country to prosper,” Ali said.
He further said that NAN was a credible news agency that always fact check to correct the wrong narratives by those who are in the business of causing troubles.

He also told the envoy that the agency has its content in the Nigerian indigenous languages, starting with Hausa and it would proceed to Yoruba and Igbo languages later, “then later in future to French.

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