Communique of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 12th Provincial Committee of the CPC in Sichuan Province

Communique of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 12th Committee of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan Province

(Adopted at the 5th Plenary Session of the 12th Committee of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan Province on May 13, 2024)

　　The 5th Plenary Session of the 12th Committee of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan Province was held in Chengdu on May 13, 2024. Photo by Ou Yang Jie, a reporter from Chuan Guan News.

　　Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Wang Xiaohui delivered a speech. Photo by Ou Yang Jie, reporter for Chuan Guan News.

　　The 5th Plenary Session of the 12th Committee of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan Province was held in Chengdu on May 13, 2024.

　　Attending the plenary session were 80 members of the Provincial Party Committee and 16 alternate members of the Provincial Party Committee. Also in attendance were members of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, members of the Provincial Supervisory Commission, and responsible officials from relevant departments. Some grassroots representatives, experts and scholars, and representatives from related sectors among the delegates to the 12th Provincial Party Congress also attended the meeting.

　　The plenary session was chaired by the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee. Wang Xiaohui, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, delivered a speech.

　　The plenary session adhered to the guiding principles of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implemented the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Party and the series of important instructions by General Secretary Xi Jinping on Sichuan’s work, and adopted the “Decision of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee on Solidly Promoting High-Quality Development with the Development of New-Generation Productive Forces as a Key Focus.” Wang Xiaohui provided an explanation of the “Decision (Discussion Draft)” to the plenary session.

　　The plenary session fully affirmed the work of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee. There was unanimous agreement that, since the Fourth Plenary Session of the 12th Provincial Party Committee, faced with a complex and grim situation and multiple difficulties and challenges, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the Provincial Party Committee has thoroughly implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee as well as the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s series of important instructions on Sichuan’s work. The Committee has vigorously promoted the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle, deeply carried out the development strategy of “synchronizing the four modernizations, integrating urban and rural areas, and fostering the joint prosperity of five regions,” taken multiple measures to consolidate and enhance the economic recovery trend, coordinated efforts to advance reform, development, and stability, and meticulously organized thematic education on studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as well as Party discipline education. As a result, all undertakings for governing Sichuan and revitalizing the province have achieved new progress.

　　The plenary session pointed out that high-quality development is the primary task in fully building a modern socialist country and represents an essential truth for the new era. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of theoretical generalizations and strategic arrangements on high-quality development, notably putting forward creatively the important requirement of fostering new-quality productive forces. This has further enriched and developed Marxist theory on the productive forces, guiding China’s economy to ride the waves and move forward steadily. At this significant milestone—the 25th anniversary of the Western Development Strategy—General Secretary Xi Jinping chaired a symposium and delivered an important speech, making strategic arrangements for further establishing a new pattern of large-scale protection, large-scale opening-up, and high-quality development. These arrangements provide the fundamental guidance for vigorously writing a new chapter in the Western Development Strategy as we advance toward Chinese-style modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to and holds high expectations for Sichuan’s high-quality development. He emphasized that Sichuan is a strategic hinterland for China’s development and occupies a unique and vital position in the overall national development landscape, especially in implementing the Western Development Strategy. He put forward the important “four-point emphasis,” calling for the construction of “two highlands, two bases, and one barrier,” and urging Sichuan to quickly become a major growth pole and new source of momentum driving high-quality development in the western region. We must firmly shoulder the mission and tasks entrusted to Sichuan by the Party Central Committee and General Secretary Xi Jinping, and with a sense of urgency that time waits for no one, go all-out to boost the economy and carry out construction, continuously expanding our economic size, improving the quality of development, and enhancing our overall weight and influence. We should strive to demonstrate new achievements and attain new results in high-quality development.

　　The plenary session pointed out that Sichuan’s development has now reached a new historical starting point. The province’s total economic output has crossed the 6 trillion yuan mark, and both the quality and efficiency of its development have significantly improved. Sichuan is accelerating its evolution toward a higher-level development model characterized by more optimized division of labor and a more rational structural framework. However, imbalanced and inadequate development remains the most significant reality of the province. Issues such as an underdeveloped industrial system, sluggish market mechanisms, insufficient coordinated development, and limited openness persist. As Sichuan embarks on a new journey, its development is at a critical juncture—facing the uphill battle of rolling stones, the challenging phase of transformation and upgrading, and the pivotal period of kinetic energy conversion. While Sichuan is presented with a series of major opportunities, it also confronts numerous difficulties and challenges. It is imperative to seize the opportunities presented by the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, accelerate the development of new-quality productive forces, and firmly advance high-quality development. This will lay an even stronger material and technological foundation for Sichuan’s modernization drive and enable it to take the lead and make greater contributions in the new era of large-scale western development.

　　The plenary session emphasized that, at this new starting point, we must firmly advance high-quality development by fully, accurately, and comprehensively implementing the new development philosophy, actively integrating into and serving the construction of the new development pattern, adhering to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, and vigorously promoting the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-City Economic Circle. We should deeply implement the development strategy of “synchronizing the four modernizations, integrating urban and rural areas, and fostering the joint prosperity of five regions,” taking the development of new-quality productive forces as a key focus, accelerating transformations in development modes, growth drivers, development sectors, and development quality, and striving to achieve both effective qualitative improvements and reasonable quantitative growth. We must strengthen our sense of mission and responsibility in serving the overall national interest, resolutely shoulder the heavy responsibility of being a major economic province, and endeavor to build ourselves into a core support area for national strategic initiatives. We must uphold a systematic approach, focusing on leveraging our strengths and addressing our weaknesses to comprehensively enhance the balance, coordination, and sustainability of development. We must harness the pivotal role of reform and opening-up, remove institutional and mechanistic barriers that constrain high-quality development, and continuously boost development momentum and vitality. We must adhere to a people-centered development philosophy, adopt more measures that benefit the people and warm their hearts, and steadily enhance people’s well-being toward the goal of common prosperity. We must firmly safeguard the bottom line of security, effectively prevent and resolve various risks and challenges, and achieve a dynamic equilibrium and mutual reinforcement between high-quality development and high-level security.

　　The plenary session, anchored on the overall goal of Sichuan’s modernization, set forth the objective of steadily promoting high-quality development: By 2027, the province’s overall strength and competitiveness will continue to rise, with significant progress made in high-quality development, and the economy’s total output will cross two more trillion-yuan milestones. New strides will be made in developing new-quality productive forces, yielding a number of landmark achievements in cutting-edge scientific and technological fields; high-tech industries and strategic emerging industries will keep expanding, the scale of future-oriented industries will steadily grow, and industrial transformation and upgrading will take even greater steps forward. The balance, coordination, and sustainability of development will reach new heights, with notable progress in integrated urban-rural development, accelerated formation of a development pattern featuring shared prosperity across the five regions, and deepened green transformation of development approaches. People’s well-being will reach a new level, social undertakings aimed at improving people’s livelihoods will accelerate their pace, and the public’s spiritual and cultural lives will become richer and more diverse. Coordinated development and security will open up new prospects, with solid progress made in building a peaceful and law-based Sichuan, and the overall social situation remaining harmonious and stable. By 2035, total factor productivity will significantly increase, and we will basically achieve new-type industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, essentially building a strong, modernized economic province and achieving socialist modernization in step with the rest of the country.

　　The plenary session pointed out that Sichuan boasts abundant science and education resources, a well-developed industrial system, and vast market potential, providing a solid foundation and favorable conditions for developing new-quality productivity. It is imperative to regard this as a key focus of high-quality development and accelerate the growth of new-quality productivity, guided primarily by innovation. We must launch initiatives to achieve breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies, optimize the spatial distribution of innovation resources, strengthen capacity-building in scientific and technological innovation, and vigorously advance major science and technology programs in areas such as artificial intelligence, aerospace, advanced equipment, bio-manufacturing, clean energy, and advanced materials, making concerted efforts to break through a number of critical core technologies. We should promote deep-level industrial transformation and upgrading, enhance the technological empowerment of industries with distinctive advantages, deepen the intelligent transformation and digitalization of manufacturing, foster and expand emerging and future industries, and promote the deep integration of modern service industries with advanced manufacturing, thereby accelerating the establishment of a modern industrial system that reflects Sichuan’s unique characteristics and strengths. We must deepen reforms in key areas and critical links, focusing on driving reforms in the fields of economy, education, science and technology, and talent. By embracing greater openness, we will attract advanced production factors, innovate approaches to allocating these factors, and remove bottlenecks and obstacles that hinder the development of new-quality productivity.

　　The plenary session emphasized the need to continue making sustained efforts to address the prominent issues that constrain Sichuan’s high-quality development, enhance the balance, coordination, and sustainability of development, and continuously improve the quality and substance of high-quality development. We must accelerate the formation of a new pattern of coordinated regional development, promote leading development in regions with distinct advantages, make up for the most glaring shortcomings in regional development, build a regional economic layout characterized by complementary strengths, and advance higher-level, coordinated regional development. We should deepen the integrated development of urban and rural areas, adhering to the working principle of “focusing on both ends while smoothing the middle.” Taking counties as an important entry point, we will steadily advance the integrated development of urban and rural areas, accelerate the promotion of a new type of urbanization centered on county towns, effectively and powerfully drive the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, speed up the construction of livable, workable, and beautiful villages, and foster shared prosperity between urban and rural communities. We must comprehensively strengthen the building of a Beautiful Sichuan, always uphold the principle of large-scale protection, fight resolutely and effectively the battles to safeguard blue skies, clean waters, and pristine soils, implement major projects for the protection and restoration of key ecosystems, improve mechanisms for realizing the value of ecological products, accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of our development model, continuously reinforce the ecological barrier at the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and create a pioneering zone for a Beautiful China.

　　The plenary session pointed out that the fundamental purpose of promoting high-quality development is to enable the people to lead a better life and continuously enhance their quality of life. We must optimize the public service system, focus on addressing the urgent, difficult, and troubling issues faced by the people, and introduce more pragmatic measures in areas such as employment, education, healthcare, elderly care, and childcare, thereby improving the equity, convenience, and accessibility of public services. We should actively explore new mechanisms for fostering common prosperity, optimize the income distribution structure, refine the dynamic adjustment mechanism for standards of policies aimed at improving people’s livelihoods, and deepen the construction of the Panzhihua Pilot Zone for Common Prosperity. We must enrich the supply of high-quality cultural products, establish a special working mechanism for the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, improve the modern public cultural service system, vigorously develop the digital cultural industry, and accelerate the building of a culturally strong province, a tourism-strong province, and a sports-strong province in the new era.

　　The plenary session pointed out that achieving a high level of security is a fundamental prerequisite for high-quality development. We must better coordinate development and security, and build a higher-level security framework. We need to ensure the secure supply of critical primary products, accelerate the construction of a new-era “Tianfu Granary” at a higher level, develop a world-class base for high-quality clean energy, and promote the comprehensive development and utilization of strategic mineral resources. We must effectively prevent and defuse risks in key areas, strengthen risk management and control over small and medium-sized financial institutions, systematically advance the prevention and resolution of local debt risks in a tiered and categorized manner, proactively and steadily address real estate risks, and firmly safeguard our ideological front. We should build a higher-level safe Sichuan and a law-based Sichuan, comprehensively promote the building of a law-based government and a law-based society, deepen the regular, rule-of-law-based governance of Tibetan-inhabited prefectures and counties, improve the social stability risk prevention and control system, carry out the three-year action plan for addressing the root causes of work safety, thoroughly implement regular prevention and control measures for forest and grassland fire suppression, and advance the modernization of the emergency management system and capabilities.

　　The plenary session emphasized that to steadily advance high-quality development, the key lies in implementation, and the critical factor is the cadre team. We must firmly uphold the Party’s leadership throughout all aspects and at every stage of the process, and rigorously enforce the principal responsibility of Party committees and governments at all levels, effectively enhancing our capacity and level in promoting high-quality development. We must firmly establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, continue to deepen targeted rectifications addressing issues such as “image projects,” “face-saving projects,” “half-finished projects,” and statistical fraud, resolutely oppose formalism and bureaucratic practices, firmly curb the blind expansion of high-energy-consuming, high-emission, low-level projects, and categorically reject extensive development models that cause severe ecological damage and yield low input-output efficiency. We must adhere to developing new productive forces based on reality, adopting a strategy of establishing new foundations before dismantling old ones, tailoring approaches to local conditions, and providing differentiated guidance. We must prevent excessive ambition and reckless rushes, and avoid simply labeling traditional industries as “low-end” and hastily phasing them out. We must uphold the standards for good cadres in the new era, clearly advocating that merit be judged by practical actions and that cadres be appointed and promoted based on their actual performance. We should focus on identifying, cultivating, and utilizing cadres on the front lines of high-quality development, optimize the comprehensive performance evaluation system for high-quality development, encourage cadres to take responsibility, act boldly, and pursue entrepreneurship, and pool powerful synergy to drive high-quality development forward.

　　The plenary session emphasized that studying, publicizing, and implementing the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 12th Provincial Party Committee is a crucial political task for all levels across the province now and in the period ahead. Party committees (party groups) at all levels must earnestly carry out thorough communication and study, publicity and explanation, and education and training, guiding cadres and party members to align their thinking and actions with the decisions and deployments of the Provincial Party Committee. We must genuinely enhance our sense of initiative and determination to accelerate the development of new-quality productive forces and steadily promote high-quality development from this new starting point. We need to strike a balance among technological innovation and industrial innovation, coordinated regional development and integrated urban-rural development, improving people’s quality of life and achieving common prosperity, an efficient market and a capable government, as well as development and security. With a strong sense of political responsibility and historical mission, we must move forward step by step to ensure that the major policies and guidelines of the Party Central Committee and the deployment of the Provincial Party Committee’s plenary session are effectively implemented and put into practice.

　　The plenary session calls on all sectors across the province to unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Party and the series of important instructions by General Secretary Xi Jinping on Sichuan’s work, and pursue development with a down-to-earth, hardworking, and steady approach. By achieving tangible results in fostering new-quality productive forces and promoting high-quality development, we will make new and greater contributions to energetically writing a new chapter for Sichuan’s modernization with Chinese characteristics!

Source: Chuan Guan News