A decade in two 5-year plans

(Xinhua) Updated: 2016-03-16 16:59

Xiaomi's success is shared by many Chinese high-tech companies that have ridden the Internet boom over the past five years. In 2015, more than 668 million Chinese had access to the Internet, almost half the population, and mobile phone web users numbered 594 million.

China-based social networking apps such as WeChat and Sina Weibo initially imitated WhatsApp and Twitter, but they adapted and maintained their popularity by constantly introducing new functions.

Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant, set its initial public offering (IPO) price at $68 per share and raised $21.8 billion, making a record-breaking IPO launch in 2014.

Its founder Jack Ma famously said, "Yesterday, you didn't want to talk to me (because I was nobody back then). Today, I am so successful that you can't reach me." This quote is viewed as a true reflection of China's Internet power.

In the next five years, the Internet will be a pillar industry for the Chinese economy by transforming traditional industries and companies. People will enjoy faster, cheaper Internet services and more information infrastructure.

When China was founded in 1949, it was a big but poor agricultural country, with a mostly rural population; since reform and opening-up in 1978, urbanization has accelerated.

Over the past five years, the urban population for the first time outnumbered the rural population, with about 55 percent of Chinese living in cities. Meanwhile, rural incomes have grown faster than urban incomes for six consecutive years.

In 2015, China addressed its future city development in its first Central Urban Work Conference since 1978, laying out plans to increase the urbanization ratio to 60 percent and speed up the assimilation of migrant rural workers into the urban population by 2020.

A poll on Twitter launched by Xinhua shows that job creation targets in the new five-year plan impressed web users most. The government has vowed to create more than 10 million new jobs this year and at least 50 million more by 2020.

However, the world's most populous country is also aging, with 220 million people aged 60 or over.

To offset the pressures brought by a shrinking work force and an aging population, the new five-year plan proposes raising the retirement age, while a two-child policy beginning this year is expected to result in 3 million more babies every year.

Transformations

China is rapidly transitioning from a mere participant in the international system to a provider of public goods, said Foreign Minister Wang Yi this month on the sidelines of the national legislature's annual session.

More than 70 countries and international organizations have expressed interest in the Belt and Road Initiative, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposed in 2013. It highlights transport infrastructure, investment and trade facilitation, financial cooperation and cultural exchanges.