China, economic growth, Michael Roberts - Center on Capital & Social Equity

“But for me, trying to boost consumer spending and expand the private sector are just not what the Third Plenum should aim for. Actually, the Third Plenum release reminds us that China still has planning, not the centralized one of the Soviet Union, but ‘indicative planning’ with targets set for many sectors. The release said that ‘We must summarize and evaluate the implementation of the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ and do a good job in the early planning of the ’15th Five-Year Plan‘.

“China is fast developing a ‘new economy’ based on high value-added tech sectors. These sectors have significantly outpaced headline GDP growth in recent years. Between 2017 and 2023, the new economy grew by an average of 10.2% per year, far faster than the 5.5% average overall GDP growth.”

The political economies of China and the US can both be described as unequal blends (65-35?) of capitalism and socialism/communism. (See: “Mixing Capitalism and Socialism: Policies To Moderate Systemic Wealth Concentration in the United States”