The mainland has come to a point where only a determined drive for comprehensive reform can surmount problems resulting from three decades of high economic growth, says eminent economist Professor Wu Jinglian.
Delivering last week's 'Prospects for China's 12th five-year plan', part of the University of Hong Kong's Centenary Distinguished Lectures series, the 81-year old liberal economist told his audience it was no accident that the plan called for 'accelerating the transformation of the economic development pattern'.
Approved by the annual session of the National People's Congress last month, the plan provides a road map for the country's economic and social development for 2011-2015.
'President Hu Jintao made a speech at a provincial-level study class early this year about the need for change. In the speech he used the term jiakuai (accelerate or move fast) 50 times, plus expressions such as 'let's lose no time'. That certainly says a lot about the urgency seen at the highest level.'
The top leader's words of course carried weight, and action immediately followed. But 'it was done within the old framework and mechanism, such as the government-led mobilisation of capital and resources. The results are less than ideal,' adds Wu, a veteran research fellow at the State Council Research Development Centre.
Such a deep-rooted mindset could be traced back as early as the 1950s when the Soviet model was introduced in China.
'China imported the investment-driven model of the Soviet Union in the first five-year plan (1953-1957), which remained basically unchanged until the 1990s,' he says.