Editorial | Beijing must manage priorities to ensure long-term growth

Mainland policymakers never tire of reaffirming the importance of stability. The annual central economic work conference was no exception, as it set the tone ahead of the February Winter Olympics and the 20th National Party Congress next year.

Short term, unsurprisingly, stability is paramount in the face of “threefold pressure, including contraction of demand, supply [chain] shocks and weaker expectations”, factors that are expected to be reflected in less than 4 per cent year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter. To counter headwinds Beijing has pledged to “front-load” policies to shore up the economy next year, on top of measures already taken, such as cutting the bank reserve ratio to boost liquidity.

Long term, stability is also the bottom line in management of progress towards China’s climate-change goals of carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. A statement issued after the economic conference said: “Achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals … requires unwavering efforts but it can’t be achieved in just one battle.”

In other words, they cannot be achieved in isolation from the need to ensure livelihoods, including guarding energy reserves with gradual transition from coal to green energy.

President Xi Jinping elaborated at the weekend on the importance of China building up its own reserves of basic commodities, saying it must establish a “strategic baseline” to ensure self-sufficiency in key items from energy to soybeans. The economic conference identified this as one of five key issues amid the pandemic and changing international relations, the others being common prosperity, capital regulation, financial stability and carbon neutrality.