Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal (Dec 2019)
Reviewing the Fourth Plenum: Governance and Morality in the Era of Xi Jinping
Abstract
Plenums are an opportunity for the Central Committee members to meet, and, of course, discuss a number of important issues pertaining to the state of the domestic economy, but also to national governance. As tensions are rising inside the Party-State apparatus – mainly the results of the aftermath of the anti-corruption campaign, the tenuous trade war or the chaos spreading in Hong Kong, all eyes were looking at Xi Jinping to announce the fourth plenum of the nineteenth Party Congress. The latter would come more than 600 days after the third plenum (February 2018), in the context of a tensed post-summer retreat at Beidaihe. The fourth plenum expressed tensions in the top leadership structure, but also highlighted some confusion and uncertainties as to what the Party plans to do to remedy the economic slowdown, to solve the ongoing Hong Kong crisis, and to untangle the trade talks with the United States – talks that only recently reached a tentative agreement. As such, this article reviews and focuses on the conclusions of the fourth plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
