The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held in Beijing on November 9–12, 2013, produced what may be the most ambitious reform document of the Xi Jinping era: the “Decision of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform.” The communique, issued November 12, 2013, announced that the market would henceforth play a “decisive role” in allocating resources; the full Decision, published November 15, ran to some 60 numbered reform items across 16 sections — later official retrospectives count 15 areas and 336 specific measures. It also created two new central bodies — the National Security Commission and the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform — and pledged the abolition of Reeducation Through Labour and a loosening of the one-child policy. Contemporaries hailed it, doubted it, mocked it, and feared it, often within days of each other. How much of it was implemented, and how much survived later political turns, is a debate the document’s launch window left unresolved.
Background: the “decisive role” announcement
The plenum’s 373 delegates concluded their deliberations on November 12, 2013. The communique’s landmark economic formulation, as reported in English by Reuters at the time: “The core issue is to straighten out the relationship between government and the market, allowing the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and improving the government’s role.” This was a formal upgrade of the market’s assigned role in party doctrine — secondary sources render the prior formulation variously (“basic role” or “core role,” the underlying Chinese being 基础性作用）, but all agree the plenum announced an elevation. The communique’s stated overall objective was to “improve and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics and push on with modernization of the country’s governing system and capabilities,” with “decisive results” targeted by 2020.
Xi Jinping personally explained the Decision to the plenum. A drafting team headed by Xi had been set up in April 2013, with the Political Bureau setting reform as the plenum’s theme and soliciting opinions within the Party and among other parties and organizations. In his Explanation, published November 15, 2013, Xi recalled Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 reform speeches: “only socialism can save China, and only reform and opening-up can develop China, socialism and Marxism,” adding: “Reform and opening-up will decide the destiny of modern China… key to realizing the dream of national rejuvenation.”
The Decision: key provisions
Per contemporaneous professional summaries (Lexology; china-briefing, November 2013), the Decision’s substance covered:
Economic system reform. Described as “the crux” of the program, with proper handling of the government–market relationship at its core. On state-owned enterprises, the Decision used mixed-ownership language — more relaxed rules on private investment in SOEs — while retaining the emphasis on public ownership as “dominant” or “pillar,” a formulation contemporaneous analysts flagged as the document’s central tension.
Two new central bodies. (1) The National Security Commission (国家安全委员会）, “to perfect national security systems and strategies”; (2) the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform (全面深化改革领导小组）, charged with “general planning of reforms, comprehensive coordination, overall direction and supervision of implementation.” These were widely read — including by the Asia Society — as signals that Xi was consolidating power in the tradition of Deng Xiaoping, with political reform “taking a back seat.”
Judicial reform. The Decision pledged strengthening the rule of law and judiciary reform, framed by an independent translation as a “more independent judicial system under CCP leadership.”
Hukou reform. The Decision pledged to revamp household registration: lifting restrictions fully in towns and small cities, gradually relaxing them in medium cities, retaining “reasonable” requirements in large cities, and maintaining strict population control in megacities like Beijing and Shanghai — while extending basic urban public services to all permanent residents.
Rural land. The Decision pushed land reform, greater property rights for farmers, and a rural property-rights trading market.
Social policy. Pension-system reform including a progressive delay of the retirement age; a pledge to abolish Reeducation Through Labour; and a loosening of the one-child policy — couples where one spouse is an only child would be permitted two children.
Finance, environment, and opening. Perfecting financial-market mechanisms; the Shanghai free-trade zone endorsed in the Decision; a negative-list approach to market entry; and user-pay environmental regimes.
Contemporaneous responses
Chinese economists: the “decisive role” debate. At a University of California San Diego panel on January 23–24, 2014, Wu Jinglian （吴敬琏） of the State Council Development Research Center interpreted the plenum as “a conclusive end to a decade-long debate about the reform in China: the market (rather than the state) will now have a decisive role in resource allocation.” The panel’s chair summarized that after a decade pulled between market expansion and “the growth of state power and crony capitalism,” the plenum “charts a course towards an integrated, open, competitive and rule-based market economy.” Wu was “more hopeful now than he has been in over a decade” but “not as optimistic” as fellow panelist Barry Naughton, seeing “major obstacles from entrenched interests.” A contemporaneous counter-note came from Liu Shengjun （刘胜军） of CEIBS’s Lujiazui Institute of International Finance, who wrote on the FT Chinese website in November 2013: “Though the ‘383 Scheme’ [383方案] shows a certain direction and conveys important information, it should not be treated as the reform plan of the Third Plenum… the ‘383 scheme’ represents an ‘ideal plan,’ but the scheme of the Third Plenum will be more of a compromise.”
Liberal and reformist readings. Zhao Xiao （赵晓）, writing on Sina Weibo in November 2013, offered the plenum’s most-quoted verdict: “The Communiqué made people want to leave and the Decision made people want to stay; the Communiqué made people mistakenly think that China is becoming fascist but the Decision made them see that China is still firmly on the way to modernisation” （公报让人想跑路，决定却让人想留下。公报让人误以为这个国家就要变成法西斯中国了，决定却让人看到中国仍然坚定地走在现代化的正路上。). Ma Guangyuan （马光远）, to the Southern Metropolis Daily that November, warned: “However beautiful the Decision looks, if the reforms are not properly implemented, they will fail and be aborted” （《决定》再漂亮，执行得不好，改革仍然会失败和流产）. Scholar Liu Yu （刘瑜）, also on Weibo, refused the decoding game altogether: “I find it really hard to convince myself to analyse this so-called Communiqué, it is a part of the systematic humiliation to which this institution subjects people by forcing the masses to resort to arcane ways of decoding statements about their own country’s future direction.” Journalist Song Zhibiao （宋志标）, writing for FT Chinese, summarized the communique’s “talk about reform” in a single word: delusion （蛊）.
Leftist and state-power readings. The leftist outlet China Worker (chinaworker.info, November 22, 2013, “China’s Third Plenum: More market, more dictatorship”) argued the policy content was “overshadowed by the shift of power within the regime” — the two new bodies concentrating power in Xi’s hands — and framed the program as “neo-liberal economic reforms” plus nationalism. It noted the document’s warm Western reception: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim hailing the proposals as “extremely positive,” Bloomberg reporting the plans “went way beyond most expectations,” The Economist calling them “the most striking plans for reform in two decades,” and Brookings’ Arthur Kroeber describing Xi as “a leader far more powerful and visionary than his predecessor Hu Jintao.”
Overseas scholarly and policy assessments. Barry Naughton of UC San Diego, in the March 2014 China Leadership Monitor, judged that the plenum had “basically fulfilled the expectations placed on it,” becoming “a milestone in a prolonged process of restoring credibility and momentum to market-oriented economic reform” — but he cautioned the Decision was “not a comprehensive blueprint for reform, but rather a ‘vision statement plus a To-Do list.’” His summary of its vision: “redefine the relationship between government and market, and to reduce direct government intervention in the economy.” Naughton quoted the document’s own formulation: “Economic system reform is the crux of comprehensively deepening reform, and the core question is the relationship between government and market, allowing the market to play the decisive role in resource allocation, and to better bring into play government’s role.” (Naughton had been more cautious at the communique stage, telling the Wall Street Journal in mid-November 2013 that hoped-for momentum had “not” materialized — a judgment made before the full Decision appeared.)
Skeptics were sharper. Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute, in a February 2014 report titled “China’s Economic Reform,” argued “most implied reform will not work”: hukou changes “may not improve labor rights and will not spur the economy,” needed banking and corporate competition “will not occur,” and the government “intends the state to determine when and where deregulation should occur.” BBVA Research, on November 13, 2013, found the communique “broadly consistent with the new leadership’s repeated emphasis on reform” but “lacking in details,” flagging the retained “emphasis on the role of the State as a pillar in the economy” as a possible disappointment. The Asia Society’s November 2013 expert discussion noted “the lessons of Mikhail Gorbachev’s failed effort… appear to loom large in Beijing’s thinking” — ruling political reform out — and that the SOE-bank-private-sector imbalance remained unresolved. A Carnegie Endowment pre-plenum piece expected no liberal political course; the Party would choose discipline and anti-corruption instead.
Hong Kong and Taiwan commentary. Phoenix TV commentator He Liangliang （何亮亮）, on iFeng.com in November 2013, said of the proposed National Security Committee: “Only a strategically advantageous security plan such as this can guarantee that China’s development path is smooth. Moreover, I feel that on some level, [the proposed Committee] is quite similar to the US National Security Council.” CASS international-relations specialist Zhang Guoqing （张国庆）, in a Xinhua editorial that month, called the NSC’s establishment “at the right time” and “international practice.” Taiwan’s eng.taiwan.cn carried Xinhua-style coverage on November 13, 2013, reporting the “decisive” formulation and the new reform leading team.
Competing viewpoints
Reform breakthrough. The Decision is the most ambitious reform charter since 1978; the “decisive role” formulation ends a decade of state-versus-market debate; Xi emerges as “far more powerful and visionary” than Hu Jintao. (Naughton; Jim Yong Kim; The Economist; Arthur Kroeber; Zhao Xiao.)
Rhetoric without institutional change. Broad directions with no specifics; details deferred to future documents; SOE and banking substance absent; execution risk fatal. (BBVA; Scissors’s “will probably fail”; Ma Guangyuan’s implementation warning.)
Leftist / privatization-risk. Making the market “decisive” puts profits before people; mixed-ownership and marketization threaten state assets and workers; the real story is power concentration — “more market, more dictatorship.” (China Worker; later leftist commentary.)
Liberal / insufficient political reform. Economic reform language without political opening; the Gorbachev lesson rules out liberalization; the new security and reform bodies mean centralization, not opening. (Liu Yu; Song Zhibiao; Asia Society; Carnegie.)
Implementation and aftermath, 2013–2015
The institutional machinery followed quickly. The Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform was established in December 2013 — the first leading organization dedicated to reform work at Party Central level — with Xi Jinping personally chairing it; official retrospectives later stated he personally presided over 72 meetings of the group. The Central National Security Commission held its first meeting on April 15, 2014, where Xi introduced the “overall national security outlook” (总体国家安全观）. On December 28, 2013, the NPC Standing Committee abolished Reeducation Through Labour — the Decision’s most concrete legal-reform pledge — and resolutions loosening the one-child policy followed the same month, with provincial implementation through 2014. Administrative streamlining proceeded through 2014, with the State Council reported to have canceled or delegated more than 700 administrative approval items.
Complicating evidence arrived in July 2015, when the state intervened heavily in crashing equity markets. Naughton, in the July 2015 China Leadership Monitor, wrote that the turmoil revealed “a certain amount of disarray in the topdown economic policy process designed by the Third Plenum” — a direct tension with the “decisive role” formulation. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2015 Annual Report likewise assessed that the government was “stalling or rolling back reforms while resuscitating old levers of economic growth.”
Some implementation details — the judicial-reform pilot courts, the full hukou-reform rollout, and the precise content of the late-2013 State Council and NPC resolutions — were not re-verified against primary texts in the research record behind this article, and are therefore described here only in the Decision’s own terms. The exact Chinese character forms of the Decision’s title and of the “decisive role” and “separate two-child” formulations likewise remain unverified against the primary text; this article renders them in English only.
No contemporaneous Free China Movement response to the 2013 Decision is on record in the sources reviewed.
Sources
- Xinhua communique, Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, November 12, 2013; full text of the Decision published November 15, 2013 (via globalsecurity.org People’s Daily/Xinhua reprint; ciplawyer.com Xinhua summary; eng.taiwan.cn).
- Lexology alert, “Reform initiatives determined at the Third Plenum,” November 2013 (60 numbered items in 16 categories; provision summary).
- china-briefing.com communique summary, November 15, 2013 (two new organs; “decisive role” characterization).
- thechinastory.org, “Considering the Third Plenum” (Geremie Barmé ed.), November 2013 (contemporaneous Chinese-language commentary: 刘胜军/何亮亮/张国庆/赵晓/马光远/刘瑜/宋志标/刀尔登/383方案/蛊/国家安全委员会/全面深化改革领导小组）.
- thechinastory.org Yearbook 2014, Chapter 1 “Great Expectations,” 2014 (Naughton CLM43 summary).
- Barry Naughton, “After the Third Plenum: Economic Reform Revival Moves toward Implementation,” China Leadership Monitor No. 43, Hoover Institution, March 2014 (“basically fulfilled the expectations placed on it”; “vision statement plus a To-Do list”).
- Barry Naughton, “Reform Agenda in Turmoil,” China Leadership Monitor No. 48, Hoover Institution, July 2015 (“a certain amount of disarray in the topdown economic policy process designed by the Third Plenum”).
- chinafocus.ucsd.edu panel report, January 24, 2014 (Wu Jinglian panel remarks; Naughton, Susan Shirk, Victor Shih, Chen Zhimin).
- Derek Scissors, “China’s Economic Reform,” American Enterprise Institute, February 2014 (“most implied reform will not work”; hukou/SOE critique).
- Wall Street Journal, plenum coverage, November 13, 2013 (Naughton: hopes for striking momentum “not” fulfilled — communique stage).
- BBVA Research, “China Flash,” November 13, 2013 (“lacking in details”; state-as-pillar concern; “decisive results by 2020”).
- Asia Society expert Q&A, November 2013 (power consolidation; Gorbachev lesson; SOE/hukou analysis).
- Carnegie Endowment / China-US Focus, “China’s Third Plenum: Limited Reform,” November 2013 (pre-plenum expectations).
- chinaworker.info, “China’s Third Plenum: More market, more dictatorship,” November 22, 2013 (leftist power-concentration reading; Jim Yong Kim, Bloomberg, Economist, Kroeber citations).
- Global Voices, “China’s SOE Reform Is Missing the Point,” September 27, 2015 (Zhang Weiying, Sheng Hong, Zhang Wenkui — later SOE critiques).
- David Mulrooney, “Rethinking National Security: China’s New Security Commission,” ETH Zurich CSS Policy Brief No. 152, May 6, 2014 (CNSC first meeting April 15, 2014; 总体国家安全观）.
- USCC 2015 Annual Report, Chapter 1 (“stalling or rolling back reforms” assessment).
- Reuters, November 12, 2013 (communique “decisive role” wording); Xinhua via AP, November 12–13, 2013 (“decisive role” upgrade coverage).
- China.com official retrospective, 2024 (15 areas, 336 measures; 72 meetings chaired by Xi; December 2013 Leading Group establishment).
- People’s Daily English, March 2015 retrospective (700+ administrative approval items canceled or delegated in 2014).