China to convene gathering in October to discuss next five-year plan

China’s ruling Communist Party has scheduled a key annual conclave for October, with a main focus on deliberating the next five-year plan for the country’s economic, political and social goals amid continued tension with the United States.

The announcement came after a meeting of the Politburo on Wednesday that set the tone for the coming fourth plenary session to be attended by more than 370 Central Committee members of the party elite.

The much-anticipated plenum will be held in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The exact timing and duration of the event have not been made public, but practice over the past decade suggests the event is likely to land in the second half of October and last four days.

That means the plenum will be held before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Seoul, which will begin on October 31. The summit is seen as a possible window for a meeting between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump to iron out a long list of differences in US-China relations.

In instructions on the new blueprint’s formulation, Xi said in May that the party’s central leadership was “organising the drafting of a proposal for the 15th five-year plan”. A one-month online public consultation on the formulation of the plan was also launched in May.

According to official rules, the new five-year plan covering 2026-2030 must be endorsed by a plenary session of the party, after which it will be submitted to the annual legislative session in March for a final endorsement.