Communist Party discipline key to meeting China’s 5-year plan goals: Cai Qi

China’s Communist Party needs to enforce strict discipline to deal with external pressure and manage tough domestic development issues over the next five years, the president’s chief of staff has said.

In an opinion piece in state-run People’s Daily on Monday, Cai Qi wrote of the “extreme importance of exercising full and rigorous party self-governance to achieve the economic and social development goals of the 15th five-year plan period”.

Cai, the fifth-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, also oversees a heavy portfolio of party affairs, ranging from personnel appointments to ideology.

His message echoed that in the blueprint of the next five-year plan, which covers the years 2026 to 2030.

The blueprint, released last month at the end of the Central Committee’s fourth plenum, said “full and rigorous party self-governance” was the “fundamental underpinning for all our efforts”, and would be used to “steer social reform”.

In the People’s Daily piece, Cai wrote that China faced difficult opportunities as well as risks, increasing uncertainty in the “new era”.