Why President Xi's New Year message matters to the world

As the world bid farewell to 2025 and ushered in 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered his annual New Year's message on December 31. The message is of great importance to China, as he reviewed how the country has fared over the past year and how it will move forward in the new year and beyond.

Xi's message is particularly significant because 2025 marked the completion of China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for economic and social development and 2026 marks the beginning of the next five-year period. The message will also have profound implications for the world as he elaborated on how China views the current global situation and how the country will approach international issues.

For a country like China with its size in landmass, population, economy, market and growing influence, its domestic and foreign policies will certainly have a bearing not only on the well-being of its own 1.4 billion people but also of people in the rest of the world.

Touching on the 14th Five-Year Plan, Xi declared that China has met "the targets in the Plan and made solid advances on the new journey of Chinese modernization." He also announced that China's economic output is expected to reach 140 trillion yuan (nearly $20 trillion) in 2025. This is a new historical record, compared with 110 trillion yuan in 2021. He added that the country's economic strength, scientific and technological abilities, defense capabilities and composite national strength all reached new heights and that the Chinese people enjoy a growing sense of gain, happiness and security.

The Chinese president also lauded the country's advances in science and technology, including artificial intelligence, chips, aerospace and humanoid robots. He said, "All this has turned China into one of the economies with the fastest-growing innovation capabilities." Many observers believe that the successful implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan has once again demonstrated that China's economic planning and governance system is effective and suits the country's conditions.

The five-year plans are an important part of China's national economic and social development. They set out the blueprint for the country's long-term development goals, directions and approaches. They also provide predictability, stability and consistency, as each five-year plan builds on the previous one and provides guidance for the next five years and beyond.

The recently released Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development stipulates that the country's growth rate should maintain above 4.5 percent, mainly through promoting high-quality development, new quality productive forces, technological innovation, industrial upgrades and enlarging domestic demand and consumption.

The successful fulfillment of the goals and targets set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan has laid a solid foundation for the 15th Five-Year Plan. Xi's New Year message called on the nation to focus on goals and tasks, boost confidence and build momentum to press ahead and take solid steps to promote high-quality development, further deepening reforms and opening-up across the board.

Addressing the current global landscape, Xi observed that "the world today is undergoing both changes and turbulence." In 2025, the world experienced a tumultuous year under a fragile multilateral system and insecure international order. Many countries and regions were ravaged by conflicts, affected by political instability and economic stagnation and challenged by social divides and humanitarian crises.

As a responsible major country, "China always stands on the right side of history, and is ready to work with all countries to advance world peace and development and build a community with a shared future for humanity."

China has consistently pursued its own development in tandem with contributing to the common good of the international community. It does not export ideology, but supports global connectivity through infrastructure building. It does not seek hegemony or engage in coercion, but upholds equality and peaceful coexistence. It does not fuel confrontation or conflict, but champions dialogue among civilizations. And rather than generating instability, China strives to provide the stability and development opportunities the world needs most.

Reading between the lines of President Xi's New Year address, one can sense a clear message: China will continue to focus on its own development, determined to implement its plans and achieve its set targets. In the meantime, China will further deepen reform and opening-up, continue to "embrace the world with open arms."

As the world's second-largest economy, a stable, predictable and steadily growing China is widely expected to make a meaningful contribution to global peace and development. If more countries follow a similar path of development and cooperation, the world we inhabit would be profoundly transformed.

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