Growing geopolitical challenges of today resemble those faced in the 1950s as Beijing seeks to navigate a complex new security landscape
Meredith Chen
As China’s leadership meets this week to chart a policy course for the 15th five-year plan – China’s development blueprint for the rest of the decade – events that unfolded more than 70 years ago are echoing again.
The growing external challenges of today have similarities to those the country faced in the 1950s – export controls, restricted access to technology and a complex security environment. Amid elevated US-China tensions, Beijing is facing another moment of reckoning at a crossroads between pressure and transformation.
On Monday, China’s ruling Communist Party kicked off its fourth plenum of the Central Committee, a key four-day conclave that will map out its next five-year plan from 2026 to 2030, a period seen as crucial for Beijing to gain a stronger foothold in its growing rivalry with the United States.
On Monday morning, Xinhua published an article stating that over the past five years, China had “navigated shifting circumstances amid storms and challenges to forge new paths”.
The current global geopolitical landscape mirrors the Cold War era, with the former US-Soviet rivalry largely replaced by the escalating US-China competition, with historical parallels particularly visible in economic and security dynamics.
When Beijing launched its first five-year plan amid US sanctions during the Korean war, trade embargoes and isolation forced China to adopt state economic planning to industrialise in defiance of containment, and the country faced mounting concerns over regional security threats.
Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published an editorial in 1953 announcing the country’s first five-year plan to transform China from an agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse. Photo: Handout
On January 1, 1953, People’s Daily announced the country’s first five-year plan in an editorial titled “Embracing the Great Tasks of 1953”, outlining the goal of transforming China from a backward agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse. China began practising and evolving its distinctive state-led economic model, remaking itself into the world’s second-largest economy with a growing presence in hi-tech sectors.
China’s strategic imperative to accelerate its national self-reliance and technological advancement across key sectors has taken on renewed significance as the US has sought to restrict Beijing’s access to critical industries, notably semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), with the administration of US President Donald Trump publicly musing about higher tariffs.
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