These “third plenums” are normally used to announce important economic and political reforms. Most famously, the third plenum of the 11th Central Committee launched China’s “Reform and Opening” in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping. The third plenum of the 16th Central Committee marked Hu Jintao’s attempts to pay greater attention to redistribution and intraparty democracy. Xi marked his own ascendancy to power in 2013 with a third plenum agenda that promised institutional reforms and rule of law. With many of Xi’s early goals still unfulfilled, and China still struggling to find new engines of growth, observers placed great importance on the next plenum.
