Chinese President Xi Jinping’s New Year message summarized an important year of steady progress as the country prepares to launch its 15th Five-Year Plan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers his 2026 New Year message in Beijing on December 31, 2025. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)
The year 2025 also carried profound symbolic weight. China commemorated the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, underscoring the country’s historical contribution to global peace. At the same time, China’s contemporary cultural vitality gained international visibility. The rise of “China chic,” alongside expanded visa-free travel policies, attracted growing numbers of foreign visitors, reflecting a country increasingly open, confident, and culturally influential.
Looking ahead to the new year, Xi called for solid steps to promote high-quality development, further deepen reform and opening up across all areas, deliver prosperity for all, and write a new chapter in the story of China’s development. These priorities now serve as guiding principles as China moves into the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) period.
Strong Economic Vitality Anchored in Innovation
The past year marks the completion of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for economic and social development, a period during which high-quality growth steadily gathered momentum. Reflecting on the fact that over the past five years, China has pressed ahead with enterprise and fortitude, and overcome many difficulties and challenges, Xi said the country met the targets in the Plan and made solid advances on the new journey of Chinese modernization.
This progress is evident in key economic indicators. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s GDP reached over RMB 101.5 trillion in the first three quarters of 2025, representing a year-on-year increase of 5.2 percent. As for the entire year, its GDP growth is expected to reach approximately 5 percent, an outcome that highlights the economy’s resilience amid global uncertainty.
A robot is displayed at the exhibition area of the 2025 Global Industrial Internet Conference in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Sept. 6, 2025. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)
Beyond headline figures, innovation has emerged as the defining force underpinning China’s development trajectory. From the launch of the Tianwen-2 probe on its deep-space mission to, major hydropower projects on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, and from domestically developed large AI models drawing global attention, to China establishing a global benchmark for ultra-high-speed signals in the electronic and communications industry, technological advancement has accelerated across multiple sectors. As Xi emphasized, “We sought to energize high-quality development through innovation.”
International assessments reinforce this view. According to the Global Innovation Index 2025 by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China ranks 10th among the world’s most innovative economies and leads globally in the number of innovation clusters, with 24 listed among the world’s top 100. These results underscore China’s rapid ascent and growing influence within the global innovation ecosystem.
Xi has repeatedly highlighted the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation as central to China’s future growth. He pointed out that technological and industrial innovation constitute the fundamental pathways to developing new quality productive forces, when taking part in a deliberation with his fellow lawmakers from east China’s Jiangsu Province during the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 5, 2025. During his inspection tour to south China’s Guangdong Province on November 8, 2025, he urged the province to focus on developing new quality productive forces, strengthen the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, and build a modernized industrial system with international competitiveness.
Concrete outcomes are already visible. In 2025, Chinese open-source AI models accounted for 17.1 percent of global downloads, overtaking the U.S. for the first time. More broadly, the value-added output of the high-tech manufacturing sector increased by 9.2 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2025, contributing nearly 30 percent to industrial growth in November 2025 alone, underscoring how innovation is translating into sustained economic momentum.
Expanding Soft Power
This cultural vitality is reflected both abroad and at home. Overseas, online literature, web dramas, and video games are emerging as China’s “new three” cultural exports, captivating audiences around the world. Domestically, museums have become major cultural destinations, drawing growing numbers of visitors eager to engage with the rich tapestry of China’s history and heritage. The Economist recently described China as experiencing a museum boom, “with a giant increase in visitors and a big leap in exhibition quality, especially of ancient splendors.”
A resident takes photos of a Labubu toy at the Taipa exhibition area of “POP MART MACAO CITYWALK” in south China’s Macao, June 6, 2025. (Xinhua/Cheong Kam Ka)
“There was a surging public interest in cultural relics, museums, and intangible cultural heritage,” Xi said. In fact, Xi himself is a frequent museumgoer. On October 27, 2025, Xi visited the Palace Museum in Beijing during its centenary exhibition: A Century of Stewardship: From the Forbidden City to the Palace Museum. Xi urged the museum to carry forward its fine traditions, adhere to the principle that cultural relics belong to and serve the people, strengthen relics protection and restoration, and enhance the revitalization and utilization of cultural relics.
The integration of culture and tourism has also featured prominently in Xi’s inspections across the country. During a visit to the Old Town of Lijiang in southwest China’s Yunnan Province on March 19, 2025, he praised the town’s unique blend of culture, natural scenery, and folk traditions, noting that the integration of culture and tourism has boosted the local economy. He stressed that the cultural and tourism industry should follow a path of sustainable and healthy development.
A similar message was delivered during his inspection of the Longmen Grottoes in Henan Province on May 19, 2025. He pointed out that the integration of culture and tourism held vast potential, calling for high-quality development in the cultural tourism sector to make it a pillar industry, a livelihood industry, and a source of happiness for the people.
Chinese culture, rooted in history yet open to innovation, is shining with renewed vitality. As Xi summarized, tradition is now embracing modernity, and the Chinese culture is shining in even greater splendor.
A Stabilizing Force in a Changing World
China’s growing influence is also evident in its approach to global engagement. “We continued to embrace the world with open arms,” Xi said. Throughout 2025, he made extensive overseas visits, engaged in in-depth exchanges with foreign leaders, and participated in major international meetings, reinforcing China’s commitment to dialogue, cooperation, and shared development.
This photo taken on August 30, 2025, shows an exterior view of the main venue of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit 2025 in Tianjin, north China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)
In meetings with leaders of major countries, Xi emphasized responsibility and collaboration. When meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025, Xi noted that the world today is confronted with many tough problems and stressed that China and the United States can jointly shoulder their responsibility as major countries, and work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of the two countries and the world at large.
Similarly, when meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province on December 5, 2025, Xi said that in an international landscape marked by intertwined changes and turmoil, China believes that, as two major countries with long histories and profound cultures, China and France can jointly contribute more to world peace, stability, and human progress through dialogue and cooperation.
China has also sought to provide more global public goods. On September 1, 2025, Xi proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Plus” meeting in Tianjin, the core concepts of which include adhering to sovereign equality, abiding by the international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating a people-centred approach, and focusing on taking real actions. This initiative articulates China’s vision for a more just, balanced, and effective system of global governance.
At a time when the international landscape is increasingly marked by uncertainty, China’s diplomacy injects stability and confidence. As Xi reaffirmed in his New Year message, “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,” a vision that will guide China’s engagement with the world in the years ahead.
