China's Fifth Plenum deserves attention

Next week brings China’s Fifth Plenum which will detail the 14th Five-Year Plan. Investors need to pay attention to the details of this meeting because it is as important as the US presidential election. The Plenum will set the environment in which the US will operate for the next five years.

This reflects a change in the balance of strategic relationships because it signals an unwillingly shared agenda. China and its policies are too important to be ignored. The times when China shaped its policies around the US policy framework have disappeared.

Four years ago, US President Donald Trump laid out his objectives for the presidency. In this election campaign, he has been more focused on insults and blame so there are few clear policy projections. However, many of the policy objectives of his “Four-Year Plan” have not come to fruition or have been only partially achieved.