China’s Fourth Plenum Rings with Xi's Calls to “Dare to Fight”

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The Communist Party’s latest plenum signals Beijing’s intent to double down on domestic resilience, self-reliance, and ideological discipline — with Xi Jinping urging cadres to “fight” headwinds on the road to a “modern socialist country” by 2049.

By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk

New Delhi, October 24, 2025 — China’s ruling Communist Party has wrapped up its Fourth Plenum with a message that was as combative as it was calculated. The communique, released through state news agency Xinhua, urged the nation to face “major tests amid high winds, rough waves and even raging storms,” and to confront challenges with “a spirit of historical initiative.”

But beneath the rhetoric of resilience lay a familiar undertone — one of control, consolidation, and a defiant turn inward. The frequency of the word “fight” (douzheng) — a term that has become a signature of President Xi Jinping’s political vocabulary — exceeded that of the 2019 plenum. “Dare to fight, and be good at fighting,” Xi’s oft-repeated phrase, was quoted directly, framing the nation’s economic and political trajectory as a perpetual struggle.

The plenum reaffirmed China’s long-term developmental goals — doubling per capita GDP by 2035 to reach the level of a “moderately developed country” and achieving the “centenary goal” of building a modern socialist nation by 2049, marking 100 years since the founding of the People’s Republic.

While official language emphasized “sustaining economic growth and long-term social stability,” analysts see the document as a blueprint for economic self-reliance and ideological hardening. According to Professor Zhang Jun, reported SCMP, dean of Fudan University’s School of Economics, the call to “resolutely eliminate bottlenecks and blockages hindering the construction of a unified national market” reflects a strategic pivot toward domestic circulation — an inward-looking model where internal demand and production drive growth amid global uncertainty.

“This clearly shows that the leadership is placing its hope entirely on the domestic market,” Zhang told the daily. The plenum also underscored priorities such as agricultural modernization and accelerating the green transformation, suggesting Beijing’s bid to stabilize rural livelihoods and align development goals with sustainability pledges.

Yet the message was not merely technocratic. Xi’s invocation of “fighting spirit” suggests a deeper ideological assertion — that China’s challenges, from economic headwinds to geopolitical tensions, are tests of the Party’s unity and the nation’s will. The Fourth Plenum thus serves both as a rallying cry and a reaffirmation of the Party’s dominance under Xi’s rule.

In an era of global volatility and domestic unease, China’s new chapter — one that insists on “doing our own work well” — as revealed seeks to redefine what it means to rise, not by opening up, but by holding firm.