When Xi Jinping unveiled his vision for China’s Fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), he did not merely describe an economic roadmap. He articulated something closer to a philosophical project — a model of governance that seeks to align national development with a moral and intellectual order reminiscent of Plato’s Kallipolis and Aristotle’s Politics. Beneath its technocratic language lies an enduring question first asked in ancient Greece: How can power serve virtue?
A Modern Republic of Virtue
In Plato’s Republic, the philosopher-king governs by wisdom, ensuring that every class contributes harmoniously to the good of the whole. Aristotle later refined this idea, grounding it in civic participation and practical ethics. Together they proposed that justice is achieved not by coercion but through education and moral cultivation.
Xi’s Five-Year Plan channels these classical insights in modern form. Its emphasis on “common prosperity,” “moral civilization,” and “high-quality development” evokes Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia — the flourishing of the community through virtue. The Plan’s aim is not only to increase China’s wealth, but to guide how that wealth should serve moral and social harmony.
Plato with Chinese Characteristics
The connection between Plato and Xi is not accidental. China’s leadership has long admired classical philosophy for its ability to merge moral authority with social order. Confucian ethics — centered on virtue, ritual propriety, and harmony — share deep affinities with Platonic thought. Both envision a well-ordered society led by the wise and guided by moral education.
Under Xi, this synthesis has taken institutional form. The Chinese Communist Party is presented not simply as a political body but as a moral guardian — a class of philosopher-administrators responsible for aligning the state’s goals with the moral good. Like Plato’s guardians, they are expected to rule not for personal gain but for the collective benefit of the people.
At the same time, Xi integrates Aristotelian pragmatism. The Plan’s focus on innovation, industrial modernization, and education reflects Aristotle’s insistence that the good life depends on a balance between moral purpose and material sufficiency. Virtue, in this view, must be embodied in the institutions of daily life — in schools, workplaces, and civic culture — not confined to abstract ideals.
A New Kallipolis
The parallels with Plato’s Kallipolis, the ideal city ruled by reason and virtue, are striking. Xi’s repeated call for a “governance system of Chinese characteristics” echoes Plato’s belief that every just state must be adapted to its own nature and history. But the philosophical ambition remains universal: to build a political order where moral education and social discipline sustain harmony.
The Fifteenth Five-Year Plan seeks to operationalize this vision through what Xi calls “national rejuvenation” (民族复兴) — an effort to restore China’s civilizational confidence. Economic planning thus becomes an act of moral statecraft: a means of shaping citizens’ values, aligning technological progress with ethical restraint, and harmonizing the individual and collective good.
If the Kallipolis sought to create philosopher-citizens capable of virtue, Xi’s China aims to cultivate morally conscious citizens within a disciplined, technocratic framework. The Party, as the custodian of moral authority, assumes the role once reserved for Plato’s philosopher-kings — interpreting the “Good” and directing society toward it through policy and education.
Reason and Spirit: Russell, Kazantzakis, and the Foreseen Rise of China
Both Bertrand Russell and Nikos Kazantzakis glimpsed, long before the world acknowledged it, the moral and civilizational resurgence of China. Russell, during his lectures at Peking University in 1920–21, observed a society in philosophical transition — where ancient wisdom sought reconciliation with modern science. In his essays on China, he predicted that the country’s deep-rooted moral culture, once reawakened, could offer humanity a new ethical balance between material progress and social harmony.
Kazantzakis, visiting China in the 1930s, was equally struck by its spiritual endurance. He saw in Chinese civilization the living embodiment of what he called “the eternal struggle of the spirit against decay.” In his travel writings, he foresaw China’s return as a moral force — not through conquest, but through the quiet persistence of culture and faith.
Their reflections resonate with Xi Jinping’s own vision: a civilization reasserting its moral identity through disciplined renewal. In the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, China’s rise appears not as an accident of economics, but as the unfolding of a philosophical destiny both Russell and Kazantzakis once intuited.
Virtue and Power in the 21st Century
Critics may argue that this vision masks authoritarian control under moral rhetoric. Yet even they recognize that Xi’s appeal to classical philosophy reveals a deeper concern: the moral legitimacy of governance in an age of technological and social disruption. In a world where governments increasingly equate success with efficiency and growth, China’s model asserts that order and virtue remain inseparable.
The Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, then, is not just an economic document. It is a twenty-first-century dialogue between Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, and the enduring Chinese ideal of harmony. It challenges both East and West to reconsider whether the state can still be a moral enterprise — and whether leadership, in the truest sense, still aspires to wisdom.
Author’s Note:
This article draws on research examining the philosophical influence of Plato and Aristotle on contemporary Chinese governance—particularly how Xi Jinping’s Fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026–2030).
*Dr. Steve Bakalis is an economist with interests in political economy, social justice, and public administration, having collaborated with La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, and universities in the Asia-Pacific region and the Arabian Gulf.
