Xi Sets China’s Health Agenda for 15th Five-Year Plan
President Xi Jinping attended the National Health and Wellness Conference in Beijing on October 12-13 and delivered a major policy speech that sets the direction for China’s healthcare system through the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), according to Xinhua News. Premier Li Qiang delivered the concluding speech, with senior leaders Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi also in attendance.
Xi framed the coming five years as decisive for achieving the goal of building a “Healthy China” by 2035, calling for firm adherence to a distinctly Chinese path of health development.
The 2035 Target
“The 15th Five-Year Plan period is the key period for achieving the goal of building a Healthy China by 2035,” Xi said, vowing to “strengthen advantages, consolidate foundations, shore up weak links and improve shortcomings” in the health sector. He described the intended outcome as a Healthy China that is “balanced, inclusive, high-quality and efficient,” with strong capabilities in health management, disease prevention and control, medical services, medical insurance support, pharmaceutical innovation and talent cultivation.
Xi said people’s health is “an important symbol of national prosperity and strength,” and credited the party’s leadership since the 18th Party Congress with building the world’s largest systems of medical services, traditional medicine, disease prevention and control, and medical insurance.
Prevention First
Describing prevention as “the most economical and effective health strategy,” Xi called for strengthening foundational public health work. His priorities included raising public health awareness, guiding young people toward healthy habits, improving ecological and living environments, encouraging fitness and healthy leisure, tightening food safety oversight to protect “safety at the tip of the tongue,” and reinforcing the disease control system to guard against large-scale epidemics.
The speech also underscored a “health priority development strategy,” under which the health impact of major decisions must be weighed in policy planning, project appraisal and construction — a signal that health considerations will be embedded across government portfolios.
Strengthening Medical Services
On service delivery, Xi outlined several long-running reform priorities. These include implementing a “medical and health foundation-strengthening project,” optimizing the functional positioning and structural layout of medical institutions, promoting tiered diagnosis and treatment so residents can access care nearby, and strengthening chronic disease management.
He also called for advancing the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with integrated Chinese-Western medicine, boosting basic and original research and translating results into practice, growing the health industry, and improving the patient experience.
The Reform Agenda
Xi identified coordinated development and governance of medical services, medical insurance and pharmaceuticals — known in Chinese policy shorthand as the “three-medicine” coordination — as the main direction of healthcare system reform. Specific measures he outlined include deepening public hospital reform with a public-interest orientation, strengthening the operations of county, district and grassroots medical institutions, building a multi-tiered medical security system, optimizing centralized procurement of drugs and consumables along with medical insurance payment policies, and improving the national essential medicines system.
He stressed that “reform is a strong driving force for the development of health and wellness undertakings.”
People and International Cooperation
Xi emphasized building a strong cadre and talent team, calling for capable leadership — especially top officials — and a medical workforce that is “adequate in number, well-structured and high-quality.” He also urged strengthening medical ethics and fostering a society that respects doctors and values health.
On the international front, Xi described “health for all” as a common vision of humanity and called for building a Global Community of Health for All. He urged deepening Belt and Road health cooperation, innovating foreign health aid, and “telling the Healthy China story” to build international consensus.
What the Premier Emphasized
Li Qiang’s summary speech highlighted implementation priorities that suggest where near-term action will focus. He stressed adhering to the Chinese health development path, cementing a health-first orientation so that people’s health advances in step with economic and social development, and safeguarding the public-interest nature of basic medical services. He also emphasized balancing basic guarantees with quality improvement, and deepening reform, innovation and opening up.
Li pointed to specific pain points, including prevention and control of major diseases, building a tiered diagnosis system, improving the patient experience, constructing a multi-tiered medical security system, leveraging TCM’s distinctive advantages, strengthening health services for the elderly and children (the “one elderly, one child” group), and empowering medicine and health through technology.
According to the full dispatch carried by People’s Daily, Li said Xi’s speech “profoundly answered a series of fundamental, directional and overall questions in health work,” and called for it to be implemented “without compromise.”
Broader Significance
The conference carries weight as the successor to the inaugural National Health and Wellness Conference held in August 2016, the first such gathering in the new century and the meeting widely credited with launching the Healthy China strategy and the Healthy China 2030 blueprint.
The 2026 edition reaffirms long-standing priorities — tiered diagnosis, TCM, multi-tiered insurance and disease prevention — while placing new emphasis on weaving health considerations into all government policy. Because coverage across state media has used near-identical official text, the dispatch is best read as a high-level directional signal rather than a compendium of specific targets.
What to Watch
Specific measurable targets, budget allocations and implementation timelines for the 15th Five-Year Plan health agenda were not detailed in the official dispatch and are likely to follow in subsequent State Council documents. The direction set at the conference points toward the “three-medicine” coordination reform and public hospital reform as near-term regulatory priorities, with the health-priority principle potentially reshaping cross-sector policy appraisals. How these ambitions translate into funding and enforcement will determine whether the 2035 Healthy China target stays on track.