The Jingxi Is for Communist Party Gatherings Only.
I had some ideas to share with Chinese officials on the country’s next five-year plan. (More local democracy, please!). But when I took the subway over to the hotel where the meetings were taking place, I wasn’t allowed in.
And by “not allowed in,” I’m not just saying that I wasn’t allowed into the hotel conference room. I wasn’t allowed into the hotel at all. And more than that I wasn’t allowed to walk on the sidewalk outside the hotel—police and military wouldn’t let me cross Yangfangdian Road to get to the hotel side.
To be fair, I wasn’t targeted for exclusion. No one was allowed in the hotel.
No one ever is.
The Jingxi Hotel (the name means “Beijing West”) is a very peculiar institution in Beijing—and in the world of hotels. There is no sign on the hotel door. You cannot book a room or hold a wedding there. And you can’t even meet someone for a drink or a meal there.
A drab, Soviet-style structure completed in the Haidian District in 1966, the hotel has been a place of history. Chinese officials took shelter there during the Cultural Revolution, and later approved a crackdown on the Gang of Four inside the Jingxi. In December 1978, the hotel hosted the third Plenum of the Central Committee, where Deng Xiaoping pushed through the economic reforms that have advanced China.
The latest big meeting at the Jingxi was the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which was putting the finishing touches on the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) while I stood across the street. According to reports in Chinese media, the plan focuses on self-reliance, including through self-reliance on technology, boosting domestic consumption, and high-quality green development.
China’s five-year plans, the world’s most important planning document given China’s growth, are not created in an entirely closed process. The plan is discussed publicly, and scholars and officials write papers and make suggestions. But the actual writing is done behind those closed hotel doors.
