Published by ChinaMNC · Xishaqundao
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Emergency Management: What Foreign Founders Need to Know
A practical guide for foreign founders operating in China on the key emergency management reforms under the 15th Five-Year Plan, including implications for compliance, site selection, and industry opportunities.
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Emergency Management: What Foreign Founders Need to Know
Foreign founders building or running a company in China should note that the State Council has issued the “15th Five-Year Plan for Modernizing the Emergency Management System” (现代化应急体系建设“十五五”规划), setting out priorities for workplace safety, disaster prevention and relief, fire safety, earthquake monitoring, and mining safety. The plan was explained at a State Council Information Office press conference on 21 October 2026. Below is a practical summary of what the plan covers and why it matters for foreign-invested enterprises.
1. A “big safety, big emergency” framework
Song Yuanming, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Management, outlined several areas of work for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. For disaster prevention and relief, the focus will be on source prevention and engineering treatment. Territorial spatial planning and all types of construction plans must effectively avoid natural disaster risks. For example, the results of the national natural disaster risk survey will be used to conduct disaster risk assessments for construction plans in advance, avoiding threats such as landslides and mudslides. Engineering treatment will be strengthened: as extreme rainfall has increased in northern China in recent years, protection standards will be reasonably raised and shortcomings in flood control and drainage infrastructure will be addressed faster.
For workplace safety, the plan will further advance the investigation and treatment of major accident hazards. Song noted that the effectiveness of unannounced inspections during the second and third quarters of this year’s central workplace safety assessment and inspection improved significantly. These inspections found 950 major accident hazards and strictly dealt with illegal acts such as hidden coal mine working faces, “hundred-ton king” truck overloading, concealment of accidents, and falsification by inspection and testing institutions.
A regulation on the investigation and treatment of workplace safety accident hazards will be promoted. It will clarify what constitutes a major accident hazard, which department sets the standards, how enterprises should investigate, who deploys treatment, and how regulators trace enterprise responsibility. Currently, 31 departments have issued 67 major accident hazard determination standards. The regulation is intended to push enterprises to implement safety investment, safety training, basic management, and emergency rescue.
2. Fire safety: shifting to prevention
Song Shuxin, Deputy Director of the National Fire and Rescue Administration, said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, fire safety governance will accelerate its shift toward pre-prevention. Fire laws and regulations will be formulated and revised faster, and a fire safety responsibility system with clearer rights and responsibilities will be built. The quality and effectiveness of fire risk and hazard investigations will be greatly improved, and law-based governance will be strengthened, especially full-chain and source governance, so that problems are truly solved before they become disasters.
At the same time, the foundation for co-construction and co-governance of fire safety will be consolidated. Voluntary forces will be developed, the ranks of registered fire engineers and fire facility operators will be expanded, the practice order of fire technical service institutions will be regulated, and dishonest and illegal acts such as issuing false or inaccurate reports will be severely cracked down on. In addition, basic research and key core technology breakthroughs in the fire field will be strengthened, focusing on new risks and new fields such as new energy, new materials, super high-rise buildings, and complex underground spaces, to promote deep integration of technological and industrial innovation.
3. Earthquake monitoring and early warning
Zhang Qin, Deputy Director of the China Earthquake Administration, said that in the next five years, efforts will be made to build a modern earthquake monitoring, forecasting, and early warning system that is integrated across air, space, land, and sea, and is intelligent and efficient. In key areas, dense geophysical observation networks for deformation, fluid, and electromagnetic fields will be built; deep-well observation stations will be built in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and other areas to obtain higher-precision, higher-resolution scientific data and improve the ability to capture earthquake precursor information. Marine earthquake observation stations will be built in coastal waters, and seismic monitoring stations will be densified in the southwest and northwest regions to expand monitoring capacity and scope in sea areas and western regions. Various dedicated seismic station networks will be integrated into the national network system, achieving a national earthquake monitoring capability of magnitude 1.0 to 2.5.
4. Mining safety: hidden hazard surveys
Zhang Ruiting, Deputy Director of the National Mine Safety Administration, said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, source governance, advanced governance, and engineering governance will be adhered to, and mine safety disaster governance will be vigorously pushed toward pre-prevention. On the one hand, technical means for surveying hidden disaster-causing factors will be continuously improved, technical standards will be issued, and mining enterprises will be guided to standardize survey methods. On the other hand, inspection and enforcement will be strengthened, survey work will be included as a key part of mine safety inspection and enforcement, regular inspections, random checks, and unannounced visits will be carried out, and illegal acts such as survey falsification, inaccurate data, and evasion of supervision will be severely cracked down on.
Deep mining currently faces complex, overlapping risks such as high gas, high water pressure, high ground stress, and high ground temperature. Research and verification will focus on key technologies for deep gas, water hazard, and rock burst prevention and control, to overcome technical difficulties in deep disaster prevention and control and form a batch of replicable and promotable technical achievements for deep disaster governance.
What this means for foreign founders
For foreign founders registering or operating a company in China, the plan signals tighter and more standardized enforcement in several areas. If your business involves construction, manufacturing, logistics, mining, energy, or fire-related services, expect greater scrutiny of hazard identification, safety training, and emergency preparedness. The push for pre-prevention means regulators will focus on whether risks are assessed and addressed before they become incidents. The development of standards for major accident hazards and the planned regulation on hazard investigation may require you to review your internal safety protocols, documentation, and reporting procedures. The emphasis on fire safety in new energy, new materials, and complex spaces may also create compliance requirements or market opportunities for companies in those sectors. Finally, the expansion of earthquake monitoring and early warning infrastructure may affect site selection and business continuity planning in certain regions.
This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.