© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Alibaba Group logo is seen at its office in Beijing, China, January 5, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo
By Eduardo Bautista and Brenda Goh
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s science and technology policies should aim to build its strength and self-reliance, while the government’s role in pooling resources for key technological breakthroughs should be better leveraged, Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday .
The nation effectively countered outside attempts to suppress and contain China’s development in the past five years by promoting the development of the real economy through innovation and fostering new drivers of growth, Li said, without naming any countries. .
China is under increasing pressure from the United States, which has cited national security by restricting access to Chinese semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology.
President Xi Jinping has urged the nation to strengthen its self-reliance in science and technology and continue to strive as a global technological powerhouse.
However, China’s track record suggests that self-sufficiency will be hard to achieve, despite a “sense of urgency” conveyed by the labor report amid intense technology competition with the US, said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, director of the Beijing-based China Center. on the Conference Board.
Li, the outgoing premier, said in his work report for the opening of the annual meeting of China’s parliament: “Science and technology policies should aim to develop our country’s strength and self-reliance in science and technology.
“The new system for mobilizing resources across the country must be improved, we must better leverage the government’s role in pooling resources to achieve key technological breakthroughs, and companies must be the main players in innovation.”
Li said China should speed up the research and development of cutting-edge technologies and promote their application. The development of the platform economy should be supported and regular supervision should be carried out, he added.
The platform economy comprises the largest technology companies in China, such as Ali Baba (NYSE:) Group and Tencent Holdings (OTC:). These companies were subjected to a long and harsh regulatory crackdown that Beijing says it is now easing up.
China’s Finance Ministry and its state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), released reports on Sunday underscoring their support for these goals.
The Finance Ministry said it will boost special funds for the industrial and manufacturing sectors by 4.4 billion yuan this year to 13.3 billion yuan (1.93 billion U.S. dollars), to support areas such as integrated circuits. He announced 6.5 billion yuan for the advancement of science and technology at the local level, an increase of 2 billion yuan.
The NDRC said it would speed up the construction of hard technology infrastructure, including artificial intelligence, 5G and big data, and promote the healthy development of e-commerce live streaming and instant-delivery online retail, key marketing channels. for China’s consumer sector.
He said it would consolidate China’s “leading position” in areas such as electric vehicles and solar panels, where the country occupies key places in the global supply chain.
Still, the state planner warned that China’s supply chains faced the risk of numerous bottlenecks and “bottlenecks,” saying the government would plan and implement a series of major science and technology projects to increase the strength of the country on the “frontiers of international competition”.
Analyst Montufar-Helu noted that Made in China 2025, a high-tech industrial development push that Beijing launched in 2015, had missed its goal of producing 40% of chips consumed in domestic value chains by 2020. and 70% in 2025, as China’s microchip consumption was only 16% domestically manufactured in 2021.
“This is despite the hundreds of billions of yuan in investments that have poured into the sector in recent years,” he said.
($1 = 6.9048 renminbi)
