The current state of deep tensions between China and the US – the world’s two largest economies – goes well beyond ideology and a political war of words. The underlying driver of their rivalry is a race for global technological supremacy, as part of which each country is looking to target the other’s supply-chain vulnerabilities.
In this context, Xi and other members of China’s senior political leadership have publicly emphasized the need for the country to have ownership of critical technologies, and for supply chains for these to be ‘self-determined’ and ‘self-controlled’. It is clearly a source of frustration that those elements of the Chinese tech sector with the highest value added remain dependent on overseas suppliers and are thus vulnerable to geopolitical tensions. But China’s concern to have control over its technological future far predates the rhetoric of the 20th party congress. Indeed, it lies in the institutional memory of senior party members who are well aware of the impact of the schism between China and the post-Stalinist USSR of the 1950s, at which time Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev severed Beijing’s access to critical technologies for both civilian and military purposes.
The ‘Made in China 2025’ policy is among several crucial steps taken by the Chinese government in recent years to strengthen the country’s scientific innovation capacity.
The ‘Made in China 2025’ policy is among several crucial steps taken by the Chinese government in recent years to strengthen the country’s scientific innovation capacity. Introduced in 2015, the aim of the initiative is to achieve a mass-scale upgrade of China’s manufacturing capabilities, over a 10-year period, by reducing the production of consumer basics to increase its export of high-end tech components. As part of this, a key goal is to ensure the country is a self-reliant global leader in 10 core strategic innovation sectors. The initiative caused some consternation in both the US and the EU, and marked a beginning of a ‘tech war’ between China and the US and its allies.
As already noted, several members of the 20th Politburo have made significant contributions to China’s advances in science and technology. Among the newcomers, for example, Yuan Jiajun, a fluent English-speaker and a senior visiting fellow at the German Aerospace Centre DLR, was just 33 when he was appointed deputy commander of the Shenzhou manned spaceship project. His work accelerated China’s space programme, with the first Chinese astronauts going into space under his supervision, and he ultimately oversaw five Shenzhou missions – all of them successful. Through his career, Yuan has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and articles arguing that China must achieve self-reliance in space science.
Yuan’s technocrat background proved extremely useful when he formally entered politics to become deputy party secretary of the hydrocarbon-rich Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, in northwest China. There, he oversaw one of the country’s most ambitious energy projects – the ultra-high-voltage line taking coal-fired energy from Ningxia to the coastal manufacturing base of Zhejiang, home to many private Chinese business headquarters and Xi’s political power base before he became CPC leader.
Another new member of the Politburo, nuclear scientist Li Ganjie, led the development of China’s civil nuclear sector. A fluent French-speaker, he worked at China’s embassy in France to facilitate Sino-French civil nuclear cooperation in the late 1990s. As director of China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration and deputy minister for environmental protection, Li frequently advocated for China’s civil nuclear programme to achieve the ‘highest safety standard and technological self-reliance’. While working on safety standards for nuclear technology, he also campaigned for China to export its civil nuclear technologies as part of wider diplomatic engagements with countries across Asia and Africa.
Notably, both Yuan and Li were beneficiaries of international scientific exchanges through visiting fellowships and publishing peer-reviewed articles in prestigious international academic journals in their early careers. Their career histories show that external connections and frequent exchanges with the global scientific community are a key factor in China’s technological progress thus far. Xi is now pushing for greater self-sufficiency in strategic sectors. But, given that China has long relied on connectivity with the rest of the world to support innovation, the limits of this self-sufficiency drive are likely to be tested.
