March 08, 2021

Andrew Campbell 

On March 7, Miao Wei, the former Minister of Industry and Information Technology, spoke at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that China still needs 30 years at least to become a great power in manufacturing. Mr. Miao is now a member of the top advisory body to the Communist government CPPCC and admits that China lacks core technologies belonging to other countries.

Despite China produces a significant number of consumer and industrial products, being the world's factory of supplying more than a third of the global products, Mr. Miao pointed out basic manufacturing capabilities are still weak.

Numerous blockades from the Trump administration have been put on China's access to US technology, such as China's telecom giant Huawei have been imposed sanctions on buying critical components from the US and barred from exporting the US as well. Thus, Chinese leaders drafted the next 5-year economic plan at the CPPCC to develop advanced technologies from microchip manufacture to artificial intelligence.

The new economic plan is considered as the top priority in maintaining national security and increasing China's global competitiveness and targets 7 strategic areas of aerospace, aircraft development, neuroscience, new-energy vehicles, quantum computing, robotics, and AI.

Photo:Webshot.