I’ve been tracking China’s technology ambitions for years now, and one thing has become crystal clear to me. What distinguishes Beijing’s approach isn’t necessarily brilliance or some shadowy master plan. It’s something simpler yet more powerful: relentless, decades-long persistence on a handful of critical technologies.
Kyle Chan’s recent deep dive into China’s Five-Year Plans reveals a fascinating pattern. The technologies that Chinese policymakers targeted back in 1978 look remarkably similar to what they’re pursuing today. Semiconductors, renewable energy, aviation, biotech—these weren’t just passing fads. They’ve remained central to China’s industrial strategy for nearly five decades, even as leadership changed and economic conditions shifted dramatically.
The numbers tell a compelling story. According to data compiled by Chan through his ChinaDocs database, certain keywords in official planning documents have surged over time. References to innovation have multiplied across successive Five-Year Plans, while phrases like “key core technology” barely appeared in early documents but now dominate policy language. This linguistic shift reflects a deeper transformation in how China views its technological position in the world.
Deng Xiaoping set the tone back in 1978 when he declared that modernization fundamentally depends on science and technology. Without advanced tech, he argued, China couldn’t build modern agriculture, industry, or defense. That first National Science and Technology Development Plan launched that year identified targets that sound almost prophetic today: semiconductors, computers, solar power, passenger aircraft, biotech. Nearly fifty years later, these remain at the heart of China’s industrial policy.
What’s changed isn’t the target list so much as China’s approach and its perception of the challenge. Early Five-Year Plans spoke optimistically about “leapfrog development” and leveraging “latecomer advantage.” The assumption was that China could skip technological stages by importing and absorbing foreign innovations, then catching up quickly. There was genuine excitement about the opportunities that globalization and technology transfer presented.
That optimistic tone has largely evaporated. The 2018 US actions against Huawei and ZTE marked a watershed moment in Chinese thinking, according to Chan’s analysis. By the time the 14th Five-Year Plan arrived in 2021, the language had shifted dramatically. Now the focus is on “chokepoint technologies”—areas where foreign restrictions could cripple Chinese industries. The phrase “key core technologies” appears repeatedly, reflecting acute anxiety about vulnerabilities in semiconductors, industrial software, and high-end manufacturing equipment.
I attended a tech conference in Singapore last year where a Chinese semiconductor executive described this shift in stark terms. His company had relied on American design software and Dutch lithography equipment for years. When export controls tightened, they suddenly faced existential questions about their entire business model. That experience is now driving a massive push toward technological self-reliance, or what Chinese planners call “科技自立自强.”
The current 15th Five-Year Plan, covering 2021 through 2025, doubles down on this defensive-offensive strategy. On one hand, China is racing to develop “strategic emerging industries” like robotics and smart electric vehicles. On the other, it’s pursuing what it calls “future industries”—quantum computing, fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, 6G networks, and embodied artificial intelligence. These aren’t random selections but calculated bets on technologies that could reshape global economic competition.
Artificial intelligence deserves special attention here. Chan’s research shows AI first appeared in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, released between 2016 and 2020. But its prominence has exploded since then. Chinese policymakers now treat AI the way they treated “informatization” in the 2000s—as a transformative, cross-cutting technology that can turbocharge everything from manufacturing to healthcare to national defense.
This mirrors what I’ve observed covering AI developments in both countries. When OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, it triggered something like panic in Chinese tech circles. Within months, dozens of Chinese companies announced their own large language models. Baidu, Alibaba, and others rushed competing products to market. The speed of that response reflected both China’s technical capabilities and its acute awareness of falling behind in a technology it considers strategically vital.
Yet persistence alone doesn’t guarantee success. China’s semiconductor industry illustrates both the power and limits of sustained industrial policy. Despite decades of investment and attention, Chinese chipmakers still lag significantly behind Taiwan’s TSMC, South Korea’s Samsung, and American design firms like Nvidia. The gap in advanced chip manufacturing—particularly at the cutting-edge 3-nanometer and below nodes—remains substantial, according to recent analysis from the Semiconductor Industry Association.
But other sectors tell different stories. China’s dominance in solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles didn’t happen by accident. The seeds were planted decades ago in Five-Year Plans that prioritized energy security and clean technology. As Chan notes, China’s current clean tech boom traces back to priorities established as early as the 6th Five-Year Plan from 1981 to 1985. The International Energy Agency reported that China now produces over 80 percent of the world’s solar panels and dominates global battery supply chains.
There’s an interesting evolution in how technologies appear across these plans. Automotive started as conventional combustion engines, shifted to “new-type fuel vehicles,” then eventually became today’s obsession with “new energy vehicles.” Biotech began focused on agriculture but now emphasizes pharmaceuticals, genomics, and biomanufacturing. Information technology morphed into the “digital economy,” which then spawned today’s AI focus. These aren’t random pivots but adaptations as technologies mature and new opportunities emerge.
What strikes me most is how China’s approach mirrors historical patterns from other East Asian economies. Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry famously targeted similar technologies in the 1970s and 1980s. South Korea’s chaebol system pursued comparable strategies. The technology targets themselves—semiconductors, aviation, advanced materials—have been on industrial policy wish lists globally for generations because they generate broad economic benefits and spillover effects.
The question facing policymakers worldwide isn’t whether China will continue pursuing these technologies. Its track record suggests unwavering commitment regardless of short-term setbacks. The more interesting question is whether this persistence will prove sufficient in an era of rapid technological change and increasing geopolitical fragmentation. Some technologies might yield to sustained investment and focus. Others may prove more resistant, especially when access to global knowledge networks and supply chains becomes restricted.
China’s technology story over the past five decades offers a master class in strategic patience. The same technologies that appeared in Deng’s 1978 plan remain priorities today, even as approaches and tactics evolved dramatically. Whether this persistence ultimately delivers the “moderately developed country” status that Chinese leaders envision by 2035 remains an open question. But underestimating the power of sustained focus over decades would be a mistake that Western observers have made repeatedly in the past.
