'Two sessions' 2025: China can look back on 5 years of gains at expense of US

Yahoo

02-03-2025

Months before China unveiled its national development strategy five years ago, the Washington-based magazine The Diplomat ran an article to appraise Beijing's efforts and warn the US policymakers of their implications.
The article asked how the United States should respond to the five-year plan and noted that Beijing had been trying to achieve technological self-reliance and advancement since 2015, when it launched the ambitious "Made in China 2025" plan.
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The article warned that even though it was not always successful, China had made enough progress to warrant Washington's attention.
It concluded that the US still enjoyed an "absolute advantage" over China in many domains and had a vast network of allies, but warned that complacency and inconsistency would be the biggest worry in maintaining its lead.
That concern proved to be unnecessary. Over the past five years, the US has witnessed two hotly contested and often messy power transitions. Yet if there is any common ground between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it is their laser-focused attention on China and the relentless attempt to prevent Beijing's technological advancement.
The US has imposed unprecedented sanctions and restrictions on China, particularly its science and technology sectors.
Yet, when the Chinese political elite gather in Beijing this week to review the 14th five-year plan, it is hard not to notice how much ground Beijing has gained since the end of Trump's first term and that the power dynamics between the two are quite different compared with five years ago.
Li Cheng, a political-science professor and the founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong, said that despite internal economic challenges and external pressures, the global shift in power dynamics in China's favour is more evident than ever.
"It is clearer today than ever before that what many Chinese believe - dongsheng xijiang [the East is rising, and the West is in decline] - is something we are currently witnessing," Li said.
"China has an advantage with its strong emphasis on long-term development rather than short-term gains."
Years of effort appeared to have paid off with China leading or globally competitive in five hi-tech sectors - robotics, nuclear power, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and quantum computing - according to a report published last year by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank.
It also said the country was catching up in four other areas - chemicals, machine tools, biopharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
"China's technological achievements have gone beyond what anybody had ever expected since the launch of the Made in China 2025, even beyond the Chinese planners' expectations back then," according to Yu Zhou, a professor specialising in globalisation and Chinese technology at Vassar College in the US.
In recent years Beijing has been largely silent about the strategy's progress after it faced harsh criticism internationally for allegedly squeezing out foreign participation and was subjected to increasing scrutiny of its access to foreign technology, especially from the US.
However, that does not mean the core strategy failed. An official assessment in late 2023 concluded that the country had met or exceeded 16 of the 20 major goals in the latest five-year plan.
Meanwhile, an analysis by the Post last year found that more than 86 per cent of more than 260 hi-tech goals outlined in the Made in China 2025 programme had been achieved.
China has also been accelerating its drive to modernise the military by increasing its use of advanced equipment such as drones while also adopting a more assertive stance in maritime confrontations with the US.
Though Trump often plays up his personal ties with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the US still views China as the biggest threat it faces and may escalate its containment strategy.
Efforts to counter these Trump headwinds and secure more technological breakthroughs - along with efforts to boost the economy - are expected to top the agenda at the upcoming "two sessions", China's biggest political event of the year.
Zhou said that while the US might be able to slow China's progress, its companies might find alternative technological pathways that US firms could not control.
"Technology development is not about winning and losing, but about fulfilling the needs of a market or creating that market, so companies often work with each other to find a way," she said.
Beijing is pushing for "new quality productive forces" and "high-quality development" as part of its efforts to close the gap with the US, and its progress in areas such as chip technology, robotics and artificial intelligence - especially the rise of DeepSeek - have attracted global attention.
Last month Randall Schriver, vice-chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent government agency, told a congressional hearing that Washington and its allies needed to take "quick and decisive action" to stop China repeating its dominance in areas such as solar panels and electric vehicles in other industries.
"While the United States did wake up to the problem and begin more aggressive use of export controls and other trade tools, those came very late in the process," he said.
Jiang Yuhao, a researcher with the Institute of Public Policy, a think tank affiliated at the South China University of Technology, said examples such as DeepSeek presented "a more nuanced and intriguing picture than the binary narrative of great power rivalry or 'technological competition'".
"Developments in recent years show the world isn't simply following a logic of containment or confrontation," he said.
China should prioritise its national interests rather than becoming fixated on competition with the US, according to Wang Shaoda, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
"More importantly, China faces significant domestic challenges - and opportunities - that, if addressed properly, can drive sustainable growth. It would be a missed opportunity if policymaking were driven primarily by US competition rather than by what is best for China," Wang said.
The Trump administration was alienating its international partners, providing China with an opportunity to recalibrate its own economic policies, he added.
"To truly capitalise on its growth potential, China must reaffirm its commitment to deepening liberal economic reforms - especially reforms that empower private entrepreneurs and boost the labour income share of GDP," he said.
But Wang and other observers also highlighted other problems that China was facing.
He said the current five-year plan had well thought-out targets but the retreat from liberal market-oriented reforms and the way policies were enforced had undercut their effectiveness.
Although Beijing has sought to reassure the private sector, which is seen as crucial for economic growth and technological development, businesses have long been calling for greater transparency and consistency in policymaking.
"The gap between the US and China has widened instead of shrinking, as drastic zero-Covid measures, the unfriendly treatment of private enterprises and the exodus of foreign investors provoked a growth slowdown," said Tao Jingzhou, an international arbitrator who has practised in Beijing.
Jiang said the country must break free from rigid "uniform standards" to retain and unleash local talent and develop a more dynamic innovation ecosystem.
He added it was particularly important to promote the adoption of new technology and skills and support low-cost innovations to ensure most people benefited from the tech revolution.
But Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Centre for China Analysis, said: "Trump's return to the White House has made China's economic future more unpredictable, which means that Beijing could set more conservative targets in the next five-year plan."
Zhao Minghao, deputy director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said: "The core of US-China tech competition lies in who could offer a better innovation ecosystem.
"The US might intensify the pressure against China by targeting the end-use technology sector - core components and machinery for instance - which could be the focus of the US-China tech war over the next five years."
Zhao said China could benefit by deepening scientific cooperation with other countries, adding: "In the context of the emerging AI hegemony of the United States, I believe that cooperation between China and Europe actually presents opportunities."
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.