Ten years of Made in China 2025 sees mixed success
A decade ago this month, China launched Made in China 2025 (MIC2025), a 10-year program of economic restructuring so bold and controversial that within three years the Beijing government essentially banned that moniker from use in official communications (although the project remained in place). MIC2025 aimed to transform China from a low-cost manufacturer to the world's leader in key technologies.
MIC2025 set an ambitious agenda and a decade on, first assessments conclude that it has had mixed success but insist that its ambitions and objectives will guide Chinese policymaking for decades to come — no matter what the project is called. It is up to the world to respond. The record thus far has not been promising.
Then-Premier Li Keqiang announced in May 2015 that the government was launching MIC2025 to modernize the Chinese economy and transform it from a low-cost manufacturer of goods into a, if not the, leader in the creation and production of critical technologies. The project aimed to increase domestic content in vital infrastructure sectors such as power, rail equipment and shipbuilding through technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotech, new materials and the like. Central to the project was cultivating national champions that would capture domestic and foreign markets in those sectors.
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