October 30, 2020
How Should the US Respond to China’s New Five-Year Plan?
While Americans went to the polls this week, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership gathered in Beijing to discuss Party politics and economic strategy. They finalized a five-year plan to guide economic strategy through 2025 and laid out a special 15-year strategy called “Vision 2035” that will see the country through “the long-term goal of basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035,” according to an official communique delivered at the meeting’s close.
China’s evolving strategy requires a fresh American policy response.
Innovation was at the heart of CCP discussions, mentioned 15 times in the 22-paragraph official communique (Party Secretary Xi Jinping only got nine mentions). The CCP is doubling down on its drive toward “scientific and technological independence and self-reliance,” according to the meeting readout, suggesting deep investments in technologies like semiconductors, 5G, and artificial intelligence (AI) at a time when the United States is ramping up its efforts to stymie China’s technology ambitions. China’s evolving strategy requires a fresh American policy response.
Read the full article in The Diplomat.
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