China defends its push for greater tech self-sufficiency

As China looks to place less focus on low-end manufacturing and become more sufficient in terms of producing electric cars and computer chips, it seeks to establish a new policy - Made in China 2025 - to encourage local and emerging industries and offering support to them. Miao Wei, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, claims this policy is not an attempt to prevent external competition entering the Chinese market, "we never thought about closing ourselves and doing it only at home, but I think we do need some adjustments".

BEIJING — A senior Chinese official on Sunday defended his country’s push for greater self-sufficiency in computer chips, electric cars and other industries, calling it a necessary strategy in the face of Western countries’ controls of certain high-tech gear.

As the country tries to move away from low-end manufacturing, Beijing’s plan, Made in China 2025, is designed to juice economic development in emerging industries by providing $300 billion in low-cost loans, research funds and other government aid. But big companies in the rest of the world worry that the program gives an unfair advantage to homegrown players, with the stated goal of Chinese companies’ owning as much as 80 percent of specific domestic markets in eight years.

China’s minister of industry and information technology, Miao Wei, said the new policy was not meant to wall off the country’s companies from outside competition. Yet he also conceded, without offering specifics, that the plan might need changes.

“We never thought about closing ourselves and doing it only at home, but I think we need some adjustments,” he said on the second day of the China Development Forum, a three-day gathering of senior Chinese economic policy makers with corporate leaders and top economists from around the world.