China imported more than $ 400 billion worth of semiconductors, or “chips,” in 2021, representing 30% of the total income of North American companies producers of this basic digitalization input.
Based on the exclusion regime imposed by the United States in October this year, which prohibits the sale of US technology and equipment to companies in the People’s Republic, whether US or foreign that use assets of that nationality, the Chinese regime it was forced into national productionin a peremptory term, a commitment that President Xi Jinping made before the 20th Congress of the CCP which took place this year.
The goal is produce 70% or more of the People’s Republic chip demand by 2025. Currently the internal production of semiconductors grows by 8.1% annually; and this year would amount to $ 31.2 billion, which would rise to $ 58.2 billion in 2026, in a world market that would then amount to $ 717.7 billion, of which China consumes 38%. of the total.
The Chinese government’s goal is achieve self-sufficiency by 2035; and for this it needs to double, or more, its level of annual increase, bringing it to 16/18% per year.
For this, Xi Jinping’s decision is implement a policy of mobilizing all the country’s resourceswhich transforms China into a great power based on technology, science and education.
It is what Mao called “mass politics” in the 1930s, acting on the premise that the main strategic resource of the Chinese revolution is its own people mobilized, organized and aware, in an unstoppable push from the bottom up.
This effort is based on long-term goals. Therefore, between 2009 and 2011, 11 billion dollars were invested in the development of quantum computing; and in the last three years, 137,000 million dollars of public and private resources have been allocated for the development of “chip” production and basic research in nanotechnology.
In addition, he set up the Beijing People’s Bank a line of credit with low interest rates of $ 30,000 million for the semiconductor industry.
Outside the national framework, Shenzhen, the Chinese “high tech” capital, has established its own incentive program for the “chip” industry, with a particular emphasis on nanotechnology studies, and for this he created a fund of 25,000 million US dollars; and something similar is being done this year by Shanghai and Beijing.
The bottom line is that government – from top to bottom – channels resources and sets priorities, but it does not determine the technologies to be createdwhich are decided exclusively by companies and markets in incessant competition.
This is the basic structure of the gigantic innovation process underway, which the 20th Party Congress established in the first place. This is the answer to the question of how an absolutely centralized system in politics, and especially in major strategic decisions, can become an extraordinary innovation mechanism, and constant discovery and research of the new.
Source: Clarin