China's Push for Science and Technology Self-Reliance
The most urgent theme running through China’s 15th Five-Year Plan is technological independence. The document calls for “extraordinary measures” to reduce Chinese reliance on foreign science and technology — language that signals both the scale of the ambition and the degree of vulnerability it is designed to address.
China’s dependence on outside technology remains substantial. In aircraft, advanced manufacturing equipment, precision instruments, gas turbines, enterprise software, and semiconductors, Chinese industry relies heavily on inputs from the United States, Europe, and Japan. The 15th FYP treats this as a strategic liability and funds accordingly.
The concept driving the plan’s S&T agenda is “indigenous innovation” — a term that has appeared in Chinese planning documents since 2006 but has taken on sharper meaning under sustained US export controls. In practice, indigenous innovation does not mean purely domestic invention. It has historically involved acquiring foreign technology, adapting it, and rebranding it as a Chinese capability. The plan continues to encourage foreign commercial and research ties as a tool for filling capability gaps, even as it pursues self-sufficiency in final products.
Priority sectors for breakthrough investment include biotechnology, semiconductors, software, advanced materials, and AI applied to industrial processes. The plan also calls for upgrading legacy industries — steel, petrochemicals, shipbuilding — with advanced manufacturing techniques and digital integration.
The underlying logic is straightforward: China cannot be cut off from what it already makes itself. The 15th FYP is, in significant part, a program for making China harder to sanction.