Nation moves to speed up ‘new industrialization’
China is moving swiftly to further accelerate what officials call the “new industrialization” process, aiming to upgrade traditional industries, cultivate new strategic industries, and promote advanced manufacturing and digitalization, a broad campaign to ensure the country’s industrial security and competitive edge amid rapidly rising global competition and risks.
Advancing new industrialization has become a buzzword in top policy documents and meetings since 2022, and in recent days Chinese officials have called for greater efforts to accelerate the process. The renewed emphasis on the subject indicates more policy measures are forthcoming, as part of China’s broad efforts for high-quality development amid downward pressure and a complex external environment marked by fierce competition, protectionism and decoupling efforts, analysts said.
On Wednesday, Premier Li Qiang chaired a State Council executive meeting, which highlighted efforts to boost industrial development quality, efficiency, and international competitiveness and stressed that China was mulling more efforts to advance new industrialization at a faster pace.
The meeting also emphasized the need to push the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries while cultivating strategic emerging industries, accelerating the development of advanced manufacturing industries, and promoting digital industrialization and industrial digitalization in a coordinated way.
“As the world is undergoing major changes, especially with the US-led West trying to build a ‘small-yard, highfence’ technological blockade against China, we need to make breakthroughs. New industrialization is a crucial pathway for us to ensure independent and controllable industrial chains,” said Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics.
Cong said that new industrialization mainly focuses on strategic emerging industries like artificial intelligence, big data, new materials and new energy.