Liu He is the new "chip boss". According to the article, "The Harvard-educated career bureaucrat is not an engineer, but more of an expert in economics and industrial policy".
Hmmm.
(1) Liu He is not an engineer.
(2) He may have the Harvard MBA virus.
That does not seem good to me. But I am hoping for the best.
The good news in the article is that China produced 139 billion "IC units" in the first five months of 2021. If that rate is sustained for the rest of the year, China will have manufactured 333 billion IC units, which I hope means 333 billion chips.
(which may not be accurate, as this is SCMP after all), China imported 155.6 billion IC units in the first quarter of 2021. Extrapolated to the rest of 2021, that means 622.4 billion chips will be imported this year.
Thus China's total IC consumption will be 622.4 + 333 = 955.4 billion ICs this year. This means 333/955.4 or 38.9% of China's IC market will have been supplied by local manufacturers. That is actually rather good for just this year, and means the 40% target of "Made in China 2025" is almost done.
Of course, mainland China's probably producing only the lower-level chips in volume. The production of 14 nm, 7 nm, 5 nm chips will take some time.