More than 86 per cent of the ‘Made in China 2025’ have been achieved
Published: 6:00am, 30 Apr 2024
In 2015, China set out on an ambitious 10-year plan – dubbed “
” – to achieve self-reliance, innovation and strength in the manufacturing industry within 10 years.
But during that time, a
with the United States has done its best to stop China crossing off its list of goals. Now, with only eight months left until 2025, the South China Morning Post has investigated China’s progress.
When the plan was first set out, most cars on Chinese roads were from Western carmakers, and the sky was dominated entirely by aircraft made by American company Boeing or European Airbus. Many Chinese factories could not operate without imported machine tools. Chips, operating systems, and software in computers and mobile phones were mostly sourced from the US. Even the databases used by banks relied on multinational corporations for coding and maintenance.
Back then, China stood at the lower end of the global industrial value chain, producing mostly cheap and technically backward products. Made in China 2025 sought to change that, allowing Chinese manufacturing, through scientific and technological advancements, to produce high-quality, hi-tech and high-value products.
In 2018, then-US president Donald Trump tried to upset China’s plan by
. The US government sanctioned Chinese hi-tech enterprises, put up high tariffs and conducted a nationwide investigation of
collaborating with China. After Joe Biden took over as US leader in 2021, he went a step further by imposing measures such as a
on China.
But based on official books published a decade ago and other authoritative sources, the Post has compiled more than 260 goals previously proposed under the plan. These goals span 10 key areas, many involving highly specialised and complex technologies.
And the analysis confirms that more than 86 per cent of these goals have been achieved, with some others likely to be completed later this year or next. Meanwhile some of the targets, such as
(EV) and
production, have been well surpassed.
