A minefield to walk through: Vice-Premier Liu He must steer China’s hi-tech industries to greatness, even as a trade war with US looms
Liu’s portfolio, already heavy with industrial, economic and financing concerns, now adds science and research, just when US seeks end to technology transfers and fervour grows for domestic development
One day before Beijing unveiled plans to slap an additional 25 per cent of tariffs on a list of US imports worth US$50 billion, pushing the world’s two largest economies towards a full-scale trade war, Vice-Premier Liu He, Beijing’s leader in the trade talks, attended an event that did not raise many eyebrows at the time.
Liu, an economist who had studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, visited the Ministry of Science and Technology on April 3 and listened to reports from the top science and engineering academies.
Repeating the official line from the Communist Party, Liu urged Chinese scientists to toe the party’s line, and to understand the “extreme significance” of science and technology from the perspective of China’s long-term strategic interests.
Liu’s presence in the ministry, overlooked by many at the time, has proved highly relevant to the trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. The visit showed Liu, sometimes called China’s economic tzar for his power and close relationship to President Xi Jinping, in his new role heading China’s science and technology industries, a sector crucial to the trade dispute.
For the past two decades, China’s technology sector has been placed at a lesser important corner in the party’s politics, set aside, like education or cultural policies, in a portfolio for a vice-premier, or sometimes even a state councillor, further down the political ladder.
Key disciplines like heavy industry, trade and finance would usually land with other highly regarded members of the State Council.