China strikes triumphal note over economic recovery as it looks to cut reliance on US technology

Central Economic Work Conference ends with focus on country’s ‘history-making’ recovery from Covid-19 and plans to boost self-reliance

China’s ongoing reliance on US technology is one of the main areas of weakness policy makers are trying to address

Reading Time:3 minutes

China is looking to develop its own semiconducter industry as part of the drive for self-reliance. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:00am, 20 Dec 2020Updated: 12:48am, 20 Dec 2020

An economic planning meeting involving China’s top leadership ended on an unusually triumphalist note about the country’s recovery from Covid-19 as Beijing set out a series of policies to boost-self reliance amid its ongoing tensions with the US.

The statement released on Friday night at the end of the Central Economic Work Conference led with the message that China was the only major economy to post positive growth, saying it could “satisfy the people, catch the world’s attention and make history”.

However, the leadership also warned of the risks of an unbalanced and unstable recovery given external uncertainties.

While this year’s economic targets focused on the fight against poverty and pollution, the plans for 2021 – announced weeks after the authorities published the blueprint for the latest five-year plan – appear to be more strategic with a focus on boosting innovation, self-reliance in the supply chain and domestic demand.

There are also plans to improve food security, strengthen anti-monopoly measures, tackle housing problems and reach peak carbon emissions by 2035.

“The CEWC readout this year is the most interesting and notable since 2016, when Xi Jinping used the conference to formally kick off his financial de-risking campaign,” Michael Hirson, head of China at the US-based Eurasia Group, wrote in a note.