China’s Xi Jinping focuses on tech innovation, supply chains during first Shanghai visit in 3 years
- Yangtze Delta region, made up of Shanghai and neighbouring provinces, must play pivotal role in ‘Chinese-style modernisation’, Xi tells officials
- Emphasis on tech self-reliance comes weeks after telling Joe Biden measures taken by the US have seriously harmed China’s legitimate interests
The region must boost innovative capacity, industrial competitiveness and supply chain expansion, and open up further so that it can play a pivotal role in “Chinese-style modernisation”, Xi told local Communist Party officials at a work conference on Thursday.
“[The region] must focus on the areas of science and technology, industry, finance and the major infrastructures, which are related to national and regional security, and strengthen risk prevention … and capacity building, so as to consolidate our foundation for secure development,” Xi said.
The Yangtze Delta, as one of China’s most prosperous areas and a “showcase” for the advantages of its socialist system, must also speed up integration in areas including infrastructure, industrial development, economic opening up, environmental protection and supply chain expansion, so that it could “become a driver of development for the whole country”, he added.
“It is necessary to steadily expand the systematic opening up of the financial sector, enhance the facilitation of cross-border investment and financing, strengthen the prevention and control of risks in the whole process, and better safeguard the country’s financial security.”