Assessing the outcomes of “Made in China 2025”: results, reactions and future prospects PDF Free Download
1 / 168/168
100%
MasterÕs Degree programme
in
Language and Management to China
Final Thesis
Assessing the outcomes of ÒMade in
China 2025Ó: results, reactions and
future prospects
Supervisor
Ch. Prof. Elisa Barbieri
Assistant supervisor
Ch. Prof. Renzo Cavalieri
Graduand
Asia Michelis
884292
Academic Year
2024 / 2025
2
O con amore,
O niente.
3
4
_¿
2008
2015 5 8 2025 2025 2035 2049 2049 2049 100 2020 2025
20252025 2025
5
20252020 34.2%
2025 2025 7
2025 2022 2023
2015 2025 2017 2018
2025 2025
6
20252025
20252025
20252025
2025
2025
4.0
2025
7
8
Table of contents
_¿ 5
Table of contents 9
Introduction 11
Chapter 1: Historical background 14
1.1 Extraordinary economic growth 14
1.2 Chinese manufacturing sector before MIC2025 18
1.3 Why China needed to innovate? 31
Chapter 2: Made in China 2025 37
2.1 Principles of the programme 40
2.2 Targets and key sectors 43
2.3 Tools and implementation strategies 48
2.4 International concern 53
2.5 Global countermeasures 58
2.5.1 United States’ response 59
2.5.2 European Union’s response 64
2.6 Comparison with “Industry 4.0” 70
2.7 Why isn’t China talking about MIC2025? 75
Chapter 3: Results obtained 80
3.1 Research and analysis methods 80
3.2 Research’s results 82
3.2.1 Innovation 82
3.2.2 Quality 86
3.2.3 IT-industrial integration 89
9
3.2.4 Green production 91
3.2.5 Secondary targets 98
3.3 Literature review 103
3.3.1 Firms’ productivity 105
3.3.2 Innovation and R&D investments 107
3.3.3 Industrial transformation 112
3.3.4 Export margins 113
3.3.5 Environmental sustainability and green development 114
3.4 Conclusions 124
3.5 Researches on sector-specific targets 126
Conclusions and future research 132
Appendix 138
Bibliography 147
Sitography 157
10
Introduction
In the last 70 years, China has been achieving rapid economic growth,
passing from an agrarian production-based country, to a manufacturing,
export-driven economy. The country focused on international trade and
commerce, only limiting itself to transfer technologies from western
countries, and producing low-quality, low-tech products, thus gaining the
title of “world’s factory”.
To reach true technological and manufacturing independence and self-
reliance, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping and
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s cabinet issued the “Made in China 2025”
(MIC2025) policy in 2015. This plan, allegedly inspired by Germany’s Industry
4.0 plan, aims at completely transforming the Chinese manufacturing sector
by promoting ten key industries, such as robotics, new generation
information technology, bio-pharm and hi-tech medical devices, trying to
reduce Chinese firms' reliance on western technologies and improve their
global competitiveness. Implementation strategies and policy tools include
forced technology transfers in exchange for market access, government-
backed investment funds and technology-seeking investments abroad.
The international reaction to MIC2025 was really strong: some western
countries expressed serious concern and tried to obstacle its
implementation, feeling threatened. Europe and the United States have been
especially critical: they accused China of trying to implement a sort of
substitution plan, unfairly acquire foreign technology and even violate WTO
rules. Consequently, China has toned down its references to the plan, and
words such as “Made in China 2025” or “self-suiciency rate” were cancelled
from oicial papers. For instance, the Chinese central government webpage
for the policy has not been updated since 2018.
11
The central questions guiding this thesis are: did MIC2025 succeed?
Have all the targets of the first oicial programme successfully been met? Is
the plan still part of the Chinese government's priorities or has it been truly
abandoned?
Finding material to address those questions has been really diicult:
although in the period immediately following its introduction the plan
received significant media attention, triggered wide debate and led to the
publication of geopolitical analysis articles and reports from government
institutions, in the subsequent years, an enormous lack of serious empirical
research emerged. This reflects, in part, the diiculty of accurately
measuring the existence and incidence of “Made in China 2025”, but as
already mentioned, it is also the result of international criticism and the Sino-
American trade war effect.
Several scholars, both Chinese and international, have addressed the
“Made in China 2025” programme, but much of the available researches
focus on partial aspects, such as the impact on the profitability of firms or on
Research and Development (R&D), leaving room for further investigation and
analysis.
On the other hand, during 2025, researches on the results of the policy
re-emerged, showing the importance of MIC2025 for international
policymakers and economists, and underlining how, effectively, the whole
world is focused on China’s actions and well-aware of its power and potential.
All of these papers, with the exception of the one published by the European
Chamber, were focused on the sector-specific targets’ results. In contrast,
this thesis focuses exclusively on the objectives of the original programme.
The already mentioned limitations, the scarcity of public data, the
possible bias of available sources, and the diiculty in distinguishing
between the actual plan results and broader economic dynamics brings extra
challenges to this analysis. To overcome these problems, the research relied
12
on the study of specific case studies, articles, and on the author’s data
analysis, giving the most objective overview possible.
The purpose of this thesis is, therefore, to analyse the results of “Made in
China 2025”, highlighting its limitations or success based on the available
documentation and giving a comprehensive view of the topic.
The rest of the thesis is structured as follows.
Chapter one defines the historical context of MIC2025, offers an
overview of the Chinese manufacturing sector, and highlights the reasons
behind the implementation of this strategic plan.
Chapter two presents the policy in detail, describing the main goals and
tools, comparing it with the German plan of "Industry 4.0”, while also offering
a reflection on the global reaction and countermeasures. The chapter also
tries to understand if the plan actually completely disappeared from the
Chinese priorities or not and which is the strategic direction taken by the
country for its future.
Chapter three will focus on the results obtained, with an exploratory
analysis of available data, aiming at understanding whether the targets fixed
in the first oicial document of MIC2025 were achieved or not, and
discussing their implications. The chapter will also analyse international and
Chinese literature’s opinion over the policy’s impact, underlining potential
similarities and differences among them, and offer an overview of the sector-
specific target’s results, not object of this analysis.
Chapter four concludes and offers some considerations.
13
Chapter 1: Historical background
1.1 Extraordinary economic growth
China’s economic transformation began in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping’s
leadership. He understood that without reforms, China would remain stuck in
deep poverty, with underdeveloped rural areas, weak infrastructure, and
economic isolationfrom the world, especially from the United States and
other Western countries. For this reason, he promoted a market-oriented
1
economy, framed within the idea of a “socialist system with Chinese
characteristics”, a new model of growth which aimed to integrate socialist
ideals with a free market (Jain, 2017). He implemented several reforms,
among which the most important one was the "Open Door Policy" (kaifang
zhengce): rebuilding the economy required opening the country to the world
after Mao’s isolationism policy. China began opening to foreign trade and
welcoming foreign businesses in the country. For this purpose, in 1980, Deng
Xiaoping also decided to create four Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in
Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen. Moreover, the communal
2
agricultural system was slowly eliminated, allowing farmers to manage their
own land and sell their products on the market. A similar approach was later
applied to many other industries, as Deng Xiaoping recognised that the
private sector and Chinese entrepreneurs could and should play a much
more significant role in the country's economy.
The urban economy was reformed only after the 12th Central
Committee’s Third Plenum in October 1984. This reform aimed to establish a
Before Deng Xiaoping's reforms, China's economy suffered due to centrally planned policies, such as
1
the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, resulting in stagnation, poverty and ineiciency.
The Chinese economy was dominated by state ownership and central planning.
These zones were strategically located near Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, offering favourable tax
2
policies and low wages to attract capital and business.
14
"socialist market economy" by gradually introducing market mechanisms. In
practice, central planning was restricted to key sectors and strategic
products, while the rest of the economy was increasingly subject to market
forces (Bordone, 2006). With increased trade and growing foreign
investments, China rapidly integrated into the global market.
Economic reforms continued under Deng Xiaoping’s successors. During
the same period, leaders Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji lowered tariffs, reduced
trade barriers and regulations, reformed the banking system, eliminated
Maoist social welfare programmes, controlled inflation, and finalised China’s
entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 (Caccavello, 2018).
Premier Zhu Rongji pushed for WTO entry to use foreign pressure to speed
up reforms, but WTO membership also encouraged legal modernisation, and
signalled China’s recognition as a key player in the global economy (Chow,
2018). After its entrance, by 2010, China tripled its manufacturing output and
by 2011, overtook the US as the world’s top manufacturing nation (Perry,
2012).
In 2005, Hu Jintao took a more conservative approach and began to
reverse some Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. He increased subsidies, control over
the health care sector, funding for education, and stopped privatisation. This
suggests that he didn’t follow Deng’s model of "economic development at all
costs”, but promoted a more balanced policy, considering factors such as
social inequality and environmental damage, trying to build a “harmonious
society” . However, under this regime, mass discontent became even more
3
widespread, with higher levels of corruption, probably because Hu Jintao
was too cautious to challenge the power structure and wanted to complete
his term without problems (Mohanty, 2012).
The concept describes an ideal state of social harmony in which all groups and classes work together,
3
resolving underlying “contradictions.” It is a response to the increasing social injustice and inequalities
emerging in China as a result of uncontrolled economic growth.
15
In 2014, after more than two decades of double-digit growth rates, the
Chinese economy grew by 7.4 % “only”, touching its lowest growth rate since
1990. This number made Chinese policy makers realise that past targets were
no longer sustainable. The previous year, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) warned that, in the absence of reforms, for China, the risk of annual
growth of just 2.5% for a “protracted period” of time was “medium” to “likely”
before 2030 (Amighini & Berkofsky, 2015). The slowdown was partly the
result of the stimulus programme introduced after the financial crisis of
2008, in order to prevent an excessive drop in production and employment.
Moreover, for the previous 30 years, China's growth had relied on several
imbalances. One big issue was the overuse of investment and credit, leading
to too many low-profit projects and bad bank loans. Another problem was the
excessive reliance on investment rather than domestic spending, and on
exports rather than internal demand. This made China heavily dependent on
the global economy. Lastly, the working-age population was decreasing,
meaning that the "demographic advantage" that helped China's growth was
disappearing.
In this economic context, Xi Jinping introduced, in 2014, the idea of
“New Normal”, launching China's new economic growth’s model,
characterised by a medium speed growth, constant improvements and
upgrades. China changed its development model to focus on private
consumption, services, and innovation rather than fixed investment and
manufactured exports (Cheng & Gao, 2016). In order to do so, human capital,
export structure and productivity have been addressed through various
policy changes. The subsequent Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) gave continuity
4
to this concept, with a significantly lower growth rate than in the past (6.5%
Five-Year plans are economic policy tools used in socialist countries, where economic activity is
4
largely managed by public entities. They usually set specific goals to be achieved over a five-year
period in various areas of the economy, including industrial development. They were introduced for the
first time in 1928 by Stalin, and adopted by China in 1953.
16
per year) to allow the implementation of reforms, a quality-oriented growth
and a reduction of public investments. At the same time, it aimed to reduce
the weight of exports over GDP, so that growth would not depend on foreign
demand, and to increase domestic consumption.
Connected to this purpose, in 2013, there was the launch of the Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI). The idea is to connect China, Asia and Europe in terms
5
of trade and economic interaction via a land route (“the belt”) as well as a
maritime route (“the road”). It has been referred to by some as the "Chinese
Marshall Plan" due to its aim of creating markets for the export of Chinese
products and avoiding an overproduction crisis. In fact, BRI allowed China to
move its manufacturing labour to lower-cost countries, as it started a
manufacturing upgrading towards a higher value-added production
(Brødsgaard & Rutten, 2017).
The “New Normal” made “structural reform all the more necessary”
(Amighini & Berkofsky, 2015). The main mechanisms adopted in order to
make this structural reform possible are increasing agriculture’s productivity
with new technologies and automatisation, urbanisation that allows rural
workers to move to cities, investing in infrastructure and using advanced
technology in factories, reforming SOEs to make them more eicient, and
liberalising the banking system and financial markets to improve the
economy. It is clear that China’s new strategy focused on “quality over
quantity”, trying to avoid pursuing a high growth rate at all costs, particularly
by increasing debt. On the contrary, a moderate growth rate is preferable if it
is achieved by protecting public finances and reducing exposure to
international demand cycles.
Precisely to respond to the challenges of the “New Normal” and to
overcome the limitations of the previous economic model, Xi Jinping
For a deeper understanding of the BRI project, see Peter Cai, “Understanding China’s Belt and Road
5
Initiative”, Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2017
17
launched, in 2015, the “Made in China 2025” project, aiming at making the
country self-reliant in key technologies and a leader in high-quality
manufacturing.
1.2 Chinese manufacturing sector before MIC2025
To better understand MIC2025’s implications and raison d’être, a deeper
analysis of the Chinese manufacturing sector’s situation before 2015 is
needed. At that time, manufacturing occupied an important position in the
national economy. It was and still is one of the pillar industries of the country.
China’s large population provided not only a large labour force but also
strong domestic demand for manufactured goods. The country had 525
manufacturing sectors, among which Communication Equipment, Ship,
Machine Tools, Rare Earth, and Construction Machinery have gained a world
leading role (Quan, 2022).
First, it’s useful to examine the weight of the manufacturing sector on
GDP and its overall value before the implementation of the plan (Figure 1.1).
18
Source: LIU, Kerry, “Chinese manufacturing in the shadow of the China-US trade war”,
Economic aûairs, Institute of Economic Affairs, 38, 3, 2018, p. 308
Figure 1.1: China’s manufacturing GVA and its share of GDP
The GVA increased significantly between 2005 and 2016, never slowing
down once: the value of China’s manufacturing output increased from
around US$ 1 trillion to US$ 3 trillion. However, when it comes to its
percentage of GDP, the trajectory was more variable, growing until 2012,
reaching a peak of more than 32% and then slowly declining. This shows that
the manufacturing sector was growing in terms of absolute value, but its
share of GDP was slightly decreasing, suggesting that other sectors, like
technology and services, were growing more quickly and contributing more
to the total value of GDP.
This appears to be part of a global trend: according to World Bank’s data,
the proportion of value-added to the manufacturing industry of the global
GDP declined from about 18% in the 90s to about 15% in 2016, as shown in
Figure 1.2. This was mainly because traditional sources of growth (like mass
production, low labour costs) were weakening, but new sources of growth
(like innovation and advanced tech) hadn’t fully taken over yet.
19
Source: MA, Yungao, XIA, Liyu, MENG, Weixuan, “Research on China’s
Manufacturing Industry Upgrading from the Global Perspective”, in IOP Conf.
Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 295, 2019, p. 2 on World Bank’s data
Figure 1.2: Proportion of world’s MVA to the global GDP
However, when comparing China’s MVA on GDP with other
manufacturing powers, the situation was different. Although the weight of
the manufacturing industry over the GDP of the major manufacturing powers
(US, Japan and Germany) was decreasing, it later stabilised, while the
Chinese downward trend was still continuing. In fact, as shown in Figure 1.3,
United States’ share dropped from 16.1% in 1997 to 11.3% in 2015, Japan from
23.4% in 1996 to 20.5% in 2015, and Germany from 23.2% in 1992 to 20.2% in
2015. However, their trend seemed to have stabilised. On the other hand,
China dropped from 31.9% in 2004 to 28.4% in 2015, keeping a higher share
than that of other countries, though still declining.
On the contrary, in terms of absolute value, as shown in Figure 1.4,
before MIC2025, China’s share was the only one that kept on growing, while
all the other countries observed slow-downs: by 2016, its share was more
than double that of the US and Japan, and accounted for almost one quarter
of world manufacturing output. United States’ share declined from 20% in
20
Source: World Bank
Figure 1.3: MVA in the top for leading manufacturing countries (%GDP)
2005 to 15.6% in 2016, and in 2010 has been surpassed by China. Japan
showed a declining trend until 2009, followed by a small recovery, but
stabilised around 10%. Germany maintained a relatively stable share,
fluctuating slightly but remaining around 6.3%.
It’s clear that, even before MIC2025, China was the world’s largest
manufacturing economy in absolute terms. However, its industrial trajectory
showed the unusual pattern of the so-called premature deindustrialisation.
6
From the manufacturing peak and per capita GDP of each country in
Table 1.1, it’s possible to see that the proportion of manufacturing value-
added in GDP of United States, Japan and Germany reached the peak in
1953, 1970 and 1969 respectively, and the per capita GDP was US$ 16400,
China appears to have reached its industrial peak before achieving comparable levels of per capita
6
income, a phenomenon referred to as premature deindustrialisation. For further information about
deindustrialisation, see Fiona Tregenna, “Characterising deindustrialisation: An analysis of changes in
manufacturing employment and output internationally”, in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33, 3,
Special focus: The intellectual legacy of Brian Reddaway (May 2009), pp. 433-466
21
Source: LIU, Kerry, op.cit., p. 309
Figure 1.4: Manufacturing GVA in the top four leading manufacturing
economies (as shares of world MVA)
US$ 18700 and US$ 19700, higher than the high-income national standard in
2010. The peak value-added ratio of China’s manufacturing industry to GDP
was 36.30% in 2006, but the per capita GDP was only US$ 3063, far lower
than the level of high-income countries, indicating that China's
manufacturing industry fell “prematurely” (Wang & Zhao, 2022).
China has relied for various years on exporting products and goods of
low-quality and low value-added as a main source of income, thus gaining
the title of “world’s factory”. However, as shown in Table 1.2, from 1995 until
2010, the three main sectors of exports were “manufactured goods classified
chiefly by material”, “machinery and transport equipment” and
“miscellaneous manufactured goods”. Their weight over the total of exports
has been increasing, especially the machinery and transport equipment,
going from 21.1% in 1995 to 49.5% by 2010, accounting for half of the total.
For this reason, China could no longer be seen as an exporter of low value-
added and labour-intensive products, even before the implementation of
Table 1.1: Peak proportion of manufacturing industry and per capita GDP
Country
Year
Peak value added of
manufacturing
industry in GDP
Per capita GDP
(2010 USD)
China
2006
36.30
3063
US
1953
26.80
16443
Japan
1970
34.10
18700
Germany
1969
36.90
19681
Note: Peak Proportion is the highest value of data recorded.
Source: WANG, Lina, ZHAO, Hengyuan, “Comparative Analysis on Development and Policy in
Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Among China, the United States, Japan and Germany”, in
Proceedings of the 2022 2nd International Conference on Economic Development and Business
Culture (ICEDBC 2022), 2022, p.761 on World Bank’s data
22
MIC2025, as capital-intensive products such as machinery and transport
equipment increased significantly.
As shown in Figure 1.5, also the exports of high-technology products
seemed to have followed a similar path.
23
Source: KIM, Chongsup, LEE, Seungho “Different Paths of Deindustrialization: Latin American and
Southeast Asian Countries from a Comparative Perspective” Journal of International and Area
Studies, 21, 2, 2014, p. 74, on United Nations Statistics Division’s data
Table 1.2: Exporting structure (% of total exports)
Source: XING, Yuqing, “The People’s Republic of China’s High-Tech Exports: Myth and Reality”,
ADBI Working Paper 357. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute, 2012, p. 4, on Statistics on
Science and Technology, PRC Ministry of Science and Technology’s data
Figure 1.5: Chinese High-Tech Exports
In 1995, high-tech exports were valued at US$ 10.1 billion, equal to 6.8%
of total manufacturing exports. In 15 years, the exports grew at an average
annual rate of 30%, and by 2010, high-tech exports reached US$ 492.4
billion, representing 31.2% of total manufacturing exports.
However, a deeper look into the structure of high-tech exports reveals a
different picture. As shown in Table 1.3, in 2010, Computers and
Telecommunications accounted for 72% of total high-tech exports (US$ 356
billion), while Electronics US$ 77.5 billion, together making up almost 90% of
total high-tech exports. However, the structure of trade revealed significant
imbalances: while the Computers and Telecommunications sector generated
a US$ 262 billion surplus, Electronics created a US$ 119 billion deficit. This
reflected the fact that many imported electronic components were used as
intermediate inputs in the final production of Computers and
Telecommunications products.
When assembled high-tech products were shipped abroad, they were
classified as high-tech exports, regardless of whether the key parts and
24
Source: ibidem, on Statistics on Science and Technology, PRC Ministry of Sciences and
Technology’s data
Table 1.3: High-Tech Trade by Categories, 2010
components were imported or domestically produced. As a result, even
products like Apple’s iPhones and iPads, which were assembled with foreign-
designed and produced components, were classified as Chinese high-tech
exports.
China’s high-tech exports increased mainly thanks to foreign direct
investment (FDI) and multinational enterprises (MNEs) moving parts of their
production to China (Xing, 2012). As represented in Figure 1.6, in 2002,
foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) contributed for 79% of China’s high-tech
export, while in 2004 for 86%. In 2006, 69% came from wholly foreign-
owned companies. This shows that foreign companies dominated China’s
high-tech export sector.
The technology and know-how belonged to foreign companies, not to
Chinese firms. Even though China assembled these high-tech products, it
didn’t create the technology behind them. So, the idea that China was a
leader in high-tech exports is misleading. In truth, China’s role before 2015
was mostly putting the products together, not inventing or designing them.
25
Source: ibidem, p.8, on Statistics on Science and Technology, PRC Ministry of Science and
Technology’s data
Figure 1.6: Foreign-Invested FirmsÕ Contribution to the China’s High-Tech
Exports (%)
In fact, Table 1.4 shows that the labour output was significantly lower
than that of other countries, even though it was increasing year by year. Not
only was it under the eurozone average, but even the world one, surpassing
only India.
Additionally, Chinese manufacturing lacked key technology and
independent innovation ability, primarily because of the lack of R&D
investment. As shown in Table 1.5, China’s R&D spending as a percentage of
GDP remained below the global average. This meant that, compared to other
major manufacturing countries, China was still behind in both innovation and
in owning core technologies.
Table 1.4: Unit labour output (at constant prices in 2005, US$/person)
Year
World
average
USA
Japan
Eurozone
India
China
2009
16,963
92,560
70,477
64,946
2503
4674
2010
17,449
95,069
73,631
66,586
2731
5146
2011
17,711
95,724
74,108
67,559
2909
5586
2012
17,883
96,062
75,510
67,083
3024
5990
2013
18,107
97,748
75,958
67,164
3189
6243
2014
18,285
98,116
75,376
67,867
3370
6866
2015
18,487
98,990
76,068
68,631
3559
7318
Note: the Eurozone data is the average of 19 member states
Source: Source: FENG, Lei, ZHANG, Xuehui, ZHOU, Kaige, “Current problems in China’s
manufacturing and countermeasures for industry 4.0”, in EURASIP Journal on Wireless
Communications and Networking, 2018, p.3 on National Bureau of Statistics’ data
26
To support the implementation of new technologies, the manufacturing
sector needs fast, safe, eicient, and real-time connection. A huge
percentage of the manufacturing enterprises in China before 2015 were in
rural areas, where, however, the internet penetration was really low (Figure
1.7): even though it was decreasing, the rural-urban gap in 2014 was 34%,
with rural reaching only 28.8% and urban 62.8%. Urban regions benefited
from more convenient transportation, better infrastructure, and faster
network upgrades and maintenance. Rural areas, on the other hand, suffered
from economic stagnation.
Table 1.5: R&D cost and proportion of GDP
Year
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
R&D cost
(billion CNY)
10,298
11,847
13,016
14,170
15,500
GDP
(billion CNY)
540,367.4
595,244.4
643,974
689,052.1
744,127.2
Proportion
(%)
1.91
1.99
2.02
2.06
2.08
Source: ibidem
27
Source: CNNIC Statistical Report on Internet Development in China
Figure 1.7: Internet penetration rates in rural and urban areas
According to Schwab & Sala-I-Martin (2015), the most significant gap
between China and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) average in 2015 was technological readiness, an
indicator measuring how effectively an economy adopts existing
technologies to improve productivity. This particularly emphasises the ability
to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into everyday
operations and production processes to enhance eiciency and foster
innovation.
Also automation was low: in 2015, Chinese enterprises utilised an
average of just 19 industrial robots per 10,000 industry employees, in
comparison with 531 in South Korea, 301 in Germany and 176 in the United
States (Wubbeke et al., 2016) (Figure 1.8).
Before MIC2025, most Chinese companies were hesitant when it came to
investing in expensive high-tech equipment and preferred cheaper solutions.
This was because they didn’t face strong market competition, as the
28
Source: WUBBEKE, Jost, MEISSNER, Mirjam, ZENGLEIN, J. Max, IVES, Jaqueline, CONRAD, Björn,
“Made in China 2025 The making of a high-tech superpower and consequences for industrial
countries”, in MERICS, 2, 2016, p.15, on IFR’s data, data for China adjusted by MERICS
Figure 1.8: Density of industrial robots per 10,000 workers in 2015
government interfered heavily in the economy. Secondly, even though wages
were rising in China, they were still relatively low, and hiring workers was still
cheaper than investing in new technologies in many cases. Nevertheless,
something was beginning to change: in certain industries and regions, such
as Dongguan, wages were getting high enough to make new machines
cheaper, and it was getting more and more diicult to find people willing to
perform stressful jobs, even for a good pay. In these cases, factories were
starting to replace humans with robots. But overall, these changes were not
widespread enough to cause a major upgrade in China’s manufacturing
industry (Wubbeke et al., 2016).
The Chinese manufacturing industry was not only struggling with
innovation and new technologies, but also with limiting its environmental
impact. Table 1.6 shows that the proportion of energy consumption in the
manufacturing industry to total energy consumption before MIC2025 was
relatively high and increasingly growing. This suggests that, before 2015,
there was a serious problem of high energy consumption and pollution,
combined with low value-added.
Table 1.6: Energy consumption
Year
Total energy consumption
in the manufacturing
industry (10,000 tons of
standard coal)
Energy consumption in
manufacturing industry /
total energy consumption
2009
180,595.97
0.54
2010
188,497.85
0.52
2011
200,403.37
0.52
2012
205,667.69
0.51
2013
239,053.4
0.57
2014
245,051.39
0.58
2015
244,919.56
0.57
Source: FENG, Lei, ZHANG, Xuehui, ZHOU, Kaige., op. cit., p.4 on National Bureau of Statistics’
data
29
Another problem of the Chinese manufacturing industry was that many
companies were less willing to invest in actual production, and preferred to
invest into virtual markets, such as financial products, to make quick profits.
Consequently, capital that once was used to support physical industries was
then invested in real estate and stock markets, leading to the shrinking of the
manufacturing sector and the misallocation of resources. In fact, as shown
7
in Figure 1.9, A-share non-financial companies in China dramatically
increased their spending on financial products, whereas the amount of long-
term investment in the development of fixed assets barely changed.
In the end, it’s clear that, before the implementation of MIC2025, the
world’s largest manufacturing economy faced deep structural weaknesses.
The over-reliance on low-cost labour and foreign technology, the premature
signs of deindustrialisation, and the ineicient allocation of capital, but also
the lack of core innovation, limited automation, regional inequalities, and
This phenomenon is called “industrial hollowing-out”
7
30
Source: MA, Yungao, XIA, Liyu, MENG, Weixuan, op.cit., p.4
Figure 1.9: Total expenditure of fixed assets/financial products
purchased by A-share non-financial companies
weak IP protections hindered China's transition towards a more sustainable
and technological manufacturing sector. These weaknesses justified the
need for a long-term industrial upgrade strategy, such as “Made in China
2025”.
1.3 Why China needed to innovate?
If the first step in understanding the need for MIC2025 is to analyse the
state and structural weaknesses of China’s manufacturing sector, the second
is to examine the historical and economic roots of these problems and why
the country’s growth model was no longer sustainable.
Since 1978, after the economic opening up, China has moved from an
agrarian economy to a manufacturing superpower mainly thanks to
technology transfers from western countries. However, as we already said,
the core technologies remained in the West, leaving China dependent on
western expertise, as the country hadn’t actively invested in scientific and
technological development. As a result, it attracted foreign investment in its
industries. This allowed the country to gain a share of the industrial value
chain of developed economies thanks to its low-cost labour and close
location to large, emerging Asian markets. Meanwhile, developed countries
maintained their lead in advanced manufacturing technologies, while China’s
economy became heavily focused on exports. For example, before 2015,
many cars in the US used basic components manufactured in China due to
China’s low labour costs and high eiciency. However, similar levels of
eiciency could be found in other developing Asian countries, making
China’s role replaceable. This further limited the profitability of low-cost
production. Additionally, as years passed by, the comparative advantage in
manufacturing costs declined as workers demanded better conditions and
wages, causing the country’s traditional growth model to be less effective.
31
Since the global financial crisis of 2008, the external demand for Chinese
products weakened, and wages in China meanwhile increased faster than in
almost all other developed economies. A growth model based on exploiting
the use of cheaper labour as in the past was no longer viable.
As labour costs continued to rise and external demand weakened,
Chinese companies had to make some diicult strategic choices: move in,
move out, move up, or shut down. “Move in” means relocating factories to
inland regions, where wages are lower. However, this was only a short-term
fix, as the gap in wages across the country was gradually closing and inland
logistics was costly. “Move out” means investing abroad, leveraging China's
industrial expertise in countries where labour remains cheap. This strategy
allowed firms to maintain low production costs while expanding their global
presence. “Move up” concerns focusing on innovation and upgrading,
reducing dependence on low-skilled labour by shifting toward higher value-
added products and services. “Move down”, meaning closing the business,
could have been the only solution for some companies, but clearly not a
possible path for the whole country.
Another obstacle that China had to face was the so-called “middle
income trap”. Coined by economists Indermit Gill and Homi Kharas in 2007,
the term “middle income trap” refers to a situation where a country develops
until reaching a middle level of income, but then it stops growing and is not
able to become a high-income nation. This occurs when rising production
costs make them less competitive than lower-income countries, while weak
skills, infrastructure, and innovation prevent them from competing with
advanced economies. For a nation to exit this trap and keep on growing,
three transformations are essential: diversification to specialisation in
production and employment; shift to innovation from investment; equipping
workers with skills for new technologies, products and processes (Eryilmaz &
32
Eryilmaz, 2015). To do so, government incentives and support mechanisms
are considered essential.
There are three main ideas about why countries fall into the trap and how
they can escape:
1. education systems and public institutions are weak. In this case,
the state intervention should be minimum, making the right incentive
systems and investing more in education and R&D.
2. the state is unable to produce and export higher technology
products. The country should act as a facilitator, supporting industries
in which it has a comparative advantage and changing the export
composition accordingly.
3. the government fails to help the economy move into high-tech
industries. The state should be proactive, focus on capability
accumulation and on advancing industrial upgrading (Eryilmaz &
Eryilmaz, 2015).
In the Chinese case, the danger of the “middle income trap” was mainly
due to low R&D intensity, as already mentioned, especially of SOEs. This
weakened innovation, making many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) fail
quickly, as they struggled to get fundings and access capital. Those that
survived often stagnated due to limited competition, which resulted in
overproduction and low-quality goods. Some coastal provinces, such as
Guangdong and Jiangsu, were in a better situation, thanks to the presence of
fewer state-owned companies and stronger global relationships.
Having said this, to escape the “middle income trap”, China had to move
up the “smiling curve”: invest in innovation and technology, instead of relying
on low-cost production. For this reason, China needed MIC2025 to pass from
a model based on economic production to one based on innovation and
value-added. The “smiling curve”, as shown in Figure 1.10, is a graphic
representation of how value-added varies during different stages of the
33
production and the launch of a certain product to the market. In the value
chain, it’s possible to observe different phases: R&D, branding, design,
manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sales/after service. The two ends
of this chain have a higher value-added, especially R&D and sales/after
service, while manufacturing is the less profitable stage, the segment where
China’s economy was primarily focused.
Lastly, another event that pushed for the implementation of MIC2025
was the decline of China’s growth to single digit level since 2011, which was,
as we already discussed in Chapter 1.1, the basis for the “New Normal”’s
implementation. The main reason was the decrease of its potential GDP
growth rate, which was determined by three factors: labour, capital and total
factor productivity.
First, when it came to labour, the Chinese population was rapidly aging
at an earlier stage of its development in comparison to other countries. This
34
Source: AGGRWAL, Sakshi, “Smiling curve and its linkages with Global Value chains”, in MPRA,
No. 79324, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, 2017, p.3
Figure 1.10: The smiling curve
was due to the low birth rate, a consequence of the one-child policy ,
8
together with prolonged human life expectancy. China's aging population led
to a diminution of the labour force, resulting in slower economic growth.
Ryan Hass said that "China is at risk of growing old before it grows rich,
becoming a greying society with degrading economic fundamentals that
impede growth.” He also airmed that ”by 2050, China will go from having
eight workers per retiree now to two workers per retiree. Moreover, it has
already squeezed out most of the large productivity gains that come with a
population becoming more educated and urban and adopting technologies
to make manufacturing more eicient” (Hass, 2021).
Second, when it came to capital, evidence showed that China was
overinvesting in many sectors. Concern has been expressed that too much
investment creates industrial overcapacity, generates ineiciency, and
threaten profits and employment (Ding, Guariglia & Knight, 2010).
Third, looking at factor productivity, as the surplus labour force had been
reduced by the expansion of secondary and tertiary sectors, mass labour
migration was slowing down, and the opportunity to enhance resource
allocative eiciency was decreasing.
Competition was another critical problem. China was “being pressured
from both sides," as an MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology)
oicial expressed. "Advanced economies such as the United States, Germany
and Japan have all formulated policies supporting further development of
their own manufacturing. At the same time, emerging economies such as
India and Brazil are also catching up with their own advantages” (China Daily,
2015). In fact, both advanced and emerging economies were actively
working to strengthen their manufacturing sectors, competing against China.
This was a consequence of the global financial crisis, after which developed
The one-child policy was a population planning initiative implemented between 1979 and 2015, which
8
restricted many families to having a single child, in order to reduce the growth rate
35
countries launched “reindustrialisation” strategies to regain manufacturing
competitiveness and reshape global trade. For example, the United States
launched initiatives such as the "Framework for Revitalizing American
Manufacturing" (2009), "Advanced Manufacturing Partnership" (2011), and
"National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing" (2012), while Germany
introduced the "Industrie 4.0" strategy in 2013.
The government was fully aware of China being a latecomer to
manufacturing. The oicial MIC2025 programme stated that “China lags
behind in independent innovation, resource eiciency, industrial structure,
informatisation, and product quality and eiciency” (State Council, 2015).
In order to solve all the above-discussed problems and weaknesses of
the manufacturing industry, China decided to implement “Made in China
2025”, which will be more accurately described in the next chapter.
36
Chapter 2: Made in China 2025
Made in China 2025 is a national strategic plan issued by CCP general
secretary Xi Jinping and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s cabinet on 8 May 2015.
It refers to the first of a three-stage plan, elaborated by China’s MIIT. This first
step, to be achieved by 2025, requires China to “approach the level of
manufacturing powers Germany and Japan during the period when they
realised industrialisation.” The second step requires China to “enter the front
ranks of second tier manufacturing powers” by 2035. In the third step, China
will become a member of the “first tier of global manufacturing powers” by
2049, and will have acquired “innovation-driving capabilities,” “clear
competitive advantages,” and “world-leading technology systems and
industrial systems” (Glaser, 2019). The year 2049 is specifically chosen, as it
is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC).
MIC2025 is evidence of the Chinese government’s determination to
tackle the challenges that manufacturing faces and to foster a knowledge-
driven economy (Godement et al., 2015). It has the main purpose of making
China a manufacturing superpower and aims at completely transforming the
entire Chinese industry, moving away from the “world’s factory” status, based
on the production of low-tech, low-quality products, facilitated by low labour
costs and supply chain advantages. In this sense, the plan doesn’t only aim
to promote the transition to the so-called “Industry 4.0,” the last stage of the
industrial revolution, but also aspires to advance those sectors that are
currently at previous stages of technological innovation. The basic idea is
beginning to compete against the economic leadership of the current driving
economies and international firms, producing high-tech, high-quality
products. This can be done by reducing the reliance on foreign technology,
37
enhancing domestic innovation, and building global competitiveness.
According to Frietsch (2020), MIC2025 differs from almost all other Chinese
policies because it is based on a critical and realistic reflection on the current
position of Chinese industry (European Commission, 2019).
The plan is a departure from the “Strategic Emerging Industries” (SEI)
initiative, developed in 2006 by the National Development and Reform
Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST),
with the support of MIIT and other ministries. Its main purpose was to
upgrade advanced technologies to allow Chinese firms to compete in the
global market. It identified seven “strategic emerging industries”, namely:
1. New energy
2. New materials
3. High-end equipment
4. New energy vehicles (NEVs)
5. Environmental protection
6. Next-generation information technology (IT)
7. Biotechnology
The above-mentioned industries were expected to account for the 8% of
the Chinese economy by 2015 and 15% by 2020 and serve the role of being
the backbone of China’s modernisation and development.
However, MIC2025 differs from SEI in several aspects: the latter, in fact,
is much smaller, both in scale and in scope. MIC2025 focuses on the whole
manufacturing process rather than just innovation, promotes the
development of advanced as well as traditional and service industries and
sets clear and specific targets concerning innovation, quality standards and
green production, taking into consideration the whole system in which
industries develop. The state is involved, but market mechanisms
theoretically assume a more important role than the one attributed to them
by SEI (Kennedy, 2015). The facts, however, tell us a different story.
38
The establishment of the China Strong Manufacturing Leading Small
Group in June 2015, chaired by Vice Premier Ma Kai and under direct control
of the State Council, emphasises the central role of the government in the
implementation of MIC2025, which consequently appears to be a top-down
strategic plan. Along with five other ministerial-level oicials, MIIT Minister
Miao Wei was appointed vice chair. Under the direction of the Leading Small
Group, the MIIT is responsible for the supervision of the initiative's
implementation, together with the NDRC, MOST, the Ministry of Finance
(MOF), and the CAE (European Chamber, 2017). Figure 2.1 reports the more-
detailed scheme that illustrates all the institutions, authorities and ministries
responsible for the policy implementation.
9
To have a broader understanding of the political organisations behind MIC2025, see Appendix A
9
39
Source: European Chamber, “China Manufacturing 2025. Putting industrial policy ahead of
market forces”, 2017, p. 9
Figure 2.1: Political responsibilities and initiatives under China
Manufacturing 2025
2.1 Principles of the programme
According to the main programme, MIC2025 is based on three central
premises (State Council, 2015):
First, “there can be no national prosperity without strong manufacturing”.
Manufacturing is the key for building a strong, powerful country, so it has to
be a priority for the government.
Second, “China’s manufacturing sector is large but not yet strong
compared to advanced economies”. As already discussed, China’s position is
threatened by several structural weaknesses.
Third, “a new industrial revolution is underway, which will enable China’s
manufacturing sector to become strong”. MIC2025 will allow China to catch
up with other advanced manufacturing nations and overcome inherent
problems.
The plan has three main strategic objectives:
Localise: MIC2025 wants to indigenise R&D, control global supply chains
and support the development of Chinese firms, technology, IP and brands.
Substitute: after reducing the dependence on foreign technology,
MIC2025 aims to substitute foreign goods and products with domestic ones.
Capture global market share: China wants to gain and secure domestic
and global market share across MIC2025 industries and technologies.
In short, the plan aims at technological catch-up and import substitution
(State Council, 2015). Chinese companies are expected to acquire the know-
how needed to produce new technologies and replace competitors in the
domestic market.
The plan also addresses the importance of managing industrial
overcapacity, support SMEs, deepen SOEs reform, create fair market
competition, improve IP protection to encourage innovation, and enhance
vocational education to build a strong and skilled workforce. Several sections
40
of the programme reflect the principles and themes outlined in China’s Third
Plenum Decision document. For instance, MIC2025 calls for “deepening
comprehensive reform, fully exhibiting the decisive role of the market in the
allocation of resources”, “perfecting a system in which the market mainly
decides prices” and “effectively resolve contradictions in overcapacity” (US
Chamber of Commerce, 2017). However, it’s evident that the role of the
government is central in the implementation of the plan, contradicting these
statements and attracting international concern, as will be discussed in the
next chapters. The plan also heavily underlines the need to “strive to control
essential core technology, improve industrial supply chains and build
independent development capacities in basic, strategic and comprehensive
areas related to the national economy and industrial security” (State Council,
2015). Words like “indigenous innovations” and “self-suiciency” are
constantly repeated, concepts that are not new to Chinese politics, and
present in the country’s innovation strategy since the 2000s (European
Chamber, 2017). It is clear that this initiative is not just about acquiring
technology, but it represents a top-down strategy that aims to transform the
mindset and priorities of Chinese companies towards quality, eiciency,
sustainability, R&D and innovation.
Another important element is the focus on the four key industrial
foundation areas, meaning core components, advanced basic processes, key
basic materials, and industrial technology infrastructure, which are seen as
bottlenecks to innovation and quality improvement in manufacturing. In fact,
they are considered to be the foundation upon which advanced industries
can be built, thus their improvement and consolidation is fundamental for
strong supply chains and long-term competitiveness.
Figure 2.2 reports the main objectives and strategies of MIC2025 that
were just discussed.
41
Miao Wei, Minister of MIIT, summarised the main contents of the plan
with the mnemonic “One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Five-Ten” in an interview with
People's Daily (People’s Daily, 2015).
“One” refers to one goal, which is making China a large manufacturing
power.
“Two” refers to the integration of two elements (IT and industry), in order
to achieve this goal.
“Three” refers to the three step strategy, according to which, as already
explained, by 2025, China should be a major manufacturing power, by 2035 a
global manufacturing power, and by 2049 the leading manufacturing
superpower in the world.
“Four” refers to four principles, which are market orientation with
government guidance, short term and long term focused, achievement of
42
Source: BOULLENAOIS, Camille, BLACK, Malcolm, ROSEN, H. Daniel, “Was Made in China 2025
Successful?”, Rhodium Group, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2025, p. 26
Figure 2.2: Main objectives and strategy of MIC2025
comprehensive advancement with key breakthroughs and support of
independent development with open cooperation.
“Five” refers to the five guiding principles, being innovation-driven
development, quality first, green development, structural optimisation, and
talent-based development.
The second “five” refers to the five projects that MIC2025 should
implement: the manufacturing innovation centres’ plan (2016-2020), which
will connect firms, institutes and universities and foster R&D, the strong
industry foundations project, to reinforce weak areas in supply chains,
especially in components and materials, the green manufacturing project, to
promote sustainability, energy eiciency and environmental protection, the
smart manufacturing project, to diffuse digital platforms, AI, IoT, and robotics
in production processes, and the high-end equipment innovation project,
aiming to increase market share in key industries and produce IP for them
(Talin, 2021).
“Ten” refers to the 10 key industries of MIC2025, which will be better
defined now.
2.2 Targets and key sectors
The plan targets ten strategic industries, namely new generation IT, high-
end CNC machine tools and robots, aerospace and aviation equipment,
ocean engineering and high-tech ships, advanced rail transport equipment,
low-consumption and new energy autos, power equipment, new materials,
and bio-pharm and high performance (HP) medical devices (State Council,
2015). These industries are then further divided into different sub-sectors
(Table 2.1).
43
The objectives of the plan have to be analysed on two different levels. At
the first level, there are qualitative and generic objectives. In particular, nine
tasks have been identified as priorities: integrating technology and industry,
promoting service-oriented manufacturing and manufacturing-related
service industries, strengthening the industrial base, fostering Chinese
brands, promoting breakthroughs in ten key sectors, improving
manufacturing innovation, enforcing green manufacturing, advancing
Table 2.1: Sectors and sub-sectors of MIC2025
Sectors
Sub-sectors
New generation IT
Integrated circuits and special equips
Telecom equips
Operating systems and industrial software
Smart manufacturing core info equips
High-end CNC machine tools and robots
High-end MT & basic manufacturing equip
Robots
Aerospace and aviation equipment
Aircraft
Engine
Airborne equip & system
Aerospace equips
Ocean engineering and high-tech ships
Not defined
Advanced rail transport equipment
Not defined
Low-consumption and new energy autos
Low-consumption vehicle
New energy vehicle
Smart connected vehicle
Power equipment
Power generation equip
Power transmission & transformation equip
Agricultural equipment
Not defined
New materials
Advanced base material
Key strategic material
Cutting-edge new material
Bio-pharm and high performance (HP)
medical devices
Biomedicine
HP medical device
Source: GIACCONI, D. Guido, “Made in China 2025 Unveiled: China breakthrough industrial
strategy for the next decades – Impact on the world economy, opportunities and threats for
Italian industries”, in3act, 2017
44
restructuring of the manufacturing sector, and internationalising
manufacturing (State Council, 2015). At the second level, the programme
identifies specific and quantitative targets for both 2020 and 2025, divided
into four categories, namely innovation, quality, IT-Industrial integration and
green production, reported in Table 2.2 (State Council, 2015).
45
Table 2.2: Targets of MIC2025
2013
2015
2020
2025
Innovation
Share of R&D spending of
operating revenue (%)
0,88
0,95
1,26
1,68
Invention patents per CNY 100
million total revenue
0,36
0,44
0,7
1,1
Quality
Quality Competitiveness Index
83,1
83,5
84,5
85,5
Growth of industrial value-added
(%)
-
-
2
4
Productivity growth (%)
-
-
7,5
6,5
IT- industrial integration
Broadband internet penetration (%)
37
50
70
82
Penetration rate of digital design
tools in R&D (%)
52
58
72
84
Use of CNC in key production
processes (%)
27
33
50
64
Green production
Decrease in industrial energy
intensity (%)
-
-
-18
-34
Decrease in CO2 emissions
intensity (%)
-
-
-22
-40
Decrease in water usage intensity
(%)
-
-
-23
-41
Reuse of solid industrial waste (%)
62
65
73
79
Source: State Council, “Guofayuan guanyu yinfa ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ de tongzhi” 2025 (Notification on the Printing and Distribution of Made in China 2025), 2015,
https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-05/19/content_9784.htm
The programme also specifies that “key manufacturing sectors will fully
achieve intelligent automation, with pilot demonstration projects reducing
operating costs by 50%, shortening product production cycles by 50%, and
lowering the defect rate by 50%“ and that “70% of core fundamental
components and key basic materials will achieve independent security, while
80 landmark advanced manufacturing processes will be promoted and
applied, with some reaching an internationally leading level” (State Council,
2015).
Additionally, the “Made in China 2025 Key Area Technology Roadmap”
(MIC2025 Roadmap), or “Green Book”, was released in October 2015
(National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee,
2015). This document sets hundreds of market share targets for both 2020
10
and 2025 in the domestic as well as in the international area but also includes
technologies and products to develop. It was written by 48 academics and
more than 400 technical specialists and representatives under the guidance
of CAE. In January 2018, this Roadmap was further updated by analysing the
main developments in the ten key sectors during 2015–17. This reflects an
11
important detail: MIC2025 is not static, but rather a continuously changing
and evolving plan, adapting to the circumstances and the context. The 2017
version is a 296-pages document, meticulously explaining every aspect of
how to reach the sector-specific targets. For example, indigenous new
energy vehicles should achieve an 80% domestic market share by 2025,
indigenous industrial robots and their key domestic components 70% of
domestic market share and optical communication equipment 60% global
market share, while routers and switches 25% international market share
(Zenglein & Holzmann, 2019).
Partial translation in English available at https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/
10
t0181_Made_in_China_roadmap_EN.pdf
To have an overview of the sector-specific targets, please refer to Appendix C.
11
46
After 2015, additional sub-plans and action guidelines were released,
among which it’s worth to mention: “Manufacturing Industry Innovation
Centres”, “Strengthening the Industrial Base Project”, “Intelligent
Manufacturing Project”, “Green Manufacturing Project”, “High-end Equipment
Project”, “Internet Plus Plan” and “Internet Plus Advanced Manufacturing
plan”. In 2017, the so called “Made in China 1+X” added non-binding
guidelines for smart and green manufacturing, high-end equipment, and new
materials. By 2018, the number of national policy documents reached 445.
The majority was released in 2016 (39%) and 2017 (36%), while only 48 (11%)
were published in 2018 (Zenglein & Holzmann, 2019).
Additionally, to guide the local implementation of the general principles
contained in “Made in China 2025”, between 2016 and 2017, the Chinese
government published a document entitled “Made in China 2025's Guide to
Provinces and Cities”. The main objective is to set different priorities and
provide help according to local resources with ad-hoc measures for each
region. For example, in the coastal provinces the focus is on smart
manufacturing, robotics, and industries related to ‘Internet+’, a plan designed
to enhance the use of the Internet of Things in production processes. In
particular, in eastern provinces such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, and
Guangdong, advanced shipbuilding, new energy equipment, and aerospace
are fundamental for industrial activities. On the other hand, in the central and
northern provinces, the primary sector still holds an important share, thus
attention is put on mining, agriculture, and related industries. A second goal
for central and northern China is the gradual elimination of energy-intensive
and highly polluting industries, a very common feature of these areas (Fasulo
et al., 2019). However, in some cases, already existing local initiatives are
simply rebranded to become part of and profit from MIC2025’s financial
support (Zenglein & Holzmann, 2019).
47
2.3 Tools and implementation strategies
The ten key policy tools that Chinese government uses for the
implementation of the plan are the following:
1. Forced technology transfers in exchange for market access
2. Market access and government procurement restrictions for FIEs
3. Standards
4. Subsidies
5. Financial policy
6. Government-backed investment funds
7. Support from local government
8. Technology-seeking investments abroad
9. SOEs: mergers and politicisation
10. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) (European Chamber, 2017)
Each mechanism will now be analysed separately.
1. Forced technology transfers in exchange for market access
China attempts to obtain the know-how and the capabilities for its
development from external sources, as the “normal” development process,
based on R&D investments, workforce training and similar measures would
need too much time. Thus, China requires foreign companies that want to
access the Chinese market to transfer their technology and knowledge. For
FIEs, forced technology transfers are nothing new, as prior to joining the
WTO, China explicitly required them to partner with a Chinese firm if they
wanted to access the market. However, in the past, those companies were
able to limit transfers to less advanced technology, something that is not
possible anymore, as Chinese firms’ competitiveness is much higher than
before.
48
2. Market access and government procurement restrictions for FIEs
China is not part of the WTO's Government Procurement Agreement
(GPA), keeping most public procurement market inaccessible to foreign
firms. This restricted market access allows domestic firms to dominate in key
industries and at the same time benefit from foreign technology and
expertise. However, without foreign competition, Chinese firms may be less
motivated to improve product quality, damaging innovation, so this
instrument can be considered as a double-edged sword.
3. Standards
China is trying to influence and modify international technology
standards, to favour domestic tech firms and reduce licensing fees for
foreign IP. However, there is almost no alignment between Chinese and
international standards, which can also be used purposely to disadvantage
foreign firms.
4. Subsidies
Subsidies are an effective way of achieving the market share targets and
enhance domestic but also international competitiveness. In some key
industries, local and central governments offer both direct and indirect
subsidies to the companies, such as non-commercial loans, tax breaks and
reduced enforcement of environmental standards. The size of Chinese
subsidies is usually impressive, attracting critics and concern for
representing an unfair business practice and violating rules of international
trade. More particularly, those are especially diffused in the robotic and NEVs
sectors.
49
5. Financial policy
The banking and financial sectors have been tasked to support MIC2025
industries, helping China boost industrial growth through preferential access
to finance. In February 2016, a financial support guideline was issued by the
People’s Bank of China and several key state bodies, including the National
Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and regulatory
authorities, such as the China Banking Regulatory Commission, China
Securities Regulatory Commission, and China Insurance Regulatory
Commission. Policies include differentiated industrial credit policies, which
offers special financial support to the priority sectors, preferential treatment
for direct financing activities of advanced manufacturing firms, including
initial public offerings (IPOs) and bond issuance, supportive mechanisms for
private equity and venture capital investments in high-tech manufacturing
industries, new specialised insurance products covering MIC2025 sectors
and, lastly, financial support for foreign investments, which encourages
global expansion and technology acquisition (European Chamber, 2017).
6. Government-backed investment funds
Hundreds of state-backed investment funds have been established: by
the end of 2015, there were reportedly already 780 state-investment funds
established with EUR 294 billions of capital, with 300 of them established in
2015 with EUR 202 billions of funds to invest (European Chamber, 2017).
These are used to channel capital into key sectors, spur innovation and build
independence. Later, other funds were established, including the National
New Venture Capital Fund for Emerging Industries and the National
Advanced Manufacturing Industry Investment Fund (Ministry of Finance of
the People’s Republic of China, 2016). It’s worth to mention also China
50
Reform Holdings, a central government-owned state asset investment
targeting SOEs in manufacturing sectors such as robotics, deep-sea
engineering equipment and new materials. In November 2016, the MIIT and
the China Development Bank (CDB) also signed a strategic cooperation
agreement, which disposes that MIIT will provide the guidance policies while
the CDB will provide financing support for significant projects and
programmes.
7. Support from local government
Local governments also support MIC2025 implementation through the
use of local subsidies, preferential treatment, the establishment of their own
investment funds and even protection from inter-regional competition.
However, this type of support sometimes leads to fragmentation and
duplication, lacking coordination and harmony.
8. Technology-seeking investments abroad
Another method used in order to acquire know-how, necessary for the
development, is investments abroad, especially towards those sectors with a
significant technological gap with western developed countries.
9. SOEs: mergers and politicisation
Chinese firms, mainly SOEs, have engaged in aggressive mergers and
acquisitions (M&A), obtaining technology, brands and supply chains,
especially in the semiconductor industry. These acquisitions are often
strategic, driven by state goals and not by commercial logic, raising also
reciprocity concern, as foreign firms cannot do the same in China. China's
SOEs have merged into “super SOEs” in industries like nuclear, shipping and
51
materials, in order to compete globally and reduce competition. The
politicisation of their management also has increased, with Party Committees
reviewing major decisions. This indicates a deepening integration of the CCP
into corporate governance, undermining market principles.
10. Public-private partnerships (PPPs)
PPPs are promoted as a way to mobilise private capital, but legal
uncertainties persist, as there is no specific PPP law. Moreover, overlapping
jurisdictions (MOF vs NDRC) cause confusion, while political and regulatory
risks worry private investors, because there is the significant possibility of
government intervention, which may alter the agreement between the
parties.
Beyond national-level tools, local governments and pilot cities play a
pivotal role in testing and adapting policies to regional conditions. As of
2019, around 4000 pilot demonstration projects have been announced
(Zenglein and Holzmann, 2019). These pilot projects are typically located in
the 31 pilot cities that the “Made in China 2025” established in August 2016.
The pilot cities have since then developed into what Prime minister Li
Keqiang in July 2017 characterised as National Demonstration Zones (NDZs),
areas supposed to be a sort of testing ground for new mechanisms and
policies in order to improve their implementation and boost MIC2025
effectiveness (Xinhua, 2017). According to the notice, major cities, including
those directly managed by the central government, large sub-provincial
cities, and mid-sized cities, can apply to set up these zones. Cities that are
close to each other and have strong industrial connections can also apply
together to create urban cluster demonstration zones. In 2016, Ningbo
became the first city selected as a pilot for the programme. Subsequently,
52
with the approval of the National Leading Group for Building a Manufacturing
Powerhouse, 20 cities were designated as Pilot Demonstration cities,
including five cities in southern Jiangsu (Zhenjiang, Nanjing, Changzhou,
Wuxi, and Suzhou), six cities on the west bank of the Pearl River (Zhuhai,
Foshan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Yangjiang, and Zhaoqing), Changsha-
Zhuzhou-Xiangtan, Shenyang, Changchun, Quanzhou, Qingdao, Wuhan, and
Wuzhong. In 2017, nine additional cities (Huzhou, Hefei, Ganzhou,
Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Xinxiang, Hengyang, Guangzhou, and Chengdu) were
added to the list. In total, 30 cities nationwide were included (Zenglein &
Holzmann, 2019). In 2018, the State Council issued evaluation guidelines for
these zones, introducing a system with 7 main indicators and 29 sub-
indicators to assess the development and performance of each zone. The
indicators include innovation-driven growth, focus on quality, green
development, industrial structure improvements, talent development,
implementation management and coordinated development across city
clusters.
2.4 International concern
Theoretically speaking, MIC2025 could have been a great opportunity for
international companies: at the beginning, Chinese suppliers lacked the
technologies needed for the country’s industrial transformation, giving
foreign companies the occasion to gain impressive profits. It could also have
been a unique occasion for strengthening economic, political and
technological cooperation between the major countries of the world, but
also a sort of incentive for western countries to keep on innovating and
improving their offerings, encouraged by the growing competition with
China.
53
In practice, however, MIC2025 became a source of extreme concern for
the United States and other developed countries. From a western point of
view, MIC2025 challenges their economic, technological and strategic
interests by promoting an industrial policy that is aggressive and openly
disrespects open-market norms. They see it as a tool that seriously threatens
the global trade system and harms foreign companies that are already in
China, which will be forced to leave the country and move to other nations.
In the long term, China would be completely controlling the world market
due to its impressive capability of mass production and technological
independence.
First of all, the sector-specific goals settled in the MIC2025 Roadmap
seem to contradict an earlier government statement saying that “the market
should be the main force deciding how resources are allocated” (State
Council, 2015). Setting such targets suggests heavy government
intervention, prioritising Chinese companies only, leaving foreign firms out.
This indicates that MIC2025 is a substitution plan aiming at nationalising key
industries, designed to displace current high-tech leader countries, and not
only join their ranks (Wubbeke et al., 2016). Such approach violates WTO
rules, which prohibit policies that promote technology substitution through
forced localisation. To avoid an open violation of these obligations, it appears
that the responsible ministries and state-owned policy institutes use internal
or semi-oicial documents to communicate targets to Chinese enterprises
(Wubbeke et al., 2016). The market share targets and the focus on
“indigenous innovation” also contradict the 13th Five-Year Plan, which aimed
to “comprehensively promote bilateral opening, encourage orderly
international mobility in the country, the eicient allocation of resources,
deep integration of markets and accelerate the nurturing of new advantages
in international competition” (European Chamber, 2017). During a meeting
with the European Chamber, on 27 October 2016, the MIC2025 Roadmap was
54
dismissed as merely representing the views of academics with no real
influence on policymaking. (European Chamber, 2017). Even Huang Qunhui,
Director General of the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that the market shares are
“predictive indicators that serve as guidance only". He insists on the fact that
they are not mandatory and not linked anyhow with government policies. He
also states that “it is not uncommon for governments to issue guidance of a
similar kind in other countries as well” (Huang, 2018).
The European Chamber, however, contradicts this idea, stating:
First, there is a clear alignment between the market share targets listed in the initial
State Council notification for CM2025, the ‘guidelines’ listed on the MIIT’s website
and those in the CM2025 Roadmap; second, the CAE is a think tank that holds
ministerial-level status; and third, the CAE’s 2013 Strategic Research on
Manufacturing Powers project reportedly provided part of the basis of CM2025. This
would suggest that the CM2025 Roadmap is, at the very least, a semi-oicial
document. As a side note, it is also worth mentioning that industry-specific five-year
plans have already been released, which make explicit reference to the
implementation of CM2025. (European Chamber, 2017, p.13)
Second, Western countries are also concerned about forced technology
transfers and acquisitions, which will potentially lead foreign companies to
lose their competitiveness in strategic sectors. However, Huang Qunhui
denied again these airmations and reassured foreign companies, saying:
The government’s role in this process is to create an open and coordinated
ecosystem for technology innovation, rather than intervene in technology transfers,
the Chinese government does not force foreign companies to transfer their
technology. No institution of foreign investment approval and registration, (…) may
ask for technology transfer as a precondition for foreign investment approval or
registration. (…) Such technology transfer requirement is a normal commercial
negotiation requirement based on corporate cost-benefit accounting. (Huang, 2018)
55
Third, unfair competition and discriminatory practises are also sources of
concern: Chinese companies benefit from measures that are only available to
them, such as subsidies, capital injections and preferential loans. This
distorts markets both inside and outside of China and allows Chinese firms to
undercut foreign competitors on price, create industrial overcapacity and
dump cheap products into international markets. At the same time, the
access to investments in China is heavily restricted, while Chinese firms can
invest freely in Europe and US, especially in strategic and high-tech sectors.
The US concern has been the most significant one. The US clearly
believed that China’s goal was “to overtake the US economically and
technologically” and that it had “deep implications for American security and
for the future of an international system based on the rule of law and
democratic norms” (Lewis, 2017). The US Senate Committee on Small
Business & Entrepreneurship stated that “If MIC2025 is successful, (…) what
the ‘China shock’ did to domestic US production of electronics, furniture,
plastics, metals, and vehicle parts could threaten to repeat itself in capital
goods like machinery, automobiles, high-end computers, rail, and aerospace
products” (Glaser, 2019, p.4). This means that the programme could lead to
the same economic damage previously caused by China’s rise, but this time
targeting advanced strategic industries. In June 2018, a White House report
went further, warning that China’s economic moves threaten “not only the US
economy but also the global innovation system as a whole” (McBride &
Chatty, 2019). The Trump administration also believed that the WTO was
unable to address China’s abuses, as China has been undermining the
principles of open trade even while observing the law. Moreover,
12
For further information, see Bob DAVIS, “When the World Opened the Gates of China”, The Wall Street
12
Journal, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-world-opened-the-gates-of-china-1532701482?
mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3, 10/12/2024
56
Washington fears that MIC2025 can be helpful for the achievement of China’s
“Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) goal (Glaser, 2019).
13
In general, the US is scared to lose market share, as with huge R&D
investments and new technologies, Chinese firms could become more
competitive, but also investments inflows, as thanks to the gradual market
expansion of new sectors, Chinese companies might become more attractive
for investment opportunities. The US is also highly dependent on Chinese
cheaper manufacturing, particularly in high-tech sectors. Consequently, if
China pursues policies such as MIC2025 that will cause greater dependence
on them, the US trade deficit could worsen, while the heavy reliance on
Chinese imports increases the risk of supply chain disruptions.
Concern has also been expressed by the EU, as it realised that China was
pursuing a strategy that could undermine its own economic future. In fact,
the sectors targeted by MIC2025 are the ones in which the EU’s trade deficit
with China is mostly concentrated. This dependence has raised concerns
that Europe is indirectly funding China’s industrial and technological
advancement (Wright, 2020). In 2017, the European Union Chamber of
Commerce in China defined MIC2025 “highly problematic” and suggested
that “Chinese policies will further skew the competitive landscape in favour
of domestic companies” (European Chamber, 2017).
To summarise, the West feels threatened because MIC2025 challenges
its technological leadership. These countries want China to remove
government support for high tech industries, stop forced technology
transfers, protect IP, remove ownership restrictions on investments, open
The MCF Strategy, an evolution of the original Civil-Military Integration Strategy (CMI Strategy), aims
13
at better integrating economic, social and technological development strategies with national security
needs, thus eliminating barriers between civilian and commercial, military and defence industrial
sectors. In order to achieve this goal, is necessary to strengthen the production and employment of
dual-use technology in strategic key industries, meaning all those products that have both military and
civilian application. These include AI, big data, semiconductors, 5G and aerospace technology. In fact,
China believes that AI will be crucial for the future of military affairs, and wants to become the first
country to use “intelligent warfare”, to be able to surely reach a dominant position.
57
markets to foreign companies and abandon the goal of “self-suiciency”. As
Rashidin & Javed (2019) warn, “If Made in China 2025 strategy is triumphant,
advanced economies won’t only face a significant decline in industrial output
but see a slacken GDP and upsurge in unemployment rate”.
However, it is important to recognise that perspectives on MIC2025 vary,
and different interpretations can lead to distinct international reactions. From
the Chinese viewpoint, MIC2025 simply asks foreign companies in China to
slightly modify their working method to ensure a win-win situation for
everyone (Agarwala & Chaudhary, 2021). It is a policy that, in principle,
already existed in China, as the focus on science and technology (S&T) was
part of several five-year plans, but only in 2015 it took form under the name
“MIC2025”. In the past, no one in the US or Europe objected anything,
because the focus was only on manufacturing and not on developing know-
how, so it wasn’t seen as a threat to the supremacy of developed nations.
There is no “wrong” or “right” point of view, just different opinions and
perceptions that, however, do not coincide, and led to different international
countermeasures and reactions.
2.5 Global countermeasures
It wasn’t until 2018 that western countries began to react to the plan,
after the publication of several articles and papers covering the possible
consequences and implications for the rest of the world. From that moment
on, both the EU and the US started to respond in different ways and with
different priorities. The American answer has been much more aggressive,
while the European one more defensive and diplomatic. The United States
prioritised immediate and unilateral measures, reflecting its dominant
position and global reach. The European Union emphasised multilateralism,
risk management, and gradual strengthening of strategic autonomy. Now we
58
will analyse the main policies, instruments, and strategies adopted by the EU
and the US and examine how each tried to protect its strategic interests.
2.5.1 United States’ response
The US response was particularly strong, leading to the US-China trade
war. The US Trade Representative (USTR) started an oicial investigation on
14
14 August 2017. In March 2018, a Trump Administration investigation,
launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act , concluded that China’s
15
actions across a wide range of trade policies, including the “Made in China
2025” initiative, were “unreasonable and discriminatory.” The Trump
16
administration imposed tariffs on imports from China in response to, as the
White House claims, “the Chinese government's illicit stealing of the US high
technology, manipulation of its currency, and building of barriers around its
domestic industries, trying to protect American companies and reduce the
large trade deficit” (Belton, Graham & Xia, 2020). The concern of the US was
such that in June 2018, the Congress passed a legislation that expanded the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ (CFIUS) authority on
17
a broader range of transactions, as the Trump administration suggested that
it lacked suicient power to effectively address the scale and complexity of
the threat of Chinese investments (Wolf & Davis, 2018). China reacted,
imposing tariffs as well on American products, but it avoided key US goods,
To gain all the detailed information and learn more about the different phases of the trade war, see
14
Chad P. BOWN, Melina KOLB, “Trump’s Trade War Timeline: An up-to-date guide”, PIIE, Updated January
20, 2025
This law allows USTR to apply trade sanctions for every “act, policy, or practice” that “is unreasonable
15
or discriminatory and burdens or restricts US commerce”, including those that violate or are
inconsistent with trade agreements.
For further details on Section 301’s final consideration, see James Lewis, “Section 301 Investigation:
16
China’s acts, policies and practises related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and
innovation”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is an inter-agency committee that
17
reviews foreign investments and acquisitions in order to identify potential threats to U.S. national
security.
59
such as airplanes and semiconductors. While the US imposed tariffs on
imports from several countries, China targeted mostly the US, lowering tariffs
for other countries. American citizens were affected the most, prices went up
for farmers and manufacturers, hurting businesses and consumers.
18
Multinational companies in China were also really influenced: due to higher
tariffs, many moved to other cheaper countries, but also technology has also
been hit hard.
On 13 August 2018, Trump signed the Foreign Investment Risk Review
Modernisation Act (FIRRMA), with the main purpose of keeping under control
China’s investments in the United States, especially those related to critical
technologies, infrastructures or businesses with sensitive and restricted
information and data (Kuo, 2018).
In February 2020, US tariffs on Chinese exports reached 19.3%, covering
66.6% of US imports from China, while average Chinese tariffs on US exports
went up to 21%, and covered 58.3% of imports from the United States (Bown,
2025). On 14 February 2020, the “Economic And Trade Agreement Between
The Government Of The United States Of America And The Government Of
The People’s Republic Of China,” known as the Phase I agreement, went into
effect. Its main goal was to remove commercial barriers in China that blocked
or limited the American presence in their market. It comprised commitments
by both countries on intellectual property, technology transfer,
macroeconomic policy and exchange rates. The US agreed to lower some
tariffs imposed under Section 301, while China promised to increase
purchases of US goods. The deal also created a review and dispute
resolution mechanism to allow further discussion outside the WTO system.
For further information on the consequences of Trump’s actions, see Matthew P. GOODMAN, Ely
18
RATNER, “A Better Way to Challenge China on Trade”, Foreign aûairs, 2018, https://
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-03-22/better-way-challenge-china-trade?
_gl=1*18fqoue*_gcl_au*NjUzNzQ2NTk5LjE3NTI3NjE5OTM.*_ga*MTY2Mjk0MzQxNC4xNzUyNzYxOTk0*_ga
_24W5E70YKH*czE3NTI4Mjc4MjckbzIkZzEkdDE3NTI4MzE4OTYkajQkbDAkaDA.*_ga_N9V4J2JY26*czE3N
TI4Mjc4MjckbzIkZzEkdDE3NTI4MzE4OTYkajQkbDAkaDA
60
During the Biden administration, from 20 January 2021 to 20 January
2025, tariffs remained stable. With the return of Trump as president of the US,
the situation changed, and during its second mandate, the average increase
in American tariffs on imports was 34.2 percentage points, more than double
the 6.2 percentage point increase recorded during his entire first term (2017–
2021). Now, US tariffs are more than 17 times higher than before the trade
war. The average US tariffs on Chinese exports are at 54.9%, while China's
average tariffs on US exports are at 32.6%. US tariffs have risen by 34.2%
since the second Trump administration began on 20 January 2025, whereas
Chinese tariffs have risen by 11.4 % over the same period (Kuo, 2018).
It is evident that this trade war is not about trade imbalance in goods.
Washington’s real intention is to push against China’s growing tech
advancement to maintain America’s competitive advantage in technology
and cut down China’s global influence. Consequently, this war can be
defined as a sort of “cold war” over technological power, and the nation that
will win, will dominate the world as well, because nowadays technological
advance is the key element for economic stability and power (Chen, Chen &
Dondeti, 2020). In Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4 are reported respectively the
trajectory of trade tariffs rates and percentage of trade subject to tariffs from
2018 to 2025.
61
62
Source: BOWN, P. Chad, US-China Trade War Tariûs: An Up-to-Date Chart, PIIE, 2025,
https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2019/us-china-trade-war-tariffs-date-
chart
Figure 2.3: US-China tariû rates toward each other and rest of
world (ROW)
Source: ibidem
Figure 2.4: Percent of US-China trade subject to trade war tariûs
The “Export Control Reform Act” marked another turning point. In 2018,
the US banned American companies from supplying ZTE , nearly causing its
19
collapse and exposing China’s dependence on foreign technology. Then ban
was after lifted under strict conditions, but in 2020, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) designed the firm as a national security
threat (McCabe, 2020). The same company was also banned in 2023 by the
European Commission (Chee, 2023). Huawei faced even stricter measures
due to its leadership in 5G and the perceived risks for American national
security. Later, the company was indicted for fraud and trade secret theft.
Although the Trump administration allowed temporary easing, his
administration also pressured allies to ban Huawei, aiming to limit its global
expansion. In November 2022, the FCC banned the company again for
national security reasons, and other countries, such as EU, India and Japan
have also restricted its products.
Recognising that China’s rapid advancement in manufacturing
technology has been closely linked to the knowledge and expertise brought
back to the country, the Trump administration also implemented a series of
educational restrictions, particularly targeting international students in STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields, in order to prevent
US intellectual property from indirectly supporting technological growth in
rival countries. This limitation led to a significant decrease in the number of
Chinese students pursuing a degree in the US, as shown in Figure 2.5.
ZTE Corporation is a Chinese technology company specialised in telecommunications focused on
19
wireless, exchange, optical transmission, data telecommunications gear, telecommunications
software, and mobile phones.
63
In February 2025, the US-China Economic and Security Review
Commission held a hearing to assess China’s progress with the "Made in
China 2025" initiative, with the main purpose of making informed legislative
efforts. However, MIC2025 poses unique challenges, and the US doesn’t
20
have specific legal instruments to use against such policy (Belton, Graham &
Xia, 2020). For this reason, other measures and mechanisms will be
necessary for the US to protect its own security and technological
hegemony.
2.5.2 European Union’s response
The European Union began to slowly respond as well to the policy, but in
a much different and less aggressive way. Some key worries were sensitive
technology transfer, limited market access in China, and intellectual property
protection. Consequently, on 13 September 2017, the EU proposed a
Complete hearing transliteration available at: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/
20
February_6_2025_Hearing_Transcript.pdf
64
Source: QUAN, Xiaolei, “Research on the Manufacturing
Development in China under the US-China Trade War”, in BCP
Business & Management, 26, 2022, p.458 on IIE Open Doors’
data
Figure 2.5: Growth of Chinese Students
Population in the US
regulation establishing a framework for the screening of FDI. The aim was to
safeguard security, public order, and the EU’s strategic interests, as well as to
ensure cohesion and cooperation. This system is commonly known as
“investment screening”. The European Commission underlined that “EU
openness to foreign investment is not going to change”, but also that “there
is a risk that in individual cases foreign investors may seek to acquire control
of or influence in European undertakings whose activities have repercussions
on critical technologies, infrastructure, inputs, or sensitive information”
(European Commission, 2017). Investment screening is, therefore, a tool
created to limit the loss of know-how and competitiveness of European
companies and increase transparency of FDI that may have an impact on
security or public order. The first framework oicially came into effect on 10
April 2019. Unlike the control mechanism in the United States (CFIUS), it is
not binding.
Although the new mechanism is not directly aimed at China, it is
believed that Chinese investors could be particularly affected. The screening
is designed to protect the sectors most attractive to Beijing, such as
technologies and infrastructure. It also covers investments that are part of
“foreign state-led projects or programmes”, among which the “Made in China
2025” strategy is included (Hanemann, Huotari & Kratz, 2019).
In 2017, a first step toward European collaboration to promote
manufacturing digitalisation took place. In March of that year, during the
“Digitising Manufacturing in the G20” conference in Berlin, France, Italy, and
Germany began trilateral cooperation to integrate their respective strategies:
Germany’s “Plattform Industrie 4.0”, France’s “Alliance Industrie du Futur”,
and Italy’s “Piano Industria 4.0”. A steering committee was established, with
each country represented by six members. Three working groups reported to
this committee: Germany leads the first group on identifying digitalisation
standards for manufacturing to harmonise regulations; Italy coordinates the
65
second group, focused on supporting SMEs digitalisation; France
coordinates the third, focused on supporting actions at the European level.
This trilateral cooperation was strengthened on 18 January 2018, when the
steering committee met in Paris.
However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing’s military threats towards
Taiwan, human rights violations reports, especially in Xinjiang, Tibet and
Hong Kong, and China’s position towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the
relationship between China and EU worsened. The EU published two
documents, namely “State of Play of EU-China Relations” and “EU-China —
Strategic Outlook”, underlining the risk that Member States and European
companies could face as a result of the attempts of Chinese firms to acquire
know-how, and calls for a more direct, powerful and solid European approach
(European Commission, 2019a). In the second document, China is
recognised as a partner, for cooperation and global common challenges, a
competitor, in technology and economy, and, for the first time, also a
systemic rival, as it follows a very different set of political values (European
Commission, 2019b).
Another report published by the European Commission’s Science and
Knowledge Service on 15 May 2019, called “China: Challenges and Prospects
from an Industrial and Innovation Powerhouse”, airmed once again the need
to keep on innovating and investing in R&D, as well as to find balance
between know-how protection and benefits from foreign investment. The
report states: “As a response, the EU will need to boost its industrial and R&I
performance. Meanwhile, the EU may also want to consider the potential
need for protecting strategic assets from foreign investors, be they Chinese
or of US origin.” China is defined as a rising competitor in high-tech sectors
mainly thanks to predatory and aggressive investments in the European
technological sector (European Commission, 2019c).
66
The European response is therefore based on two actions: a defensive
one, aimed at safeguarding acquired skills and knowledge, and an offensive
one, aimed at stimulating research and innovation and thus supporting
European competitiveness. Exactly with this last goal, the EU launched the
“Horizon 2020” framework funding programme, worth EUR 100 billions for
the period 2014–2020. Within this programme, the “Factories of the Future”
initiative promotes the improvement of the technological base in the
manufacturing sector.
Other European initiatives aligned with these goals include COSME
(Competitiveness of Enterprises and SMEs) and EUREKA. The former aims at
supporting the competitiveness of European companies by providing easier
access to credit, while the latter supports R&D collaboration between
Member States. Five funds have also been allocated under the European
21
Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to support innovation investments.
Additionally, to promote the digital innovation of European SMEs, the ICT
Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS) initiative was created (European
Parliament, 2015).
At the end of 2020, the EU and China reached an agreement on the
Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), which ideally aimed at
balancing market access and ensuring an even-level playing field. However,
in 2021, the European Parliament froze the ratification process, because the
EU imposed sanctions for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and in response,
Beijing sanctioned some MEPs (Member of European Parliament) and
European think tanks (European Parliament, 2024). The CAI therefore
symbolises the limits of EU–China cooperation in the current geopolitical
Namely, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund (CF), the European
21
Social Fund (ESF+), the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the European
Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF). For further details, see European Commission,
“Structural and investments funds”, https://commission.europa.eu/eu-regional-and-urban-
development/financial-support-projects/structural-and-investment-funds_en
67
climate. Moreover, the EU has introduced a toolbox for the defence and
promotion of its interests, among which we remember:
- the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI, 2023), which allows the EU to
prevent economic coercion using diplomacy, and if needed, by imposing
22
trade restrictions, boycotts or tariffs (Tzifa & Shulha, 2025).
- The International Procurement Instrument (IPI, 2022), that allows the EU
to limit access to public tenders for companies from countries that restrict
European firms’ participation in their own markets. It is based on the
principle of reciprocity and mainly aims at ending discrimination against EU
companies in third countries (SECNewgate, 2022).
- The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, 2024),
which impose obligations on European companies to prevent or minimise
human rights violations and environmental damages across global value
chains, indirectly affecting partnerships with Chinese suppliers. In February
2025, the Commission adopted an Omnibus package to simplify due
diligence requirements (European Commission, 2024).
- The Foreign Subsidy Regulation (FSR, 2023), which enables the
European Commission to address distortions caused by foreign subsidies to
ensure a level playing field for all companies (European Commission, 2023).
Other initiatives aim to strengthen the EU economy by investing in
technology and innovation and prepare it for competition with China, such as
the Chips Act and Critical Raw Materials Act, which try to reduce
dependencies in semiconductors and raw materials, and the Carbon Border
Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which will enter into function in 2026.
Economic coercion occurs when a country outside the European Union attempts to pressure the EU
22
or a Member State to make a certain choice by applying, or threatening to apply, trade or investment
measures. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism cannot be used unless it also violates traditional
WTO rules. (“Un nuovo strumento commerciale per difendere l'UE dal ricatto economico”, Attualità
Parlamento europeo, 2023, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/it/press-room/20230929IPR06122/
un-nuovo-strumento-commerciale-per-difendere-l-ue-dal-ricatto-economico, 19/08/2025)
68
At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine
showed the EU the risks that an excessive trade deficit and dependence on
imports could cause. This situation pushed the EU to adopt a policy called
“de-risking”. Introduced in March 2023 by Commission President Ursula von
der Leyen, it is a risk management mechanism aimed at reducing
dependence in specific sectors and industries. The main purpose is not
cutting completely off ties with China, but instead take actions where the
risks are the greatest. This approach has since become the guiding principle
of EU policy towards Beijing.
The European Parliament, however, underlined in a report that all these
measures do not define long-term goals, guiding principles, or a roadmap,
and are significantly limited (European Parliament, 2024). Other issues are
represented by the lack of unity among Member States, which leads to the
absence of one strong and solid European long-term vision, and policy gaps,
as all the strategies implemented are defensive or limited to specific
technologies and industries.
Nevertheless, the EU started using all those mechanisms, with more and
more investigation targeting China. The most famous case is the anti-subsidy
investigation in the Chinese EVs industry, which led to the introduction of
countervailing duties. However, EU Member States were divided on this
issue, with Germany and others opposing the Commission’s proposal. The EU
has also signed deals with countries like Japan, India, South Korea, and
Thailand, and launched the Global Gateway, a EUR 300 billion investment
plan to fund clean energy, digital networks, transport, and health projects
worldwide. This is seen as Europe’s answer to BRI. The G7 also created the
“Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment” , similar to the EU’s
23
For more details, see White House, “Fact Sheet: Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment
23
at the G7 Summit”, 2024, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/
2024/06/13/fact-sheet-partnership-for-global-infrastructure-and-investment-at-the-g7-summit-2/,
20/08/2025
69
Global Gateway, to give developing countries an alternative to the BRI
(García-Herrero, Vassalier, 2024).
In 2024, the European Commission presented the Economic Security
Strategy, the first framework to put in action the principle of “de-risking”. The
strategy has four pillars: promoting competitiveness and innovation,
protecting against security risks, strengthening partnerships with like-minded
countries, and improving internal EU coordination. At the same time, the EU
has moved from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe (2021–2027), with a budget
of EUR 95.5 billion to invest in research and innovation.
Together, these initiatives show that the EU is gradually moving from a
fragmented, mostly defensive response towards a more structured long-term
strategy, although internal divisions among Member States remain.
2.6 Comparison with “Industry 4.0”
MIC2025 is openly inspired by “industry 4.0”, a German plan part of the
so called “fourth industrial revolution”. Understanding it is essential to grasp
the foundations on which China’s MIC2025 strategy is built. Before Industry
4.0, the world had experienced prior industrial revolutions throughout three
centuries: the first industrial revolution introduced mechanical production
with steam power and water; the second brought mass production through
assembly lines; the third focused on automation using electronics and IT. This
fourth revolution involves the digitisation of manufacturing using “cyber-
physical systems”, thus integrating big data, cloud computing, and smart
networks, with machines and humans working together.
This transformation will allow a real-time tracking and optimisation of
production, reduction of waste, increase of eiciency, machines’
independent interactions and automatic responses to new information, and
integration of processes across industrial value chains. In fact, while the
70
previous industrial revolutions represented transformations in production
methods, ”Industry 4.0” goes further and upgrades the entire value chain
and industrial ecosystem, including design and development, manufacturing,
sales, after-sales services, and demand feedback (Zhao & Liu, 2016).
Especially in Europe, this process has already begun: Germany developed its
"Industrie 4.0" plan, part of High-Tech Strategy 2020, but there is also EU’s
“Factories of the Future” under Horizon 2020, France’s “Industry of the
Future” programme, UK’s “High Value Manufacturing Catapult”, and US’
“Industrial Internet Consortium”.
In addition to the variety of definitions, the phenomenon is also
characterised by the multiplicity of terms used to describe it, such as smart
manufacturing, digital manufacturing, and interconnected factory.
A study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group identifies nine
technologies driving “Industry 4.0”:
1. Autonomous Robots, which can interact with other robots and
humans, cost less and have more capabilities.
2. Additive manufacturing, such as 3D printers, which allows quick
manufacturing of complex and lightweight designs.
3. Augmented reality (AR) tools, to support production processes which
can provide workers with real time information.
4. Simulation, machine-to-machine simulation to optimise processes,
decreasing machine setup times and increasing quality.
5. Vertical and horizontal system integration, which allows the
integration of information along the entire value chain.
6. Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), a multidirectional communication
between production processes and products which allows to decentralise
analytics and decision making, enabling responses in real time.
7. Cloud, meaning the management of large volumes of data on open
systems.
71
8. Cybersecurity, which is the protection during network operations and
on open systems.
9. Big data and analytics, meaning the analysis of large data sets to
optimise products and production processes (Boston Consulting Group,
2015).
These technologies can be grouped into two macro-categories.
The first includes simulation, autonomous robots, augmented reality, and
additive manufacturing, directly applied in production. The second group
comprises vertical and horizontal integration, cloud, analytics, big data,
cybersecurity, and industrial internet, which relate to the collection, analysis,
and use of data and information (Boston Consulting Group, 2015).
There are 6 main expected benefits (European Parliament, 2015):
•Greater flexibility, as a wider variety of products can be manufactured
within a single facility. This enables mass customisation, reduces costs but
also fosters innovation, as new prototypes or products can be developed
and manufactured more rapidly.
•Greater speed, resulting from the use of innovative technologies.
•Higher productivity, achieved through reduced setup times, fewer
errors, and less downtime.
•Reduced need for low-cost labour, which can also allow companies to
re-shore production back to Europe and cut down transport costs.
•Consumers’ involvement, as they can submit personalised product
designs, which can be manufactured quickly and cost-effectively.
•Increased competitiveness, as companies can now differentiate
themselves through innovation, customisation, and quality
This transformation demands that business leaders accept to partner
with other companies, supplier, distributors, but also technology companies
such as internet providers and even competitors if needed. However, some
critics claim that this shift would be too expensive, but also unreliable and
72
excessively large, suggesting that suppliers and manufacturers are pushing
for “Industry 4.0” rather than market demand (European Parliament, 2015).
Even though several Chinese companies are still stuck at Industry 2.0
level and are not able to transition quickly, China has strong possibilities of
adopting the Industry 4.0 model, thanks to some companies, such as Baidu,
Alibaba and Tencent, that have significant and surprising capabilities for
digitalisation (Wubbeke et al., 2016).
Both “Industry 4.0” and “Made in China 2025” aim to modernise
manufacturing. However, the two plans differ under several aspects. On one
hand, Industrie 4.0 strategy aims at building a network with two major
themes, to achieve three integrations and 8 key areas of development
activities (Kuo, Shyu & Ding, 2019). The German policy is about technological
advancement, applying the tools of IT to production, creating smart factories
where machines and systems are connected and can communicate with
each other in real time. This transformation is needed because software and
Internet technology are the relative weaknesses of the German industry,
which also has to face competition from both Asian countries and the US. On
the other hand, “Made in China 2025” attempts to restructure the entire
industry and increase its competitiveness, meaning the progress in
technology is considered just one of the instruments used in MIC2025, thus,
“Industry 4.0” is only one part of the Chinese strategic plan. This is because
the eiciency and the quality of Chinese manufacturing are significantly
uneven, and several challenges need to be solved in a short period if China
wants to compete with advanced industrialised nations.
Additional differences between the two plans are:
- the Chinese government heavily directs and funds key industries,
following a top-down model, whereas the German approach is bottom-up,
led by private firms. Additionally, the amount of support of the Chinese
government is kept private, unlike Germany’s one.
73
- the EU accept and encourages participation from international
companies and partners to various initiatives, thus is much more open to
foreign participation and competition than China.
- Chinese state subsidies are much larger and used for many different
purposes, while Germany uses them only for basic research, meaning early-
stage research to explore new ideas.
- China has specific targets for the replacement of foreign products with
“indigenous” ones, which is not a feature of Industry 4.0.
- The EU tries to create an environment able to support and encourage
innovation and technological development rather than directly controlling it
like China does, for example by IP protection, R&D support or by ensuring
that SMEs can contribute.
Lastly, according to Kuo et al. (2019), the German policy gives more
importance to the demand side (41%), meaning measures that stimulate the
demand for new technologies, than to the environmental one (34%) and both
surpass the supply side (25%). When it comes to MIC2025, however, the
environmental side prevails (71%), far more than the demand side (20%) or
supply side (9%). In Germany, the major policies focus mainly on public
services policies (29%) scientific and technical development (21%) and
political (21%), all of which account for more than legal and regulatory
policies (12%). For “Made in China 2025”, political policies (50%) exceed legal
and regulatory policies (19%), as well as public services policies (15%).
So, it is clear that “Industry 4.0” addresses the need of an upgrade of the
manufacturing base through new technologies and innovation, while
MIC2025 is a comprehensive manufacturing strategy allowing China to
become a global manufacturing leader in the long term. Moreover, it
appeared that the German plan tends to favour demand-side policy, public
services, scientific and technical development and political policies, while
74
China prioritises the environmental-side policy, political, legal, regulatory,
and public service policies.
2.7 Why isn’t China talking about MIC2025?
After some researches, it appears that the sudden disappearance of
MIC2025 from Chinese media was a direct response to the escalation of US-
China trade tensions: its coverage in the Chinese oicial media started
disappearing on 17 May 2018 , just after the release in March of the Section
24
301 report, the Trump administrations’ April announcement of tariffs on US$
50 billions of Chinese goods and trade negotiations from May 2-4 that ended
with no deal. A subsequent leak of an oicial directive in June 2018, as
reported by China Digital Times, also emphasised that the media should not
report on MIC2025, confirming that China’s Central Propaganda Department
had earlier issued a media order to not mention the plan (China Digital Times,
2018). After 17 May 2018, Chinese media coverage of "Made in China 2025"
dropped sharply. Chen (2019) analysed that, in the following year, only
around 40 articles mentioned it, and most focused on specific projects like
new factories or schools related to the plan’s goals. Over a quarter of the
articles were criticising the US in the trade war. One article stood out and
linked MIC2025 to the 40th anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening Up,
suggesting that, even if the name MIC2025 was used less publicly, the
Chinese government still valued the strategy and continued to support its
goals behind the scenes. Moreover, five of those articles were mentioning
MIC2025 in the context of China-EU relation, suggesting that Beijing believed
that it was not nearly as controversial for European countries. After MIC2025
was oicially retired in mid-2018, the use of the term “indigenous innovation”
For further information, please refer to Appendix B
24
75
stayed consistent, while mentions of “core technology” actually increased, as
shown in Figure 2.6.
In the second quarter of 2019, both terms increased, respectively by
200% and 400% compared to April, indicating that these ideas might refer to
the industrial policy, even without directly mentioning the name.
76
Source: CHEN, Eliot, “Made in China 2025” Unmade?, Macro Polo, 2019, on People’s
Daily, XinhuaÕs data
Figure 2.6: References to “Indigenous Innovation” and “Core
Technology” vs. MIC2025
In the opening session of the 2019 National People’s Congress, Premier Li
Keqiang didn’t mention MIC2025 at all: it was the first time he left the
programme out of his annual report since it was first introduced. After
another round of US-China trade negotiations in May 2019, Chinese state
media began referring to MIC2025 again, mainly when criticising the US
position.
Since oicial media in China are used as a political tool, Beijing’s
decision to reduce the mention of MIC2025 initiative seems more about
managing international perception than actually changing or weakening the
policy. The project didn’t disappear from the Chinese political dimension, but
it looks like it has only rebranded under the concept of “new productive
forces”, “dual circulation” and “self-suiciency” (Chen, 2019).
First, the concept of “new productive forces” extends the idea of
developing and leading in strategic industries beyond the 10 sectors
targeted by MIC2025, while always looking for self-reliance and self-
suiciency. This framework, however, not only is broader in scope but also
much more generic, giving the government more freedom to act and
flexibility in the implementation. President Xi Jinping first introduced the
term in September 2023, and it quickly became the core theme of both the
2023 Central Economic Work Conference and the 2024 Two Sessions. The
president airmed that “developing new productive forces does not mean
ignoring or abandoning traditional industries,” but to “use new technologies
to transform and upgrade traditional sectors and actively promote high-end,
intelligent and green industries” (Yu, 2024).
This concept of “new productive forces” has to be taken into
consideration within the framework of “Dual Circulation”. The “Dual
Circulation” strategy was initiated on 14 May 2020, by the Politburo Standing
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (PKT), and refers to a policy with
both an internal and an external approach. Policies referring to internal
77
circulation focus on increasing household income and the role of consumers
in the economy, while those referring to the second circulation on
strengthening and expanding the Chinese influence in the global market, for
example with the involvement in economic cooperation such as the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or the BRICS (acronym for
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) (Al Putra, Prakoso & Devi, 2024).
To sum it up, “new productive forces” aims to give China the technology,
while “dual circulation” focuses on making the economy strong and less
dependent on other countries. Together, these policies show that China
wants to become fully self-suicient in key areas to protect its economic
security.
In fact, the focus on “self-suiciency” has only intensified during the
years, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressure of the China-US
trade war and the American trade restrictions against Chinese firms. In 2020,
Xi Jinping airmed that the main goal was to build “an independent
controllable, safe, and reliable domestic production and supply system”
(Boullenaois, Black & Rosen, 2025), while in 2024, the Third Plenum’s Decision
called for “self-suiciency in scientific and technological infrastructure,”
suggesting it is the ultimate goal of Chinese industrial policy.
It is important to distinguish between “self-reliance” and “self-
suiciency”. Self-reliance means reducing dependence on any single country
or supplier for key goods while keeping ties. This approach is known as de-
risking, a neutral strategy that allows one to identify essential goods and
ensure access to them, even during global disruptions. On the other hand,
self-suiciency refers to a country’s aim to produce everything
independently. This involves decoupling, meaning disconnecting completely
from other countries (Boullenaois, Black & Rosen, 2025). However, reaching a
true state of “self-reliance” is a really complex and almost impossible task. No
country in today's world has 100% technological self-reliance.
78
Many of the reforms expected to be implemented in the future, as
emerged from the conclusions of the Third Plenum in July 2025, are aligned
with MIC2025, again emphasising its importance to the leadership. Overall,
the main goal for the future is to strengthen the socialist market economy,
the Party’s governance capabilities, and the country’s national security.
Therefore, in the next years, we can expect reforms in the industrial sector
and in the informatisation of production processes and service delivery,
along with measures for the urbanisation of rural areas. The strategy is to
leverage the size of the domestic market to revitalise the national economy
and better integrate into global dynamics. As a result, reforms of SOEs
system are foreseeable, as well as reforms of the residential Hukou system ,
25
which could improve internal mobility to address the recent real estate crisis.
Furthermore, there is a strong focus on environmental protection, with the
goal of promoting development in harmony with nature. Additionally, reforms
of the military and its capabilities will be significant, which, along with further
investments in R&D, will involve increased innovation (Battaglini, 2025).
In short, MIC2025 has become a part itself of China’s future and can be
defined as a “need” rather than a “want” (Agarwala, Chaudhary, 2021). The
overall aim of MIC2025 has been gradually aligned with China’s new policy
priorities, which focus on creating not only more globally competitive
domestic companies, but also the conditions that will allow China to lead in
the technologies that will define the future global economy.
The Hukou is a system of household registration with ancient origins. It has always been source of
25
social inequality, as some social benefits are assigned according to the residency status. In general,
urban residents are granted more services than rural ones. For further information, see Kam Wing
Chan, Li Zhang, “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes”, The
China Quarterly, 1999, 160, pp. 818-855
79
Chapter 3: Results obtained
3.1 Research and analysis methods
Despite the importance of MIC2025 and the initial wide availability of
information, accessing empirical research and oicial data in order to analyse
the results has been really diicult, due to multiple reasons.
First, there are still many barriers that obstacle the collection of
information in China, which remain almost fully inaccessible to foreign
researchers and analysts, because of bureaucracy and the state’s tendency
to control sensitive information. This also leads to limited data’s transparency
and reliability, as information could be selectively released or modified to
align with political goals. Second, the impact of the China-US trade war and
the problematic international relations have further complicated the
gathering of data, not to mention the politicisation of issues related to
Chinese industry and technology, especially, again, coming from the US.
Another problem is the nature of the programme’s oicial indicators and
targets, which are often either too broad or excessively detailed. For
instance, “operational costs of pilot demonstration projects reduced by 50%”,
or “product production cycles shortened by 50%”, those kinds of objectives
make it diicult to determine whether they have been achieved or not, as
they are too general. On the contrary, sometimes targets are so overly
detailed and precise that finding relevant data becomes almost impossible,
like in the case of “number of valid invention patents for 100 million yuan of
main operating revenue of large-scale manufacturing enterprises”.
These limitations made extremely complex the goal of understanding
whether the programme's initial targets were actually met. To be able to
provide a clear picture of the results achieved and the progress made, this
80
thesis adopts an approach based on the use of proxies and alternative
indicators. When the direct data are not available, the research uses
measures that can, hopefully, approximately represent the original indicator
used. Obviously, the use of proxies has some limitations. Despite being
reasonably representative, the indicators chosen do not reflect in an absolute
and perfectly correct manner the actual results achieved. The main goal is to
provide an overall reliable and almost-complete picture of the progress, and
give a comprehensive view of the topic.
Another further complication concerns the COVID-19 pandemic: data
collected in 2020, 2021 and following years should be interpreted with
caution, as they reflect extraordinary variations. Typically, 2020’s data tends
to shrink down the trend, as the majority of industrial activities stopped or
were extremely limited. On the other hand, in 2021 it’s common to observe a
rebound, with excessive levels resulting from the government’s attempt to
recover the economic activities.
It is also important to underline that the targets analysed are only the
ones published in the first oicial document of MIC2025, which presented
the general framework of the policy. In fact, as already mentioned, more than
400 additional goals have been released through the years, targeting more
specific sectors, in several different documents. Nevertheless, the focus of
this thesis remains on the original ones, as they are fundamental for
understanding the programme’s overall ambition and direction.
Only another report, titled “Made in China 2025: the cost of
technological leadership”, published by the European Chamber, analysed
these original targets. As we will see in this chapter, the results of their
analysis are identical to the ones reported in this thesis, with some
exceptions: in the “green production” area, I decided to calculate on my own
the percentages of CO2 emissions intensity, reuse of solid industrial waste,
and used a proxy for the industrial energy intensity, while they limited
81
themselves to say if these targets were more or less likely to be achieved.
When it comes to the reuse of solid industrial waste, their data stops at 2022,
while my calculation takes into consideration also 2023. In the area of quality,
they only airmed that no oicial data was available for the manufacturing
productivity growth, while I calculated the percentage on my own. Lastly,
they reinterpreted the MVA indicator by taking the 2015 annual growth rate
as the baseline. However, in this case, the indicator is not clear enough, and
further researches on the topic are needed. The rest of their report is again
focused on sector-specific targets.
The targets in the oicial document are divided in four main categories:
innovation, quality, IT-industrial integration and green production. This
research will first examine each indicator individually. After, the thesis will be
digging into international and Chinese literature’s opinion, underlining
potential similarities and differences among them and my analysis. Lastly, I
will also provide an overview of the sector-specific targets, to offer a
complete understanding of the plan’s results.
3.2 Research’s results
3.2.1 Innovation
To evaluate progress in the area of innovation, the programme fixes two
key indicators: share percentage of R&D spending of operating revenue and
invention patents per CNY 100 million total revenue.
The results are reported in Table 3.1.
82
Looking at the first indicator, the data observed suggest that the target
of 1.68% has already been successfully met two years in advance. In 2013,
before the implementation of the plan, the percentage was 0.88, meaning
that in only ten years, the share of R&D spending in enterprises with a sales
revenue above 20 million yuan doubled.
In Chapter 1, Table 1.5 reported data until 2016 representing the
proportion of R&D cost over GDP. With the main purpose of offering a
complete overview, I decided to analyse more recent data related to this
indicator, so that we can observe how the weight of R&D over GDP has
changed during time and as a consequence of MIC2025. The trend is
reported in Table 3.2.
Table 3.1
Indicator
Oicial data 2013
Target 2025
Observed
Share of R&D spending of
operating revenue* (%)
0.88
1.68
1.71 (2023)
Invention patents per CNY
100 million total revenue**
0.36
1.1
No data
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
*data refer to enterprises with a sales revenue above 20 million yuan
**number of valid invention patents per 100 million yuan of main operating revenue of above
scale manufacturing enterprises
Table 3.2: R&D cost and proportion of GDP
Year
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
R&D cost
(billion
CNY)
1,760
1,967.79
2,214.36
2,439.3
2,795.6
3,078.3
3,335.7
3,613
GDP
(billion
CNY)
83,203.6
91,928.1
98,651.5
101,356.7
114,923.7
120,472.4
126,058.
2
134,908.
4
Proportio
n (%)
2.12
2.14
2.24
2.41
2.43
2.56
2.65
2.68
Source: World Bank, National Bureau of Statistics
83
It appears that in the more recent period from 2017 to 2024, both R&D
expenditure and GDP continued to raise, but the share of R&D over GDP
increased more with more intensity. R&D costs went from CNY 1,760 billion in
2017 to CNY 3,613 billion in 2024, while GDP grew from CNY 83,203.6 billion
to CNY 134,908.4 billion. As a result, the proportion of R&D to GDP increased
from 2.12% in 2017 to 2.68% in 2024, much higher when compared to the
earlier period. This clearly shows the increasing importance given to R&D
investment by the Chinese government.
The second indicator allows us to examine whether the increased R&D
spending has translated into measurable innovation outputs: the number of
valid invention patents. However, no data regarding invention patents per
CNY 100 million revenue for large-scale manufacturing firms is available. For
this reason, a proxy was used: invention patents grant in a year.
Figure 3.1 and Table 3.3 allow us to better explore and understand the
increase of the different types of patents grant.
84
Figure 3.1: Number of patent grants by type
0
1250000
2500000
3750000
5000000
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
Invention patents Utility models Design patents
From 2015 to 2018, the total number of patent grants increased slightly,
peaked in 2021, and after, consistently decreased. In 2024, the total was even
lower than in 2020.
There are three types of patents: invention patents, which concern new
technical solution related to a product, a process, or an improvement; utility
models, which concern new technical solution related to a product's shape,
structure, or a combination thereof and lastly, design patents, which concern
new design of the shape, pattern, colour related to a product, or a
combination thereof. Every type of patent experienced a different kind of
growth. The peak in 2021 was mainly driven by utility patents, which are not
only the largest category but also the one that saw the biggest increase.
Invention patents, target of MIC2025, didn’t grow as much as utility patents
did, but they are the only type that didn’t decrease after 2021, and kept on
growing, tripling from 2015 to 2024. Design patents, on the other hand,
maintained a stable trend.
In conclusion, it’s possible to say that MIC2025 has achieved important
progress in the area of innovation, both in R&D spending and in the number
of patent grants. However, some challenges still persist: while the quantity of
85
Table 3.3.
Year
Invention patents
Utility models
Design patents
2015
359,316
876,217
482,659
2016
404,208
903,420
446,135
2017
420,144
973,294
442,996
2018
432,147
1,479,062
536,251
2019
452,804
1,582,274
556,529
2020
530,127
2,377,223
731,918
2021
695,946
3,119,990
785,521
2022
798,347
2,804,155
720,907
2023
920,797
2,090,331
637,944
2024
971,910
1,815,853
575,868
Source: CNIPA
patents has increased, questions related to quality and impact on true
technological advancements still surface.
3.2.2 Quality
To evaluate progress in the area of quality, the programme fixes three
key indicators: Manufacturing Quality Competitiveness index, growth of
manufacturing value-added and percentage of productivity growth.
The results observed are reported in Table 3.4.
The Manufacturing Quality Competitiveness index is a comprehensive
economic and technical indicator that reflects the overall quality level of the
manufacturing industry. It is calculated based on 12 specific indicators
covering two main aspects: quality level, which reflects the performance and
reliability of manufacturing products, and development capability, which
measures the ability to innovate and adapt to market changes. This indicator,
supposed to reach 85.5 by 2025, was already at 85.6 in 2024, indicating that
the target has already been met one year in advance.
In the first oicial document of MIC2025, no data was given concerning
the growth of the manufacturing value-added rate in 2015, while the target
Table 3.4.
Indicator
Oicial data 2013
Target 2025
Observed
Manufacturing Quality
Competitiveness index
83.1
85.5
85.6 (2024)
Growth of manufacturing
value-added rate (%)
Not given
4% more than
2015
No data
Manufacturing productivity
growth (%)*
Not given
6.5%*
5.66% (2023)
Sources: Chinadaily, World Bank
*targeted average annual growth rate of the 14th five-year plan period
86
for 2025 only specifies that it should increase of 4 percentage points
compared to 2015. The yearly statistical report of NBS (National Bureau of
Statistics), however, only presents the the year-on-year growth rate of this
ratio, which, in 2015, was 7% (National Bureau of Statistics, 2016), and by
2024 it had fallen to 6.1% (National Bureau of Statistics, 2025). The European
Union Chamber of Commerce in China has reinterpreted this indicator by
taking the 2015 annual growth rate (7%) as the baseline and assuming that
the target would therefore be 11% by 2025 (European Chamber, 2025). With
this interpretation, it’s clear that the target has not been met.
However, if we decide to consider the absolute value of this indicator,
the trajectory looks a lot different, as reported in Figure 3.2.
The graph reveals a growing trend, indicating a significant expansion of
the manufacturing sector. From 2016 until 2018 there was a noticeable
acceleration, with MVA increasing more sharply. Despite the global COVID-19
crisis, there was a remarkable peak in 2021, when MVA reached US$ 4.91
trillion. This sharp increase may be due to China’s early recovery and strong
87
Source: World Bank
Figure 3.2: Manufacturing value added (trillion US$)
global demand for Chinese manufactured goods during the pandemic, like
medical equipment and electronics. The chart shows a decline after, possibly
reflecting the end of the pandemic. In 2015 the MVA was US$ 3.2 trillion,
increasing to US$ 4.66 trillion in 2023, with a growth of more than 45%,
probably also thanks to the effect of the pandemic.
When it comes to labour productivity growth, the oicial document of
MIC2025 specifies that the targeted 6.5 percentage points are based on the
average annual growth rate. However, while the National Bureau of Statistics
publishes national productivity data, nothing is available specifically for
manufacturing productivity growth. As a consequence, the European
Chamber only reported that no data is available. For this reason, I calculated
on my own this indicator, using MVA and number of workers in the
manufacturing sector. In Table 3.5 are reported the results.
The data shows that from 2014 to 2018, manufacturing labour
productivity experienced a slow but steady increase. Between 2019 and
88
Table 3.5: Manufacturing Labour Productivity (US$/worker)
Year
MVA (trilion US$)
Workers
(milions)
Productivity (US$/lworker
2014
3,18
230,57
13.797
2015
3,20
226,44
14.131
2016
3,15
222,95
14.122
2017
3,46
217,62
15.903
2018
3,87
213,56
18.126
2019
3,82
212,34
17.990
2020
3,86
215,43
17.921
2021
4,91
217,12
22.608
2022
4,84
211,05
22.924
2023
4,66
215,20
21.670
Source: Statista, World Bank, author’s independent calculation
2020, productivity stagnated, probably as an effect of the COVID-19
pandemic. In 2021, there was a remarkable rebound, but in 2023,
productivity decreased slightly again, possibly due to a post-pandemic
slowdown in global demand. The average growth is about 5.66%, below the
target of the programme.
So, in conclusion, progress in quality has been uneven: the
Manufacturing Quality Competitiveness index target has already been met,
while, according to the different interpretation of MVA, the goal could have
been reached or not. Lastly, when it comes to manufacturing labour
productivity, the objective was not achieved.
3.2.3 IT-industrial integration
In the area of IT-industrial integration, the programme fixes three main
targets: broadband Internet penetration, penetration rate of digital design
tools in R&D and use of numerical control machines (CNC) in key production
processes. The data observed are in Table 3.6.
Table 3.6.
Indicator
Oicial data 2013
Target 2025
Observed
Broadband Internet
penetration (%) *
37
82
115 (2024)
Penetration rate of digital
design tools in R&D (%) **
52
84
83.1 (2024)
Use of CNC in key
production processes (%)***
27
64
64.9 (2024)
Sources: Qstheory, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
*refers to the fixed broadband household penetration rate, that is equal to the number of fixed
broadband household users / number of households.
**refers to the number of above-scale enterprises using digital R&D and design tools / the total
number of above-scale enterprises.
***refers to the average numerical control rate of key processes in above-scale industrial
enterprises.
89
The first indicator is the percentage of broadband Internet penetration.
In fact, IT-industrial integration is based on the internet, which allows the
connection between machinery, supply chains and digital platforms.
Consequently, a high penetration rate is fundamental for advanced
technologies, such as smart manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT) or big
data. Looking at the most recent data, it is clear that the target has already
been achieved one year in advance: in 2024 the internet penetration reached
115 connections per 100 households, showing an impressive growth in only
10 years.
The penetration rate of digital design tools in R&D refers to the extent to
which companies adopt and integrate digital tools, such as CAD , simulation
26
software, AI-driven design and digital twins in their research and
27
development processes. Digital tools are a sort of link between IT and
traditional industries: the higher the adoption of these tools, the more
industries are interconnected with IT infrastructures. A low penetration rate
indicates that industries are still relying on traditional methods. Looking at
the result achieved, it is evident that the target has almost been met, and will
probably be successfully achieved by 2025: in 2024 the indicator already
reached 83.1, with a gap of only 0.9 percentage points from the target.
Lastly, concerning the use of CNC in key production processes, it is
28
evident that the target has already been met, one year in advance, increasing
by almost one percentage point more (64.9%). The use of CNC has
completely changed manufacturing in the whole world, and even in China,
where their adoption has been enhanced by the rapid industrialisation. This
kind of machine increases production accuracy and eiciency and lead to
smarter manufacturing and automatic processes, radically changing the
Computer-aided design, it refers to the use of computer to help design processes by creating
26
simulations of real-world objects.
It is a virtual representation of an object or system designed to reflect a physical object accurately.
27
Computer numerical control, it is an automated manufacturing process that controls and operates
28
machinery by means of a computer.
90
production and the design of products. The widespread use of CNC indicates
a shift from traditional manufacturing to digital and intelligent production.
29
Ultimately, China has achieved significant results in the area of IT-
industrial integration. The growth of the broadband internet penetration rate
has been impressive, hugely surpassing the target. The penetration of digital
design tools in R&D is very close to the targeted one, which next year will
probably be met. Meanwhile, the use of CNC in key production processes
has already surpassed the target, indicating a successful automation and
digital transformation of manufacturing.
3.2.4 Green production
Lastly, in the area of green production, the oicial programme fixes four
indicators: industrial energy intensity, CO2 emissions intensity, water usage
intensity and reuse of solid industrial waste.
In Table 3.7 are reported the results observed.
Table 3.7.
Indicator
Oicial data 2013
Target 2025
Observed
Decrease in industrial
energy intensity*
Not given
34% less than
2015
No data
Decrease in CO2 emissions
intensity**
Not given
40% less than
2015
33% less than
2015 (2023)
Decrease in water usage
intensity**
Not given
41 % less than
2015
57% less than
2015 (2023)
Reuse of solid industrial
waste (%)
62
79
58.4 (2023)
Sources: Cenews, ceicdata, World Bank, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, author’s
independent calculation
*per unit of industrial value-added for enterprises above designated size
**per unit of industrial value-added
For further information on CNC in China, see Wei ZHANG, “CNC Machining Production in China: A
29
Comprehensive Overview”, SourcifyChina, 2025, https://www.sourcifychina.com/cnc-machining-
production-guide-in-depth/, 02/03/2025
91
The first indicator specifies that the industrial energy intensity per unit
30
of industrial value-added for enterprises above designated size should
31
decrease by 34% in comparison with 2015. According to Jingji ribao, between
2012 and 2022, the given indicator has decreased by more than 36% (Zhang,
2023a). In 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics also specified that energy
consumption had grown faster than GDP, but that energy intensity had fallen
by 0.5%. This paradox is due to the fact that, in the same year, the
government has changed the meaning of “energy intensity”, only including
fossil-fuel consumption, and not considering anymore renewable energy and
nuclear power (Myllyviirta, 2024). Shifting the focus from energy intensity to
“fossil fuel intensity” means that as long as the increase of energy intensity
comes from renewables, it doesn’t count, thus the oicial data could show
that the indicator is decreasing. Simply saying, China changed the rules to
make it seem like it’s reducing the pollution, but it could actually be polluting
more than before.
Energy intensity can be reduced by energy eiciency, meaning reducing
the amount of energy needed to deliver a specific product, or by structural
change, moving products and services in a less energy intensive direction.
Unfortunately, additional and more recent oicial data concerning
industrial energy intensity per unit of industrial value-added for enterprises
above designated size is not available. The European Chamber made an
approximation and suggested that the target likely has been achieved.
However, to better understand how energy intensity evolved overtime, I
decided to use a proxy, and calculate on my own the industrial energy
intensity per industrial value-added, considering all the enterprises, and not
only those above designated size. Figure 3.3 shows us the results.
Energy intensity means energy consumption per unit of GDP.
30
Industrial value added refers to the net output of the industrial sector after subtracting intermediate
31
inputs, essentially measuring the contribution of industry to GDP.
92
The industrial energy intensity remained relatively stable until 2016.
After, the intensity kept on declining until 2018, probably encouraged by
MIC2025’s introduction. However, it increased again until 2020, and then
decreased sharply, reaching the lowest value in 2021. This is most likely the
result of COVID-19 related slowdowns, that reduced industrial energy
demand. Following the drop, energy intensity appeared to slightly increase
again. Unfortunately, as the latest available data is from 2022, it’s not possible
to understand whether the reduction in industrial energy intensity was only
temporary or not, even if the small rebound in 2022 could signal that the
previous decrease was only the consequence of the pandemic. Nevertheless,
the trend indicates progress in reducing industrial energy intensity, with a
decrease of 20% from 2015. However, my calculation takes into consideration
the whole Chinese industry, and not only the enterprises above designated
size.
93
Figure 3.3: Industrial energy intensity (MJ) per unit of
industrial value-added (USD)
MJ / USD
0
5
10
15
20
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
Source: author’s independent calculation,
data taken from ceicdata and tradingeconomics
Moving to the next indicator, CO2 emissions intensity per unit of
industrial value-added measures how much CO2 is emitted for each unit of
economic output generated by the industrial sector. If this indicator
decreases, it means that the industrial sector is becoming more energy-
eicient and shifting towards cleaner energy sources. No oicial data is
available, so the European Chamber just suggested that the target has likely
not been achieved. However, I tried to calculate it on my own. The results are
reported in Figure 3.4.
The graph shows a general decreasing trend over time, with a slight
increase at the end. The effect of the pandemic is clear and caused a
temporary decline in industrial activity, reaching the lowest point in 2022.
However, the increase in 2023 could suggests that some emission reductions
during the pandemic were not due to long-term structural changes, but
94
Figure 3.4: CO2 emissions intensity (Kg) per unit of industrial
value added (USD)
Kg CO2 / USD
0
0,275
0,55
0,825
1,1
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Source: author’s independent calculation,
data taken from World Bank and tradingeconomics
Note: CO2 emissions comprise both industrial combustion and industrial
processes.
rather temporary economic slowdowns. Nevertheless, it is evident the CO2
emissions intensity reduced significantly in 10 years. This means that
industrial processes have likely become more eicient, shifting towards
cleaner energy sources and greener production methods. Achieving the
targeted reduction of 40% in comparison with 2015 will be very challenging:
by 2023 it was 32.96%, bringing China not so far from the target. However,
the recent rebound suggest that more effort and decisive actions are
needed.
Focusing on water usage intensity per unit of industrial value-added, the
target is a 41% decrease in comparison with 2015. According to the National
Bureau of Statistics (2015), in 2015, China’s industrial water usage per unit
industrial value added was 58 cubic metres, and it fell to 25 cubic metres by
2024 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2025). This is equal to a 57% reduction,
meaning that the target has been successfully achieved.
Lastly, the target for the reuse of solid industrial waste was 79%.
However, according to the Report on the State of the Ecology and
Environment in China of 2023, out of the total amount of solid industrial
waste produced (4,28 billion tons), only 2,5 billion tons have been reused,
which is equal to 58.4 % of the total (Ministry of Ecology and Environment,
2024). This means that China is far from reaching the target, and, moreover,
the reuse percentage is even lower than the one recorded in 2013. This is
probably due to the fact that the total amount of industrial solid waste
produced may have grown significantly through the years, making it harder
to maintain or improve reuse rates.
The trend of total industrial solid waste produced, reported in Figure 3.5,
seems to confirm my hypothesis: the total industrial solid waste, between
2012 and 2023, increased of 1 billion tons, from 3.3 until 4.28 billion tons,
consequently making the target almost impossible to reach. From 2012 until
2015 the trend was stable, between 3.2-3.3 billion tons. In 2016 it’s evident a
95
significant increase, that peaked in 2019, reaching the highest level of 4.4
billion tons. This is probably due to the rapid expansion of China's
manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. The drastic drop in 2020 coincides
with the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused reductions in industrial
production. After, solid waste production grew again, likely due to economic
recovery and increased industrial production.
For this target, the European Chamber took the data from 2022,
suggesting that the percentage reached was 57, which seems coherent with
my calculation of 2023.
To sum up, in the area of green production, it seems that China wasn’t
able to obtain brilliant results, and only one target, water usage intensity, has
been reached. However, it is evident that China has made significant
progress. Probably, even though MIC2025 had a positive effect on
environmental sustainability, the rapid expansion of China's manufacturing
and infrastructure sectors made it almost impossible to reach the desired
target. This highlights the diiculties in achieving sustainability while
maintaining a fast pace of economic growth.
96
Source: ceicdata on Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s data
Figure 3.5: China’s solid industrial waste (billion tons)
In order to offer an even broader overview, I decided to compare the
most recent data on energy consumption with the one reported in Chapter 1
in the Table 1.6, which refers to earlier years. This comparison can allow us to
observe the changes that occurred over the past decade, particularly in the
context of the MIC2025 policy framework. The results are reported in Table
3.8.
Total energy consumption in manufacturing has steadily increased over
the last decade, rising from 1,805,959.7 thousand tons of standard coal in
2009 to 3,070,860 thousand tons in 2022. Despite this growth, the share of
energy consumed by the manufacturing sector relative to total energy
consumption has remained relatively stable, fluctuating between 0.51 and
0.58 in the earlier period and between 0.54 and 0.57 in the more recent
years.
Down below, Table 3.9 summarises the results analysed.
Table 3.8: Energy consumption
Year
Total energy consumption
in the manufacturing
industry (10,000 tons of
standard coal)
Energy consumption in
manufacturing industry /
total energy consumption
2016
242,514.87
0.55
2017
245,139.54
0.54
2018
258,604
0.55
2019
268,426
0.55
2020
279,651
0.59
2021
293,065
0.56
2022
307,086
0.57
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
97
3.2.5 Secondary targets
Apart from the main targets, the oicial document of the programme
also fixes some minor secondary targets: “Key manufacturing sectors will
fully achieve intelligent automation, with pilot demonstration projects
reducing operating costs by 50%, shortening product production cycles by
50%, and lowering the defect rate by 50%. “
Table 3.9: MIC2025’s results
Indicator
Oicial data 2013
Target 2025
Observed
Share of R&D spending of
operating revenue (%)
0.88
1.68
1.71 (2023)
Invention patents per CNY
100 million total revenue
0.36
1.1
No data
Manufacturing Quality
Competitiveness index
83.1
85.5
85.6 (2024)
Growth of manufacturing
value-added rate (%)
Not given
4% more than
2015
No data
Manufacturing productivity
growth (%)
Not given
6.5%*
5.66% (2023)
Broadband Internet
penetration (%)
37
82
115 (2024)
Penetration rate of digital
design tools in R&D (%)
52
84
83.1 (2024)
Use of CNC in key
production processes (%)
27
64
64.9 (2024)
Decrease in industrial
energy intensity
Not given
34% less than
2015
No data
Decrease in CO2 emissions
intensity
Not given
40% less than
2015
33% less than
2015 (2023)
Decrease in water usage
intensity
Not given
41 % less than
2015
57% less than
2015 (2023)
Reuse of solid industrial
waste (%)
62
79
58.4 (2023)
98
Between 2015 and 2018, China rolled out 305 pilot projects in intelligent
manufacturing, which yielded impressive results. According to the Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology, during these years, these pilot projects
led to an average 37.6% increase in production eiciency, a 21.2% reduction
in operating costs, and a 30.8% decrease in product development cycles
(Wang & Zhao, 2022). Unluckily, there is no more recent information.
The programme also states that: “70% of core fundamental components
and key basic materials will achieve independent security, while 80 landmark
advanced manufacturing processes will be promoted and applied, with
32
some reaching an internationally leading level.”
When it comes to core fundamental components and key basic material,
China was not able to reach the targeted independency rate. In January
2024, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger airmed that, despite China’s ongoing efforts
to advance its semiconductor industry and design more sophisticated chip
manufacturing tools, the country still lags behind the global semiconductor
industry by approximately 10 years (TrendForce, 2024). Moreover, “China is
likely to only achieve 30 percent self-suiciency by the end of 2025,” ITIF
reported.“RAND’s Jimmy Goodrich has noted that China would probably
need to invest at least an additional $1 trillion more to achieve true self-
suiciency in the industry“ (Ezell, 2024).
However, this result is probably also influenced by the US’ ban: in 2022,
Biden forbid US companies to sell the most advanced chips and chip-making
equipment to China without a special license, isolating the Chinese tech
sector, due to concerns that China could use them for other goals, such as
military purposes (Chiang, 2024). Japan and the Netherlands, the two other
leading countries, were also encouraged to introduce their own bans. For
example, the Trump administration successfully pressured the Dutch
It refers to advanced production processes which represent a turning point in the manufacturing
32
sector.
99
company ASML to cancel the sale of its EUV lithography machines to China
(The Economist, 2020). These machines are essential for producing next-
generation semiconductors, and ASML is the only company in the world
capable of manufacturing them. At the beginning of 2025, Washington
introduced new licensing requirements for AI chips such as Nvidia’s H20 and
AMD’s MI308, explicitly targeting exports to China. All these measures have
undoubtedly made the path to self-suiciency much more diicult.
Let’s look at the shift in Chinese output of chip-making gear over the past
15 years against its demand for such equipment, shown in Figure 3.6.
The country has indeed improved its global supply share. However,
focusing on the gap between supply and demand, it’s clear how far the
nation is from achieving self-suiciency.
However, as illustrated in Figure 3.7, from 2001 to 2016, China’s share of
global value added in the semiconductor industry grew from 8% to 31%,
while the US’ share fell from 28% to 22%, and Japan’s by over two-thirds, from
30% to 8%.
100
Note: includes Chinese-owned and foreign-owned semiconductor production facilities in China
Sources: GREGORY, C. Allen, “The True Impact of Allied Export Controls on the U.S. and Chinese
Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Industries”, CSIS, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/
true-impact-allied-export-controls-us-and-chinese-semiconductor-manufacturing-equipment,
11/11/2024, on CSIS Analysis, Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan, Semiconductor
Equipment Database, Techinsights data
Figure 3.6: Chinese semiconductor equipment global supply and demand
share
Despite not being able to reach the target of self-suiciency, it is clear
that China still achieved significant progress, rapidly closing the gap with
other countries and developing genuine innovation capabilities. Analysts at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies airmed in a report that
“Western chip export controls have had some success in that they briefly set
back China’s developmental efforts in semiconductors, albeit at some cost to
the United States and allied firms” (Shivakumar, Wessner & Howell, 2025). For
example, they suggest, Huawei’s smartphone, the Pura 70 series,
incorporates 33 China-sourced components and only 5 sourced from outside
of China.
33
For further details, see Alex He, “Case Study: From Paper Tiger to Real Tiger? The Development of
33
China’s Semiconductor Industry”, China’s Techno-Industrial Development: A Case Study of the
Semiconductor Industry, 2021, pp. 14-24 and Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, Thomas Howell, “The
Pillars Necessary for a Strong Domestic Semiconductor Industry”, 2022
101
Source: EZELL, Stephen, “How innovative is China in semiconductors?”, ITIF, 2024,
https://itif.org/publications/2024/08/19/how-innovative-is-china-in-semiconductors/
Figure 3.7: Country share of value added in global semiconductor
industry
Lastly, it is not possible to specifically understand whether there were
more than 80 new landmark advanced manufacturing processes. However,
it’s possible to make a few examples.
China has implemented 3D printing technology in the construction
sector. In 2015, the company WinSun built a 1,100 m² villa and a six-story
apartment building using this technology (Ike, 2018).
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), in 2019,
introduced the "cell-to-pack" technology, which eliminates the need for
battery modules, increasing energy eiciency and density (Xinhua, 2019).
At Foxconn’s Shenzhen Guanlan factory, everything is automated: the
cloud-based AI factory’s brain directs autonomous robotic arms (AMR) to
move around throughout the facility, AI models control quality, schedules
tasks and helps workers with AR glasses for repairs. The smart factory is so
advanced that new products launches are 29% faster, mass production 50%
faster, defected are reduced by 56% and finally, manufacturing costs are 30%
lower (Teng & Kang, 2024). Moreover, Foxconn also has created the first
Asian AI-powered anodising plant.
34
China also achieved a milestone with the artificial total synthesis of
crystalline bovine insulin, showing its capabilities in large-scale, high-level
research.
35
The Xiaomi factory in Beijing uses more than 700 robots and a special
innovative and revolutionary die-casting technology, which reduced
components from 72 to only 1, cutting production times of 72% and
surpassing by more than 9000 tons the most advanced die-casting
technology in the United States, used by Tesla (Zhang, 2023b).
Anodising is a process that gives to metal used in cars and other products their shiny surface,
34
allowing them to be after dyed in different colours.
For further details, see Xu et al., “The Legacy of Synthetic Bovine Insulin: A Journey of Dedication,
35
Collaboration and Innovation”, Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024, https://
bcas.edpsciences.org/articles/bcas/pdf/2024/01/bcas2024006.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
102
3.3 Literature review
After my analysis of the policy’s results, I decided to take a look at the
relative academic literature on the topic, attempting to understand which
aspects of MIC2025 international and Chinese research are primarily focused
on.
The first thing I noticed was the lack of international analysis over the
policy’s results before 2025: the majority of the papers were published before
2017, thus mainly focusing on the potential impact of MIC2025 and its
negative effect on the global economy, technological independence and
intellectual property rights protection. In several cases, the articles even
gave actual recommendation, helping countries avoid crisis and protect
themselves from the “Chinese danger”. Probably, this limitation of
international studies is due to the fact that the Chinese government
completely stopped making references to the programme after 2018, as
already discussed. Only in the last year, in 2025, international interest
powerfully remerged, with several articles, studies and analysis made on
MIC2025, mainly focusing on sector specific targets.
In the Chinese literature, on the other hand, MIC2025 attracted more
attention, but, surprisingly, not as much as expected. Probably, this is again
due to the “censorship” of the Chinese government after 2018, which could
have discouraged Chinese scholars from openly writing about MIC2025 and
limited the possibilities of international researches to collect information and
conduct relative studies. Moreover, in China, several academics are ailiated
with governmental institutions or research centres financed by the state,
which could influence the type of studies conducted and the conclusions
reached. This may explain why, from my analysis, it emerged that the existing
literature focuses more on aspects such as productivity growth and
innovation rather than on potential ineiciencies or policy failures. In fact,
103
studies published in China often tend to emphasise the successes of
government policies and avoid openly criticising challenges or problems
emerged. Nevertheless, some scholars still highlighted some critical points
and also issued policy’s recommendations, suggestions and advices for the
government, in order to improve the effects and the impact of the MIC2025
policy.
One common limitation of both Chinese and international research is
that they usually take into consideration data that are collected at the latest
by 2021, meaning that there is no current information or reflection that
includes the last four years. This, of course, is due to the fact that the effects
of an industrial policy are not immediately observable, but they need a longer
time to manifest. Moreover, the Chinese government has never publicly
identified the firms that were planned to receive support under this
programme, and only a few disclosed that the aid they received from the
government was directly connected to the “Made in China 2025” programme
(Branstetter, Li, 2024).
For this research, I only collected papers referring to the main targets
and topics presented in the first oicial programme. However, scholars also
conducted analysis on other themes, such as the policy’s impact on stock
prices, or on the allocation of corporate financial assets. The key words used
for the research were “Made in China 2025”, “MIC2025’s results”, “MIC2025’s
impact”, “2025”, “2025”, “2025”, “2025”. The platform used were mainly Google Scholar, Jstor and
ResearchGate for international paper, and CNKI (China National Knowledge
Infrastructure) for Chinese ones. For the selection of the documents, I
considered the most recent ones, as well as the one that received the most
cites and downloads. However, another additional problem was the restricted
access to some of the Chinese documents on CNKI.
104
Nevertheless, from the papers I was able to collect, some major topics
were identified, specifically: firms’ productivity, innovation, especially R&D
investments and patents, industrial transformation and green production.
Only one analysis focused on exports margins, and it’s interesting the fact
that it was conducted by international scholars, probably because it’s a topic
that directly affects the global economy. Other themes that attracted mild
international attention were innovation and productivity.
3.3.1 Firms’ productivity
All the scholars suggest that MIC2025 has contributed to the
improvement of firms’ productivity, even though they underline different
aspects and factors. Pan (2023) attributes productivity improvements to
resource effects and increased market competition: subsidies, tax reductions
and credit facilitation helped businesses overcome financial diiculties,
reducing uncertainty and encouraging innovation. The further opening of the
manufacturing sector to foreign competition, promoted by the policy,
increased the competitive pressure faced by firms, which were motivated to
improve productivity in order to gain larger market share and maintain their
positioning.
Dai, Chen & Yang (2024) attribute this improvement to other factors,
such as collaborative innovation, breakthroughs in key core technologies,
and talent support systems, including specialised technical talent and
managerial expertise. Firms within the ten key sectors experienced a
significant increase in total factor productivity (TFP) , in particular:
36
-Cities ranked in the top 50 for government eiciency and business
environment
Total factor productivity measures the ability to generate income from inputs, meaning the impact of
36
technological advancements and changes in worker knowledge on the long-term output of an
economic system. If an economy increases its total income without using more inputs, or if the
economy maintains its income level while using fewer inputs, it has higher TFP.
105
-Pilot cities, as they are better positioned to attract high-end resources
such as talent and capital
-Areas with well-developed supporting policies, that can better attract
high-level resources, support innovation and research collaboration
-Regions with lower financing constraints, since such constraints may
limit the ability to allocate resources flexibly, potentially reducing
investments in talent and technologies
-Areas with higher levels of smart manufacturing, which increases
operational flexibility and optimises resource allocation
-Industries with large technological gaps , because the smaller the gap,
37
the harder it becomes to achieve technological catch-up, innovation, and
knowledge spillovers.
Huang, Song & Yao (2022) confirm the TFP improvement, which took
place mainly thanks to financial subsidies, tax breaks, land use advantages,
and talent support. These incentives helped reduce operating costs and
enhanced competitiveness, improving overall productivity.
Moreover, from their analysis, it emerged that non-SOEs benefited more
in terms of TFP improvement: lacking political resources and derivative
advantages, private firms are more eager for policy support and tend to
respond more actively. The effect was also stronger in regions with a high
degree of marketisation, where the government is more likely to allocate
resources to enterprises with competitive advantages.
The question is: did this new productivity actually translate into product
and competitive advantages? Chen, Wang & Chen (2025) sustain that the
policy improved the development of new productivity in both intensive and
extensive margins. Along the intensive margin, MIC2025 led to a 2.5%
increase in firms’ gross profit margins. Along the extensive margin, the
with the advanced manufacturing industries.
37
106
transformation led to a 1.3% increase in the likelihood of firms engaging in
diversified operations. On average, firms added 0.04 new product types.
However, it emerged that labour-driven productivity gains have yet to be
fully realised.
From their analysis, the effect on TFP appeared to be stronger in more
developed industrial structures and labour-intensive firms, not significant for
capital-intensive firms, and negative for technology-intensive firms. These
findings imply that already technology-oriented firms struggled to further
improve new quality productivity, possibly due to resource competition
(“siphon effect”) . Meanwhile, labour-intensive firms benefitted from a
38
latecomer advantage, being more capable of leveraging talent and
technological dividends. Capital-intensive firms, however, may have found it
harder to upgrade or transform, leading to no significant productivity gains.
3.3.2 Innovation and R&D investments
Several scholars highlighted the impact of MIC2025 on innovation and
R&D. Dai, Chen & Yang (2024) suggest that the strategy promoted
collaborative innovation among enterprises, universities and research
institutions and influenced firms’ research and application of key
technologies. However, it didn’t significantly increase innovation spillovers,
probably because manufacturing firms that benefit from those can reduce
innovation costs and improve their technology, and as a result, technologies
tend to diffuse rapidly not only within key sectors but also in other industries.
Second, projects in key sectors are complex and long-term, thus their impact
may take longer to manifest.
Chen et al. (2024) confirm the increase in innovation, but propose that it
was the result of tax incentives, public subsidies, easy access to financing,
It is an economic phenomenon that describes how a more attractive area draws resources from
38
nearby areas.
107
academic collaboration, talent incentives and industry competition effects.
More specifically, Su et al. (2024) underline that government R&D subsidies
reduced risk and uncertainties, thus mitigating information asymmetry, while,
as the overall digitalisation level of enterprises increased, the so called “scale
effect” pushed other firms to engage in digital technology innovation to
maintain market share and avoid failure. Furthermore, Chen et al. (2024)
suggest that the success of the plan depended not only on the central
government’s design of the policy, but also on how local governments
supported its implementation. Wei & Cheng (2023) underline the policy’s
“signalling effect”: it alerted an expansion of external financing for
enterprises, thereby increasing their innovation output.
Scholars widely recognised MIC2025’s role in promoting innovation, but
with inhomogeneous effects.
More specifically, Chen et al. (2024) sustain that the policy had a larger
effect in Western China and in high-tech industries, whereas Su et al. (2024)
suggest that the policy was more eicient in environments with high levels of
product market development and strong intellectual property protection.
Lastly, Wei & Cheng (2021) found out that the policy had a significant effect
on both high and low marketisation areas, on smaller and younger
companies as well as non-SOEs. This is the only case where a bias towards
SOEs in innovation didn’t emerge: these firms usually tend to receive more
resources, thus responding more eiciently to the policy’s effect and
increasing their innovation (Xiong, Zhang & Tang 2021, Wen & Zhao 2021,
Chen et al. 2024, Branstetter & Li 2024).
Other scholars analyse what happened in National Demonstration Zones.
Liu & Liu (2023) underline that the innovation improvement in these zones
took place mainly thanks to the relaxation of firms’ resource constraints,
industry competition and collaborative innovations’ effects. However, Cao &
Zeng (2025) propose different mechanisms, such as industrial structure
108
upgrading, talent aggregation, and fiscal support. Lei (2024), on the other
hand, sustains that the policy increased innovation by suppressing the
financialisation of the manufacturing enterprises and by favouring their
embedding in innovation network. Moreover, he underlines the important
role of digital regulatory policies, which strengthened MIC2025’s effect on
innovation.
Cao & Zeng (2025) found out that the impact on those zones was more
significant in Eastern China, as, typically, they have higher economic
development levels, a strong foundation for urban innovation, and an
established innovation environment. However, this thesis is refuted by Liu &
Liu (2023), whose analysis airm that the biggest impact was in the Central
region.
Moreover, the same study also suggest that the policy didn’t have effect
on innovation in urban agglomerations , mainly because of ineicient
39
investment, weak manufacturing agglomeration, and an underdeveloped
innovation environment. As a consequence of the high costs of information
transmission and problematic collaboration, firms may engage in ineicient
excessive investment behaviour, crowding out innovation and R&D
investments. Moreover, the development of factor markets and market
intermediaries has significantly declined, possibly due to increased policy
coordination costs. Cities may prioritise short-term GDP competition and
manufacturing dominance, at the expense of long-term industrial
advantages.
On the other hand, Cao & Zeng (2025) airm that Demonstration Zones
with a high level of digital informatisation and stronger fiscal capacity saw a
bigger increase in innovation: greater digitalisation allowed them to better
aggregate technologies and resources through their information
Urban agglomerations often surpass administrative boundaries, comprising multiple cities and
39
counties. These areas are closely connected, with significant population movement.
109
infrastructure, maximising agglomeration advantages and boosting
innovation capacity.
Lei (2024) suggests that the policy effects were stronger in cities in
regions with good market development levels and high-level administrative
cities, meaning sub-provincial and provincial capital cities. The policy also
had a positive spatial spillover effect: when a region intensified the
implementation of location-oriented industrial policy, the corresponding
industrial and value chains adjusted, boosting digital innovation in urban
areas. Furthermore, the policy drove digital innovation in surrounding cities
through industry linkages, creating a spatial spillover effect.
A question emerges: did this increase in innovation translate into actual
outputs? Xiong, Zhang & Tang (2021), Chen et al. (2024), Dai, Chen & Yang
(2024), Huang, Song & Yao (2022) and Wei & Cheng (2023) suggest that the
policy had a significant promoting effect on substantial innovations
(invention and utility model patents), while on symbolic innovations (design
patents) the impact was lower. Yet, Wei & Cheng (2023) found out that non-
invention patents effects tend to manifest in the long term.
However, Rui & Han (2020), from the perspective of the “confidence
effect,” revealed that, overall, in the short term, the policy led to a
40
significant decrease in in the total number of patents, invention patents, and
non-invention patents, probably because of the increased diiculty of R&D
projects and strategic behaviours caused by external confidence. It emerged
that the external confidence effect also led to a decrease in the substantive
structural R&D output, and companies exhibited strategic behaviours, while
When firms evaluate investment opportunities, they consider not just objective conditions, but also
40
subjective perceptions, particularly the confidence they have in those opportunities. External support
could give companies more confidence to invest in innovation. There are two types of confidence,
internal and external. The "external confidence effect" refers to the change in confidence among
external market participants toward the R&D activities of companies, which can, consequently, be
more willing to finance those activities. The "internal confidence effect" refers to the increase in
confidence within the company regarding its future development prospects, leading to a "spontaneous
adjustment" in R&D investment.
110
the internal confidence effect didn’t significantly affect strategic behaviours.
Consequently, results were greater in enterprises with slower or negative
income growth: enterprises with higher growth rates are more confident in
their future development, thus the policy impact was less significant for
them.
Huang, Song & Yao (2022) confirm again that the policy effectively
incentivised firms’ R&D investment, but underline how it also encouraged
enterprises to increase ineicient or meaningless R&D investments.
Wen & Zhao (2021) observe increased R&D investment due to
government subsidies and preferential loans. Moreover, enterprises with
historically excessive investment levels seem to have balanced their
investment structures, increasing resources dedicated to R&D activities. On
the other hand, companies with low investment levels increased both R&D
and fixed asset investments, but didn’t achieve a true structural rebalancing.
However, while R&D spending increased, they suggest that immediate
gains in productivity or breakthrough innovations were limited, perhaps
indicating a barrier when translating R&D into tangible innovation benefits in
the short term. This theory is also supported by Branstetter and Li (2024),
arguing that while MIC 2025 may have successfully redirected resources
toward R&D activities, it did not result in significant innovation outcomes or
eiciency improvements beyond what firms would have achieved on their
own.
Their research suggests that MIC2025 firms tended to receive higher
innovation subsidies, but underline that they didn’t necessarily receive more
total subsidies, instead, a larger portion of their subsidies may have been
directed toward innovation. This supports the idea that MIC2025 reallocated
existing subsidies rather than increasing the total subsidy budget. Their
research stands out from all the others: they underline that treated firms
were already larger and more R&D-intensive and may have been chosen
111
because of their pre-existing advantages, meaning that those firms would
have perform similarly without Made in China 2025.
3.3.3 Industrial transformation
Some scholars argue that MIC2025 successfully influenced the
transformation of manufacturing industries. Wang & Chen (2023) suggest
that the policy had a stronger impact on three main types of industry:
-technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries
-manufacturing enterprises in highly market-oriented regions, because
environments with high transparency and market eiciency encourage
productive investments and reduce opportunistic behaviours
-enterprises in regions with strong IP protection, which encourages
innovation by protecting companies from imitators and increasing the
benefits of patented innovations.
On the other hand, in low marketisation regions, the policy’s impact was
weaker, and in some cases, even negative, probably because lower
marketisation increase rent-seeking behaviours: companies respond
opportunistically, focusing on low-value projects without making progress in
technological innovation.
The policy improved human capital, raising the skill level of the
workforce, which played a key role in advancing industrial transformation,
with a significant effect on attracting high-level talent, such as technical
experts and management professional. However, Dai, Chen & Yang (2024)
confute this thesis and note that MIC2025 has not improved the availability of
skilled workers, probably because of the lack of high-skilled workers in the
manufacturing sector, but also because certain structural barriers still limit
the growth and development of skilled workers: China's talent management
system separates technical professionals from skilled workers. Moreover,
112
those often receive lower salaries and fewer benefits, making it harder for
them to develop and advance in their careers.
Li, Meng & Gong (2025) suggest that "Made in China 2025" significantly
enhanced industrial chain autonomous controllability through innovation
41
effects, competition effects and resource effects. However, the impact was
more pronounced in:
-capital-technology-intensive industry chains, likely because MIC2025
focuses on key fields such as high-end equipment and new materials, which
are more closely related to capital-technology-intensive chains
-sectors that were previously highly reliant on foreign supply chains,
helping to reduce the need for imported components and raw materials
-high-profitability industry chains. This could be due to the fact that the
key sectors supported by the policy, such as semiconductors and aviation,
have high value-added industries, which also contribute more to enhancing
the autonomous controllability of these chains.
Lei (2024) also suggests that the policy emphasised “an acceleration of
the advancement of smart manufacturing" and “a deep integration of
informatisation and industrialisation," steadily promoting the digital
transformation of the manufacturing industry.
3.3.4 Export margins
Xu, Wang & Zhang (2024) suggest that China’s export margins have
increased significantly after the introduction of the policy, stimulating China’s
export competitiveness in high-tech industries, despite causing a “negligible
and insignificant drop in prices”. Specifically, they found out that the increase
was mainly driven by the intensive margin and the quantity margin, but not
The term refers to the ability to master key core technologies within the industrial chain,
41
consequently avoiding dependence on Western developed countries and resisting economic shocks. It
is clear that autonomous controllability is a necessary step to escape the middle-income trap and
transition into a developed economy.
113
by the price or the extensive margin, implying that China has exported more
value and quantity of MIC2025 products: probably China’s exporters faced
strong competition and could not raise their prices, otherwise they would
have lost market share. On the other hand, when it comes to the extensive
margin, Chinese exporters already had a big and diversified export network
before the policy implementation and did not need to introduce new markets
or products.
The prices of China’s exports to both Japan and Korea increased from
around US$ 12.71 million per ton (which was lower than the average export
price of US$ 13.48 million per ton in 2016) to around US$ 15.32 million per
ton in 2019 (which was higher than the average export price of US$ 15.30
million per ton in 2019). This price change may indicate an improvement in
the quality.
3.3.5 Environmental sustainability and green development
Lastly, it emerged that the programme significantly improved urban
green development eiciency, environmental sustainability and green
economic growth. Both Wang et al. (2023) and Yuan & Liu (2024) sustain that
the effect was more significant in pilot cities with:
-high manufacturing agglomeration, since they can benefit from their
42
economic scale, public service provision, information and transportation
infrastructure.
-advanced industrial intelligence, as they already accumulated
investments in smart technology, factories and equipment, making it easier
to implement green practices, meaning they had a “first-mover advantage”.
The policy simply enhanced what they already had.
These cities are mainly concentrated in the economically developed Eastern regions, such as the
42
Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.
114
-strong digital finance systems, because they can better distribute
financial resources, helping green and technology-intensive companies
access funding. Additionally, digital finance improves transparency, making it
easier for the government to monitor pollution. This pressures companies to
adopt greener technologies and reduce emissions.
Both papers also indicate that MIC2025 promoted green economic
growth through green technology progress, upgrading industrial structure,
and strengthening environmental supervision.
However, Wang et al. (2023) sustain that the effect on optimising energy
consumption structure was not significant: while the policy encouraged
cleaner energy use, businesses still rely on coal and other traditional energy
sources due to cost concerns and performance pressures.
Pilot cities not only improved their own green development eiciency
but also that of nearby cities: pilot cities became examples for other areas,
which emulated their green industrial transformation model.
Zhang & Yan (2025) found a 7.75% increase in carbon emission eiciency,
mainly thanks to improvements in digitalisation level, government support,
human capital, and industrial structure.
Moreover, “Made in China 2025" enhanced labour productivity in the
tertiary sector, leading to more advanced digital and online management
models, such as cloud computing, AI and blockchain. These technologies
enhance organisational eiciency and reduce carbon emissions. Additionally,
rising labour productivity in the tertiary sector is often accompanied by
industrial restructuring and upgrading, shifting from production-oriented
manufacturing to service-oriented manufacturing. This not only increases
product value and improves the quality and eiciency of the supply system,
but also promotes resource-friendly production methods, effectively
reducing environmental impact.
115
The policy significantly improved energy utilisation eiciency, meaning
that they were able to use lower energy input in order to produce the same
amount of energy output. This also encouraged the development of
renewable and clean energy sources, such as wind and solar energy,
gradually decreasing dependence on fossil fuels.
On the territory, the effect of the policy was the most was significant in:
-Eastern and Central regions, thanks to their well-developed
infrastructure, advanced technological levels, and mature market economies.
In contrast, the Western region lags in infrastructure development and
technological advancement, and its colder climate needs significant energy
consumption for heating. This thesis is confirmed by Zhang & Bian (2024),
whose study underlines how in Eastern cities, only carbon was reduced, and
not pollution.
-urban agglomeration cities, probably because they are geographically
closer and more densely distributed, facilitating the effective use of public
transportation, shared resources, and infrastructure. Furthermore, they can
engage in resource sharing and collaborative innovation to develop and
apply energy-saving and emission-reducing technologies.
-non-resource-based cities, idea again confirmed by Zhang & Bian
(2024). In fact, resource-based cities' economies are overly dependent on a
single resource, making them vulnerable to economic fluctuations. This
economic structure lacks flexibility and resilience when facing economic
shocks and transformation pressures. Additionally, without diversified
industrial support, they struggle with long-term development, and resource
extraction and processing are often accompanied by environmental
pollution. However, Zhang & Bian (2024) suggest that, in resource-based
cities, even though carbon emissions were not reduced, pollution was.
The same study also found out that the policy led to an average annual
reduction in PM2.5 concentration and CO2 emissions and increased the level
116
of coordinated pollution and carbon reduction governance by 0.027 units per
year. The authors sustain that the policy promoted carbon reduction through
scale effects, technological effects, and structural effects. Moreover, it
emerged that pollution and carbon reduction in these pilot cities
approximately brought CNY 120.9 billion in economic and social benefits.
Unlike other scholars, Xu (2022) focuses on the policy’s effect on the
green innovation of manufacturing enterprises and not on pilot cities. He
found out that “Made in China 2025” significantly improved green innovation,
affecting enterprises’ resources in the form of taxes or subsidies and their
motivation through corporate identity, represented by corporate social
responsibility (CSR). Moreover, the policy’s effect was largely dependent on
enterprise governance and regions: the impact was stronger on SOEs,
located in the Eastern region and with a high proportion of independent
directors, as they risk less losing their reputation for not being enough
environmentally responsible.
Table 3.10 summarises all the analysed literature.
Table 3.10
Paper
Origin
Observed results
Main
mechanisms
Diûerences
Pan
(2023)
Chinese
Increased productivity
Resource effects
and increased
market
competition
N/D
117
Dai, Chen
& Yang
(2024)
Chinese
Increased TFP, no
increase in innovation
spillover, increased
firms’ application and
research of technology,
increased substantial
innovations, advanced
industrial
transformation but no
improvement in the
availability of skilled
workers
Collaborative
innovation,
breakthroughs
in key core
technologies,
and talent
support systems
Bigger impact on pilot
cities, industries with
large technological
gaps, areas with higher
levels of smart
manufacturing, with
well developed
supporting policies,
regions with lower
financing constraints,
cities in the top 50 for
government eiciency
and business
environment, high-
tech industries,
Western China and
SOEs
Huang,
Song &
Yao (2022)
Chinese
Increased TFP,
increased substantial
innovations and R&D
investments, but also
increased ineicient or
meaningless R&D
investments
Financial
subsidies, tax
breaks, land use
advantages, and
talent support
Bigger impact on non-
SOEs and regions with
a high degree of
marketisation
Chen,
Wang &
Chen
(2025)
Chinese
+2.5% gross profit
margin, +1.3%
diversification, +0.04
new products type on
average
Intensive and
extensive
margins
TFP stronger in more
developed industrial
structures and labor-
intensive firms, not
significant for capital-
intensive firms, and
negative for
technology-intensive
firms
Chen et
al. (2024)
Internatio
nal
Increased innovation,
increased substantial
innovations
Tax incentives,
public subsidies,
easy access to
financing,
academic
collaboration,
talent
incentives,
industry
competition
effects,
governments
support
Bigger impact on high
and low marketisation
areas, on smaller and
younger companies
and non-SOEs
118
Su et al.
(2024)
Chinese
Increased innovation
R&D subsidies
and “scale
effect”
Bigger impact on
environments with
high levels of product
market development
and strong IP
protection
Liu & Liu
(2023)
Chinese
Innovation
improvement in
Demonstration Zones
Relaxation of
firms’ resource
constraints,
industry
competition and
collaborative
innovations’
effects
More significant in
Central China, no
effect on urban
agglomerations
Cao &
Zeng
(2025)
Chinese
Innovation
improvement in
Demonstration Zones
Industrial
structure
upgrading,
talent
aggregation and
fiscal support
More significant in
Eastern China, in cities
with high level of
digital informatisation
and stronger fiscal
capacity
Xiong,
Zhang &
Tang
(2021)
Chinese
Increased substantial
innovations
N/D
Bigger impact on SOEs
Rui & Han
(2020)
Chinese
External confidence
effect decreased the
total number of patents,
invention patents, non-
invention patents, and
substantive structural
R&D output and
companies exhibited
strategic behaviours.
Internal confidence
effect didn’t
significantly affect
strategic behaviours
Confidence
effect
Bigger impact on
enterprises with slower
or negative income
growth
Wei &
Cheng
(2023)
Chinese
Innovation
improvement and
increased substantial
innovations, non-
invention patents
effects tended to
manifest in the long
term
Signalling effect
N/D
119
Wen &
Zhao
(2021)
Internatio
nal
R&D spending
increased, limited
immediate gains in
productivity or
breakthrough
innovations
Government
subsidies and
preferential
loans
Bigger effect on SOEs,
companies with
historically excessive
investment levels
balanced their
investment structures,
companies with low
investment levels
increased both R&D
and fixed asset
investments, but didn’t
achieve a true
structural rebalancing
Lei (2024)
Chinese
Innovation
improvement in
Demonstration Zones,
positive spatial spillover
effect, digital
transformation of the
manufacturing industry
Financialisation
of the
manufacturing
enterprises and
factorisation of
their embedding
in innovation
network, digital
regulatory
policies,
acceleration of
the
advancement of
smart
manufacturing
and integration
of
informatisation
and
industrialisation
Major effect in regions
with goods market
development levels
and high-level
administrative cities,
meaning sub-
provincial and
provincial capital cities
120
Wang &
Chen
(2023)
Chinese
Improved human
capital, raise of the skill
level of the workforce,
advanced industrial
transformation, with a
significant effect on
attracting high-level
talent
N/D
Bigger effect on
technology-intensive,
capital-intensive
industries,
manufacturing
enterprises in highly
market-oriented
regions and
enterprises in regions
with strong IP
protection. In low
marketisation regions,
the impact was
weaker, and in some
cases, even negative
Li, Meng &
Gong
(2025)
Chinese
Enhanced industrial
chain autonomous
controllability
Innovation
effect,
competition
effect and
resource effect
Bigger effect on
capital-technology-
intensive industry
chain, sectors
previously highly
reliant on foreign
supply chain and high-
profitability industry
chain
Xu, Wang
& Zhang
(2024)
Internatio
nal
Increased export
margins and export
competitiveness in
high-tech industries, a
“negligible and
insignificant drop in
prices”.
Intensive margin
and quantity
margin, but not
price or
extensive
margin.
N/D
Wang et
al. (2023)
Chinese
Improved urban green
development eiciency,
environmental
sustainability and green
economic growth in
pilot cities, but the
effect on optimising
energy consumption
structure was not
significant
Green
technology
progress,
upgrading
industrial
structure, and
strengthening
environmental
supervision
Stronger effect on
areas with high
manufacturing
agglomeration,
advanced industrial
intelligence, strong
digital finance systems
Yuan & Liu
(2024)
Internatio
nal
Improved urban green
development eiciency,
environmental
sustainability and green
economic growth in
pilot cities
Green
technology
progress,
upgrading
industrial
structure, and
strengthening
environmental
supervision
Stronger effect on
areas with high
manufacturing
agglomeration,
advanced industrial
intelligence, strong
digital finance systems
121
Zhang &
Yan (2025)
Chinese
In pilot cities, 7.75%
increase in carbon
emission eiciency,
enhanced labour
productivity in the
tertiary sector, more
advanced digital and
online management
models, enhanced
organisational eiciency
and reduced carbon
emissions, industrial
restructuring and
upgrading, increased
energy utilisation
eiciency
Improvements
in digitalisation
level,
government
support, human
capital, and
industrial
structure.
Stronger effect on
eastern and central
region, urban
agglomeration cities,
non-resource-based
cities
Xu (2022)
Internatio
nal
Improved green
innovation of
manufacturing
enterprises
Effect on
enterprises’
resources in the
form of taxes or
subsidies and
on their
motivation
through
corporate
identity,
represented by
CSR
Stronger effect on
SOEs, located in the
Eastern region and
with a high proportion
of independent
directors
Zhang &
Bian
(2024)
Chinese
Average annual
reduction in PM2.5
concentration and CO2
emissions, increased
level of coordinated
pollution and carbon
reduction governance
by 0.027 units per year.
Carbon reduction in
pilot cities
approximately brought
120.9 billion yuan in
economic and social
benefit.
Scale effects,
technological
effects,
structural
effects
Bigger effect on
Eastern and central
region, non-resource-
based cities. In Eastern
cities only carbon was
reduced and not
pollution. In resource
based cities carbon
emissions were not
reduced, but pollution
was.
122
Overall, the literature showed that MIC2025 has had positive effects. The
majority of the papers focused on innovation, R&D, and labour productivity,
underlining increases in innovation activities, such as patenting, and
substantial innovations, while also pointing out risks of ineicient
investments. Another pivotal theme was the heterogeneity of the outcomes.
The policy’s effects are not uniform: they tend to be stronger in regions with
higher levels of marketisation, better fiscal capacity, and more advanced
infrastructures. Similarly, non-SOEs and younger firms often appear to
benefit more in terms of innovation, while SOEs take greater advantage of
subsidies and financial support. MIC2025 has also supported green
development and emission reductions, although environmental outcomes
remain mixed. To sum it up, it’s possible to say that MIC2025 has clearly
accelerated China’s technological and industrial transformation, but its
results remain heterogeneous across regions, sectors, and ownership types,
and sometimes ineicient.
Branstette
r & Li
(2024)
Internatio
nal
Higher total subsidies
and innovation
subsidies, higher level
of R&D spending, R&D
sales ratio, U.S. utility
patent counts, TFP, total
assets. Did not result in
significant innovation
outcomes or eiciency
improvements beyond
what firms would have
achieved on their own.
N/D
Stronger on SOEs,
however treated firms
were already larger
and more R&D-
intensive and may
have been chosen for
MIC 2025 because of
their pre-existing
advantages, meaning
that China’s firms
would have perform
similarly without Made
in China 2025.
123
3.4 Conclusions
After the data’s analysis and the overview of the related literature, let’s try
to draw some conclusions and give an answer to the questions guiding this
thesis.
First of all, focusing on the area of innovation, the analysis revealed that
MIC2025 has achieved important progress: in only ten years, the share of
R&D spending doubled and in 2023 surpassed the targeted one. Scholars as
well underlined that MIC2025 has stimulated innovation and R&D, mainly
thanks to availability of financial support, such as subsidies, tax breaks, and
easier credit access. Demonstration Zones have increased innovation
through better industrial structures, talent aggregation, and digital
transformation. Nevertheless, in the short term, some ineiciencies were
observed, with part of the R&D investments not always immediately
translating into technological breakthroughs, thus highlighting the
complexity of innovation processes. The study of Branstetter and Li (2024)
stands out the most, arguing that MIC2025 reallocated existing subsidies
rather than increasing the total subsidy budget and that treated firms were
already larger and more R&D-intensive and may have been chosen because
of their pre-existing advantages, meaning that those firms would have
performed similarly without the policy intervention.
When it comes to patents, scholars sustain that there was a significant
increase in substantial patents (inventions), whereas symbolic patents have
seen less growth. From the research, it emerged that design patents only
slightly increased, utility models had the biggest increase, while the growth
of invention patents was still remarkable, but not as big, even if it was
continuous.
Looking at the area of quality, the results are uneven: Manufacturing
Quality Competitiveness index’s target has been reached, according to the
124
different interpretation of MVA, the goal could have been reached or not.
Lastly, when it comes to labour productivity, the objective was not achieved.
In the area of IT-industrial integration, the progress is truly evident: all the
indicators almost or already reached the target. More specifically,
penetration rate of digital design tools in R&D had a gap of less than 1% in
2024, while the use of CNC in key production processes as well as the
internet penetration rate already met the desired value one year in advance.
Lastly, the area of green production seems to be the most problematic
one. The only truly remarkable progress has been in the water usage
intensity, which decreased of almost ten percentage points more than the
targeted amount. However, reuse of solid industrial waste didn’t experience a
real improvement, and was even lower than the original percentage of 2013,
due to the huge increase in the total number of industrial waste produced.
My calculation of industrial energy intensity takes into consideration the
whole Chinese industry, and not only the enterprises above designated size,
yet, but it’s clear that the reduction was probably temporary. CO2 emissions
intensity reduced significantly in 10 years, but again, failed to reach the
targeted percentage.
Looking at scholars’ papers, it emerged that MIC2025 has had a
significant impact on China’s green development objectives. Some
improvements include reductions in PM2.5 concentrations, lower CO2
emissions and a broader adoption of green technologies. While the policy
effectively promoted industrial upgrading, and environmental regulation, its
influence on energy consumption structure was not significant and
businesses still rely on coal and other traditional energy sources.
The implementation of MIC2025 has significantly enhanced firm
productivity through a combination of resource effects and by intensifying
competition, collaborative innovation, breakthroughs in key core
technologies, and talent support systems. Firms experienced a significant
125
increase in TFP. It was proved that this new productivity translated into
product and competitive advantages in both intensive and extensive
margins. However, it emerged that labour-driven productivity gains have yet
to be fully realised.
The MIC2025 initiative has driven the transformation of industries,
contributing to the upgrading of industrial structures and the strengthening
of supply chain autonomy. Furthermore, it has promoted the integration of
information and communication technologies into traditional manufacturing
processes, fostering digitalisation across industries. However, uneven
opinion manifest over the availability of skilled workers.
Lastly, MIC2025 has positively influenced China's export performance, by
increasing the intensive margin. However, the initiative has had limited
effects on export prices due to intense international competition and has not
significantly expanded the range of export markets. Importantly, the policy
has contributed to an improvement of the perceived quality of Chinese
manufactured goods.
3.5 Researches on sector-specific targets
As already explained in the previous chapters of this thesis, after the
publication of the first oicial programme, other sector-specific targets were
added. While this research only focused on the original document, other
scholars and experts analysed the outcomes of the later, more detailed
objectives. In order to offer a comprehensive view and a complete
understanding of MIC2025, I reported in this chapter the results of some of
the most relevant targets, trying to insert the first programme within the
broader evolving framework of MIC2025.
A South China Morning Post investigation in April 2024 airmed that
more than 86% of the goals had already been accomplished, with others
126
likely to be completed by the end of 2025. More specifically, it appeared that,
over the past decade, China emerged as a global leader in electric vehicles,
shipbuilding, power generation equipment and high-speed rail (Zhang &
Peng, 2024). The country now produces over 60% of the world’s EVs, six of
the world’s top 10 battery makers are from China, while in shipbuilding,
Chinese firms control more than 50% of global orders by tonnage (Meloni,
2025).
China’s progress also includes advanced technologies. By 2023, China
was leading global research in 37 out of 44 critical technologies , according
43
to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker,
including nanoscale materials, 5G and 6G technologies, machine learning,
aircraft engines, electric batteries, biological manufacturing, artificial
intelligence (AI) algorithms, and autonomous systems (Wong, Gaida, Robin &
Cave, 2023). For example, last year DeepSeek unveiled an AI chatbot that
matched the capabilities of western AI models.
Research by Bloomberg Economics suggests that China has achieved
global leadership in 5 out of 13 critical technologies analysed, while
significantly closing the gap in 7 others (Bloomberg, 2024).
China also excels in defence and space-related technologies. According
to ASPI data analysis, over the past five years, China produced 48.49% of the
world’s high-impact research papers on advanced aircraft engines, including
hypersonics, and is home to seven of the world’s top 10 research institutions
in this topic area (Wong, Gaida, Robin & Cave, 2023).
Chinese brands have made significant progress in improving quality
standards and expanding internationally: in 2024, 50 Chinese brands
appeared on the World Brand Lab’s World’s 500 Most Influential Brands
Visit the Critical Technology Tracker site for a list and explanation of these 44 technologies: https://
43
techtracker.aspi.org.au/list-of-technologies/
127
ranking (Yang, 2024), while 69 were included in Brand Finance’s Global 500
report for 2025 (BrandFinance, 2025).
In its report, the European Chamber underlines that the success of
MIC2025 in some specific industries was heavily influenced by favourable
inherent conditions, such as a large domestic market for wind and solar
energy, which allowed companies to scale production quickly, benefit from
economies of scale and gain more advantages in comparison with FIEs
(European Chamber, 2025). This leads to another question: would China be
able to succeed in sectors lacking inherent advantages? The answer is not
sure, and that’s why the country keeps on updating and modifying sector-
specific plans, showing that MIC2025 never was a fixed plan, but more of a
working draft.
Nevertheless, success has been uneven. In the green manufacturing
area, progress was more limited, with thirteen out of sixteen targets having
been met (Khan, 2025). Other goals remain unfulfilled, including the use of
advanced photolithography technology in IC manufacturing, intercontinental
passenger aircraft, agricultural equipment, automated machine tools and
robotics and broadband internet satellite networks. When it comes to the
information technology industry, it was not possible to achieve
independence mainly because of US measures, and also aerospace and
aviation industries are still heavily dependent on Western companies, even if
some key milestones were achieved. In the automated machine tools and
robotics sector, in 2024, China surpassed Germany in the number of
industrial robots per 10,000 workers, now being at third place only after
South Korea and Singapore (International Federation of Robotics, 2024), but
didn’t achieve the government’s target, nor the one for CNC. Moreover, China
still relies on capital, talent, and technology from Western pharmaceutical
companies, but has made notable progress in specific areas of
biotechnology (The Asia Group, 2025).
128
Overall, according to Rhodium Group’s paper, it appears that China was
more successful in reducing import dependencies and achieving localisation
targets than in decreasing reliance on foreign companies. The country
pushed foreign firms to produce and do research in China, lowering exports:
from 2015 to 2023, US subsidiaries in China increased R&D spending by 77%
and value-added output by 43%. However, they kept their most advanced
technology abroad, meaning that China still needs to import some highly
specialised technology. In sectors like rail and power generation, import
dependencies have been completely eliminated, while in the biotech and
medical device sector, the dependency rate only slightly decreased from
39% in 2015 to 38% in 2023, and in aerospace from 41% to 40%. China has
reduced some import dependencies, but its push for industrial upgrading
has increased demand for advanced products: from 2015 to 2023, high-tech
exports grew from about US$ 650 billion to US$ 850 billion, while high-tech
imports from US$ 550 billion to US$ 690 billion (Boullenaois, Black & Rosen,
2025).
According to Camille Boullenois, associate director with Rhodium
Group’s China team, the success of the plan came at significant cost:
MIC2025 has deepened resource misallocation, propped up uncompetitive firms,
and contributed to structural overcapacity in key industries. Local authorities under
huge fiscal strain are now facing diicult trade-offs between advancing national
industrial priorities and fulfilling basic budgetary obligations. Sacrificing productivity
and growth may not be a sustainable strategy in the long term. (…) The costs of years
of low-return investments make it increasingly hard for Beijing to shift away from an
unproductive strategy.Increasing friction between China and its trading partners is
exacerbating pressures on its innovation and industrial ecosystems. (Kuo A., 2025)
Forcing companies to buy local can promote less competitive products
and weaken innovation. It appears that the exclusive focus on high-tech
industries has led to slow economic growths and overcapacity, as the fiscal
129
support for household consumption was minimum. Research estimates that
MIC2025 state support touched 4.5% of firms’ revenues in covered sectors, a
percentage much higher than the OECD average of 0.64%, while government
support through tax benefits reached average average annual rate of 28.8%
between 2018 and 2022 (Boullenaois, Black & Rosen, 2025).
Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in
China, also remarked the fact that the attempt to fulfil “Made in China 2025”
targets contributed to a phenomenon called “involution” (European
Chamber, 2025), a term which refers to destructive or unhealthy
competition: firms continue to invest resources not to gain competitive
advantage, but just to keep pace with rivals, without returns or innovation
gains. For example, the combination of subsidies and extensive policy
support has often led to ineiciencies within certain industrial sectors,
leading to overcapacity and market saturation.
These ineiciencies also have global implications: if subsidies and other
forms of policy support lead to market overcrowding, the country uses
exports in order to solve the problem. This, on one hand, is positive, because
it can make key technologies more affordable and accessible, but on the
other hand, it also exports many of the distortions generated. This dynamic
could lead to a long-term dependency on China, without any assurance that
these technologies will remain affordable or accessible in the future. For
Chinese companies the problem is different: domestic firms may
unknowingly transfer technological know-how abroad.
Still, MIC2025 must be recognised as a partial success , and this is a
44
source of concern for western countries. In the long term, China’s leadership
in strategic research will lead China not only to excel in current technologies
across nearly all sectors, but also in future technologies that have yet to
emerge.
For a more detailed analysis of sector-specific results, refer to appendix D.
44
130
In fact, Li Jingyi, Analyst and Portfolio Manager, underlined that:
(China) is still a hybrid economy in the midst of a change, and the drag from its badly
warped capital markets still hampers its potential. And for all its impressive
achievements over the last decade, its industries have largely reached parity with its
competitors, not surpassed them. The point is not that the race is over, it’s that the
race has changed. (…) Companies and countries can’t just maintain their old pace of
production and innovation. (Li, 2025)
The ASPI released an article where it airmed that if left unchecked, this
dominance could result in a global shift of technological leadership and
geopolitical influence toward an authoritarian state, in which the
development, testing and use of emerging, critical, and military technologies
would occur without transparency or accountability. In the short term,
China’s research advantage and its ability to translate scientific
breakthroughs into commercial products could enable it to dominate global
supply chains for key technologies. These risks are further amplified by the
Chinese Communist Party, which is willing to engage in specific tactics to
pressure foreign governments and businesses (Wong, Gaida, Robin & Cave,
2023). The institute even released a series of policy recommendations and
solutions for democratic nations, in order to catch up with China and avoid
its global dominance.
To sum up, it appears that MIC2025 was overall a success, and despite
not being able to reach all the targets and with some negative side effects,
China was able to show its true strength and determination, and, reinforcing
its position among the world’s most powerful nations.
131
Conclusions and future research
Ten years ago, it was almost impossible to find a Chinese-branded car in
our streets. “Made in China” was a synonym of low-quality, low-value and
cheap products, because China was highly dependent on foreign
technologies and unable to spur innovation on its own. Its manufacturing
sector was affected by structural weaknesses, deeply polluting, lacked
management and control mechanisms, thus was defined as “large but not
strong”. The country was slowly losing its comparative advantage, as wages
begun to rise after the financial crisis of 2008, and the danger of the “middle
income trap” was becoming more and more concerning. Other relevant
issues were the decline of GDP growth, the aging population, and the
growing pressure and competition from other countries.
Being aware of all these problems and weaknesses of the manufacturing
industry, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s
cabinet decided to issue “Made in China 2025” on 8 May 2015. It is the first of
a three-step strategic plan, according to which China will become a
manufacturing global superpower by 2049, year of the 100th anniversary of
the founding of the PRC. This plan aims at completely transforming the
Chinese manufacturing industry by reducing the dependence on foreign
technology, building global competitiveness and increasing innovation. The
plan targets ten strategic industries, evidently aims at “self-suiciency” and
specifies quantitative targets for both 2020 and 2025, divided into four
categories, namely innovation, quality, IT-Industrial integration and green
production.
This thesis tried to understand whether those objectives have been
achieved or not. However, several obstacles made the analysis incredibly
challenging: accessing empirical research and oicial data has been really
132
diicult, mainly because of barriers to the collection of information in China,
but also because of the impact of the China-US trade war, which led to the
disappearance of MIC2025 from the Chinese oicial media. As we were able
to find out, its coverage started disappearing just after the first
announcement of American tariffs on Chinese goods, which marked the
beginning of the trade war. In fact, even though the plan had the potential for
being a source of international cooperation and profit, it became a huge
concern for western countries, especially for the EU and the US. From their
perspective, the plan threatens their economic, technological, and strategic
interests, and is seen as an aggressive mechanism that aims at substituting
western technologies and dominate international markets. These countries
are concerned about forced technology transfers and acquisition, excessive
government intervention, unfair competition and discriminatory practises,
which can undercut foreign competitors and create overcapacity.
The US was deeply convinced that MIC2025 was a huge threat for their
security and for the democracy as a whole, and started a trade war with
China, which imposed other tariffs as a consequence. In 2020, an agreement
between the two countries was signed, and during the Biden administration,
from 20 January 2021, to 20 January 2025, the situation remained relatively
stable. However, with the return of Trump, US tariffs have risen by 34.2%, and
the relationship between the two countries is more unstable and tense than
ever before. The Trump administration actions however were not only limited
to tariffs, but there was also the implementation of a series of educational
restrictions, particularly targeting international students in STEM fields, in
order to prevent the theft of US intellectual property, and even the ban of
several Chinese companies in China, such as Huawei, but also in the
semiconductor field, which forbid US companies to sell the most advanced
chips and chip-making equipment to China without a special license.
Scholars and experts, however, sustain that Washington's efforts to constrain
133
China's tech industry have had the opposite effect. Wang Wen, Dean of
Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, airmed that
“trade and tech wars helped and speeded up the completion of Made in
China 2025. In other words, I think Trump has been helping to build a greater
China. (…) Trump gave China’s manufacturing industry a crisis and told
Chinese techies that you can’t have illusions, you can’t think that if you have
money, you can buy everything you want from the US. You can only create
things yourself.” (South China Morning Post, 2025)
The EU reacted as well, but with less aggressiveness. Several measures
and mechanisms were implemented in the following years, which, on one
hand, aimed at safeguarding acquired skills and knowledge, on the other, at
stimulating research and innovation and thus supporting European
competitiveness. However, as admitted by the European Parliament itself,
these measures are all profoundly limited, and weakened by the lack of one
strong and united European vision. As a consequence of this kind of
international reaction, the Chinese government's coverage of MIC2025
became increasingly limited. However, the project didn’t disappear from the
Chinese political dimension, and was only rebranded under the concepts of
“new productive forces”, “dual circulation” and “self-suiciency”, and
gradually aligned with China’s new policy priorities, as shown during the
Third Plenum in July 2025.
According to my analysis, the best results were registered in the area of
innovation and in the one of IT-industrial integration, whereas in the area of
quality, the results were uneven. Lastly, the green production area seemed to
be the most problematic one, with only one out of four targets reached. My
research is the second to analyse these targets: all of the available papers,
with the exception of one, were focused on the sector-specific targets. In
fact, more than 400 additional goals have been released through the years,
targeting more specific sectors, in several different documents. In contrast,
134
this thesis focused exclusively on the objectives of the original programme,
as the report from the European Chamber did. The results of their analysis
are identical to mine, with some exceptions: in the “green production” area, I
decided to calculate on my own the percentages of CO2 emissions intensity,
reuse of solid industrial waste, and used a proxy for the industrial energy
intensity, while they limited themselves to say if these targets were more or
less likely to be achieved. When it comes to the reuse of solid industrial
waste, their data stops at 2022, while my calculation takes into consideration
also 2023. In the area of quality, they just airmed that no oicial data was
available for the manufacturing productivity growth, while I calculated the
percentage on my own, and lastly, they reinterpreted the MVA indicator by
taking the 2015 annual growth rate (7%) as the baseline and assuming that
the target would therefore be 11% by 2025. However, in this case, the
indicator is not clear enough, and further researches on the topic are
needed. The rest of their report is again focused on sector-specific targets.
The majority of the literature on MIC2025 was published before 2017,
thus mainly focusing on its potential impact and negative effect. After, as a
consequence of the trade war, almost no paper on the topic was released.
Only in the last year, in 2025, international interest powerfully remerged,
showing the importance of MIC2025 for international policymakers and
economists. Overall, the literature showed that MIC2025 has had positive
effects. The majority focused on innovation, R&D, and labour productivity, but
also the heterogeneity of the outcomes. MIC2025 has supported green
development and emission reductions, although environmental outcomes
remain mixed, driven the transformation of industries and the integration of
information and communication technologies, but uneven opinion
manifested over the availability of skilled workers. It also emerged that the
policy has contributed to an improvement of the perceived quality of
Chinese manufactured goods.
135
In order to offer a complete understanding of MIC2025, I decided to
explore the results of some of the most relevant sector-specific targets as
well, topic of the most recent papers. Overall, MIC2025 was a success, and
despite not being able to reach all the targets and creating some negative
side effects, China was able to reinforce its position among the world’s most
powerful nations.
This research, nevertheless, has huge limitations, due to the
heterogeneity within China itself. Coastal cities and inland regions differ
greatly in terms of economic development, industrial capacity, infrastructure,
access to resources. Most studies rely on national averages, which may hide
significant regional disparities. It is therefore possible that the positive results
highlighted in the literature or shown in the data are mainly or even
exclusively driven by highly developed coastal cities. This means that the
overall picture may look more positive than it really is, and it raises doubts
about how the benefits of MIC2025 are actually spread across the country.
Future researches should focus on these regional disparities, analysing how
different areas and cities contributed to the results we obtained. This kind of
approach would not only give a more balanced picture of MIC2025, but also
raise awareness of the risk that the policy might deepen existing regional
gaps if most of the benefits continue to flow to already developed areas. In
the long run, research that highlights these differences could also offer useful
ideas for designing more inclusive policies that promote growth across the
whole country, not just in a few specific areas.
136
137
Appendix
138
Source: MERICS
Appendix A: political organisations behind Made in China 2025
139
CHEN, Eliot, “Made in China 2025” Unmade?, Macro
Polo, 2019, https://archivemacropolo.org/analysis/made-in-
china-2025-dropped-media-analysis/?rp=e, 16/11/2024
Appendix B: US and Chinese Media Coverage
of the “Made in China 2025” Initiative
Appendix C: Sector Specific Goals
New generation IT
By 2025, the new generation IT sector will achieve 80% domestic
market share in wireless mobile communication equipment, with
mobile chips reaching 40% and international market shares of 40,
45, and 20% for system equipment, terminals, and chips,
respectively.
Optical communication equipment will reach 60% global market
share, while routers and switches will achieve 25% international
market share.
High-performance computers and servers will dominate 80% of the
domestic market and 40% internationally, with high-end servers
exceeding 50% domestic market share and branded servers for
CPUs surpassing 30%.
Indigenous operating systems and industrial software will surpass
50% domestic adoption, and “Internet Plus” smart industrial cloud
usage will exceed 60% in key industries.
China will also ensure full domestic production of critical IT
infrastructure, including high-performance computing, software,
and hardware for financial services, telecommunications, and smart
cities.
High-end CNC
machine tools and
robots
By 2025, China aims to secure over 80% domestic market share for
high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment.
CNC system standards and intelligence will cover 80% and 30% of
the domestic market, respectively, while spindles, screws, rails, and
other medium- to high-grade components will achieve 80%
domestic market share.
In robotics, China plans to form a complete industrial ecosystem,
with indigenous industrial robotic brands capturing over 70% of the
domestic market and core components reaching the same share.
Technical indicators will meet international standards, with mean
time between failures (MTBF) reaching globally advanced levels.
Service robots will enter high-level production and have widespread
use across daily life, social services, and national defence, with
products available for export.
China will also target the development of next-generation robotic
prototypes, scaled demonstration projects, and aims to position 1 to
2 domestic companies among the global top 5.
140
Aerospace and
aviation equipment
By 2025, the annual revenue of the civil aviation industry is expected
to exceed CNY 200 billion (USD 27.6 billion).
The development, production, and delivery of 280-seat twin-aisle
mainline aircraft will be completed.
Mainline aircraft deliveries will account for over 10% of the domestic
market share.
Turboprop regional aircraft deliveries will make up 10 to 20% of the
global market share.
General aviation aircraft and helicopter deliveries will account for
40% and 15% of the global market share, respectively.
The production of airworthiness certification for the 1,000 kgf level
turbofan, the 1,000kW level turbofan, and other major products will
be completed
The model development of the 5,000kW level turbopro will be
completed.
The first indigenously developed advanced large-scale civil turbofan
for domestic commercial service will be achieved.
The regional aircraft airborne products will reach 30% market share
domestically.
General aircraft airborne products will have 50% market share.
Aircraft material and components will reach self-suiciency.
Ocean engineering
and high-tech ships
By 2025, China will become a powerful country in the manufacturing
of marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships and achieve a
qualitative leap from large to strong in the shipbuilding industry.
China will have more than 5 internationally renowned manufacturing
companies, and its design and manufacturing technologies in some
fields will be internationally leading.
The international market share of indigenously developed, designed,
and built marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships will
reach 40 and 50% respectively.
Also, the proportion of indigenous maritime engineering equipment
and high-technology ship critical systems and equipment will reach
50 and 80%, respectively.
The complete self- supporting ability for core equipment for marine
engineering above water equipment as well as for 1,500 meter
below-water production systems and specialised system
production and testing capability will be realised.
China will have production capability for extraction equipment for
marine mineral resources and national gas hydrate, wave/tidal
energy and other marine renewable resource development
equipment
Advanced rail
transport
equipment
By 2025, China’s rail transit equipment manufacturing industry will
establish a comprehensive and continuously innovative system.
Intelligent manufacturing models will be widely adopted in key
areas, and major products will reach internationally leading
standards.
Overseas business will account for 40% of total operations.
Service business will exceed 20% of total revenue.
China will lead the revision of international standards and build a
world- class modern rail transit equipment industry, securing a high-
end position in the global industrial chain.
141
Low-consumption
and new energy
autos
By 2025, annual sales of new energy vehicles will reach 3 million,
accounting for more than 80% of the domestic market.
By 2025, sales of 2 vehicle manufacturers will enter the top 10 in the
world, with overseas sales accounting for 10% of total sales.
By 2025, key systems such as power batteries and drive motors will
be exported in batches.
By 2025, we will master the overall technology and key technologies
of autonomous driving, establish a relatively complete independent
R&D system, production supporting system, and industrial cluster for
intelligent networked vehicles, and basically complete the
transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry.
Average fuel consumption of passenger-use vehicles should be
better than 4L/100km.
Domestically produced key parts should surpass 60% of the market.
3 enterprises with sales of energy-eicient vehicles will be in the top
5
Indigenous key products will reach 60% or the market, have energy-
eicient commercial vehicles that have internationally advanced
levels.
3 million annual production of NEVs on par with advanced
international standards (NMSAC, 2018)
Indigenous NEVs to reach over 90% of the market;
Product technology standards should be on par with global
standards,
Have 2 NEV enterprises that are in top 10 of global sales of first- class
car companies
Foreign sales should be 10% of total sales.
Power equipment
By 2025, China plans to establish 3 internationally competitive
enterprise groups with strong capital, scale, technology, quality,
brand advantages, and core competitiveness.
Additionally, the country aims for continuous innovation in the areas
of large-scale thermal, hydro, and nuclear power equipment in
efforts to reach world-leading standards.
Chinese domestic firms are also expected to achieve over 80%
market share for new energy and renewable energy equipment as
well as energy storage devices with independent intellectual
property rights.
Power transmission output value reach CNY 3 billion.
Domestic production of key parts reaches 90% or more of the
domestic market.
Power transmission complete equipment export proportion over
25%.
Product reliability and technological specifications to reach
international advanced levels.
142
Agricultural
equipment
By 2025, the total output value of the agricultural machinery industry
will have reached CNY 800 billion (USD 109.52 billion) and
domestically manufactured agricultural equipment will have met
95% or more of domestic market demand.
High-end products such as large tractors with over 200 horsepower
and cotton harvesters will achieve a market share of 60%.
Intelligent machinery for seeding, fertilization, plant protection, and
harvesting will be widely deployed, with the effective utilization rates
of fertilizers and pesticides exceeding 50%.
Comprehensively grasp core equipment manufacturing and machine
reliability of key technologies,
MTBF for tractors and combine harvesters increased to 350 hours
and 100 hours respectively.
New materials
By 2025, the industrial structure will be significantly adjusted, the
basic materials product structure will be upgraded, and the
domestic market share will exceed 90%.
Targets include advanced steel, advanced non-ferrous metal
materials, advanced petrochemical materials, advanced building
materials.
Also, by 2025, strategic materials required in key areas of high-end
manufacturing will have a domestic market share exceeding 85%.
Some products enter into global supply system, key varieties fill the
domestic void, achieve an indigenous IP system.
Achieve effective layout of cutting-edge materials technology,
standards and patents.
Cutting-edge materials achieve important breakthrough and
achieves applications of scale, some areas achieve global leading
standards.
Bio-pharm and high
performance (HP)
medial devices
By 2025, China aims to expand its manufacturing scale to CNY 1.2
trillion (USD 166 billion) and supply 70% of its medical device market
with domestically manufactured mid- and high-level equipment,
including MRI, CT scanners, surgical robots, and implants.
The country also plans to target 80% domestic production of core
components alongside significantly reducing reliance on imported
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs).
Additionally, China seeks to form 6 province-level industrial clusters,
each with an output value of hundreds of billions of yuan, alongside
30 demonstration and application bases.
They aim to develop 5 or more internationally recognised brands
across major product areas, industrialise 20 to 30 innovative new
drugs, with 5 to 10 indigenous drugs securing international
certification for global market entry.
China also aims to align its drug quality standards with international
benchmarks, advancing the development of chemical drugs,
traditional Chinese medicine, and biotech treatments for 10 major
diseases. The country will focus on establishing a stronger national
drug innovation system while promoting drug internationalisation.
Source: The Asia Group, U.S, Chamber of Commerce
Note: It takes into consideration Roadmap 15 and Roadmap 17.
Other documents are not included.
143
Appendix D: Results in MIC2025’s 10 strategic sector
New generation IT
High degree of self-reliance, but unable to manufacture
extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. Self-
suiciency rate less than 1% for computing and control chips,
8% for power and memory chips. China’s dependency on
foreign auto chip suppliers is 95%. Huawei and ZTE
surpassed the target of 80% of base station contracts from
Chinese telecommunications carriers.
High-end CNC machine
tools and robots
Industrial automation has increased but mainly thanks to
foreign technology. China accounted for 52% of global
installations of industrial robots, but didn’t achieve the 70%
target share of domestic market, reaching only 47%. Also
didn’t meet the goal of 80% domestic market share for CNC
machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment. By 2024,
domestic companies surpassed foreign firms in sales for the
first time. 33% of foreign high-end machinery and robot firms
(more than the average of 29% across MIC25 sectors) faced
Chinese competitors capable of producing equal or superior
products at comparable or lower prices. In 2023, China
reached a robot density of 470 robots per 10,000 workers
Aerospace and aviation
equipment
Key milestones include COMAC C919 passenger jet, which
however relies on 90% foreign suppliers, Fujian aircraft
carrier, and J-20 stealth fighter. COMAC struggles to fulfil
even domestic orders, and has not met its goal of delivering
a wide-body jet (C929). DJI is the world’s largest consumer
drone manufacturer, with more than 70% of global market
share, however helicopters are still in the early stages.
Ocean engineering and
high-tech ships
Is the world’s largest shipbuilding economy, with 71% of
global orders. South Korea continues to lead in the
construction of specialised vessels. China has the ability to
produce LNG-powered ships and was able to meet the target
of developing and testing a medium-sized luxury cruise ship,
namely the Adora Magic City.
Advanced rail transport
equipment
High degree of self-reliance, with only a few train
components that must still be imported. "Fuxing" Electric
Multiple Unit (EMU) high-speed trains were introduced in
2017 and are considered one of the world's fastest
commercially operated trains. China Railway Rolling Stock
Corporation (CRRC), accounted for two-thirds to three-
quarters of all deliveries in the global high-speed rail market
over the last decade and in 2022 holder more than 50% of
global market share
144
Low-consumption and new
energy autos
Produces more than 60% of the world’s EVs, 80% of the
world’s EV batteries. In 2024, EV sales in China reached 11
million, up 40% from 2023. In the first eight months of 2024,
Chinese firm BYD led the domestic NEV market with almost
35% market share, and the total market with over 15% market
share. Six of the world’s top 10 battery makers are from
China. Still relies largely on imported chips for vehicles.
Chinese firms still lag in the ICE vehicle segment. Through
the first eight months of 2024, foreign firms accounted for
around 60% of the total domestic ICE market. The share of
Chinese ICE exports has remained between 2023 and 2024
at 4.7%. In 2023, China accounted for 58% of the 13.7 million
global sales of passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and
plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)
Power equipment
High degree of self-reliance in wind and solar, but still lags
behind in some aspects of nuclear energy technology. Holds
an over 80% share in all solar panel manufacturing stages
and accounts for 65% of global production capacity of wind
turbine. China met both the targets of producing a 10 MWe
wind turbine and 50–150 MWe single solar thermal power
tower, respectively with a 16 MWe wind turbine in 2023 and a
solar tower with 110 MWe in solar thermal capacity in 2024.
However, the target of producing a a 2,000 MWe nuclear
reactor wasn’t reached.
Agricultural equipment
Still behind European in terms of quality for some product
categories, has not met the goal of achieving over 50%
effective utilisation rates for fertilisers and pesticides,
reaching respectively 42.6% in 2024 and 41% in 2023. Didn’t
achieve the goal of having 95% share of the domestic market
demand for domestically manufactured agricultural
equipment, which account for less than 25%. There was a
targeted mechanisation rate of about 80% for the planting,
growing and harvesting of key crops, but in 2024, the rate for
harvesting of key crops of wheat, corn and rice surpassed
the target at 97, 90 and 86% respectively, while for planting
were lower. Overall, China was able to satisfy around 90% of
domestic demand in 2023, close to the goal it had set. The
share of agricultural machinery imports relative to the total
market size has decreased significantly, from 7% in 2016 to
3% in 2023
New materials
From 2012 to 2022, the industry grew nearly sixfold, has
become a world leader in advanced carbon fibre, going from
less than 1% of global production in 2010, to 43% in 2023.
Failed to make key breakthroughs, Chinese institutions have
led in publishing high-quality research papers, but had
trouble producing. A high proportion of Chamber members
report that Chinese competitors can produce similar
products, but sometimes of lower quality.
145
Bio-pharm and high
performance (HP) medial
devices
Still relies on capital, talent, and technology from Western
pharmaceutical companies, struggles with producing novel
drugs. Notable progress in specific areas of biotechnology,
leader in the production of active pharmaceutical
ingredients used in generic drugs and in gene-sequencing
technology and services. Products tend to have low-quality
and high-price. As of 2021, only eight Chinese innovative
biotech drugs had been approved in China, six of them in
2021. China also remains dependent on imported drugs in
several areas. For example, as of mid-2022, China’s market
for antimicrobial peptides was made up of 66% imported
new drugs, 6% domestic new drugs, and 28% domestic
generic drugs. Similarly, the Chinese market for monoclonal
antibody drugs is still dominated by imported products,
accounting for about 80% in 2023. The target of producing
20-30 domestic innovative drugs by 2025 was already met in
2019. In 2021, the number of domestic innovative drugs
approved in China (39) surpassed that of foreign companies
(30) for the first time.
Source: European Chamber, The Asia Group, Rhodium Group
146
Source: BOULLENAOIS, Camille, BLACK, Malcolm, ROSEN, H. Daniel, “Was Made in China 2025
Successful?”, Rhodium Group, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2025, p. 28
Bibliography
AGARWALA, Nitin, CHAUDHARY, Rana Divyank, “ ‘Made in China 2025’:
Poised for Success?”, in India Quarterly, 2021, 77, 3, pp. 424–461
AGGRWAL, Sakshi, “Smiling curve and its linkages with Global Value
chains”, in MPRA, No. 79324, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, 2017
AL PUTRA, Ferdian Ahya, PRAKOSO, Septyanto Galan, DEVI, Rahma
Sintya, “ ‘Made in China 2025 Initiative’ and Dual Circulation Economy:
Reducing Dependence on U.S. Technology”, in Global Strategies, 2024, 18, 2,
pp. 383-408
AMIGHINI, Alessia, BERKOFSKY, Axel (edited by), Xi’s Policy Gambles: The
Bumpy Road Ahead, ISPI, 2015, pp. 50-64
BELTON, B. Keith, GRAHAM, D. John, XIA, Suri, “ ‘Made in China 2025’ and
the Limitations of US Trade Policy”, 2020
BORDONE, Sandro, “La lotta per la successione a Mao e la fine del
Maoismo”, in Il Politico, 2006, 71, 3, pp. 5-39
BOULLENAOIS, Camille, BLACK, Malcolm, ROSEN, H. Daniel, “Was Made
in China 2025 Successful?”, Rhodium Group, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
2025
BOWN, P. Chad, KOLB, Melina, “Trump’s Trade War Timeline: An up-to-
date guide”, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), Updated
January 20, 2025
BRANSTETTER, G. Lee, LI, Guangwei, “Does ‘Made in China 2025’ work
for China? Evidence from Chinese listed firms”, Research policy, 53, 2024, pp.
1-13
BRØDSGAARD, Erik Kjeld, RUTTEN, Koen, “From Accelerated
Accumulation to Socialist Market Economy in China: Economic Discourse
and Development from 1953 to the Present”, 2017
147
CAI, Peter, “Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, Lowy
Institute for International Policy, 2017
CAO, Qianwen, ZENG, Junping ,, difang changye zhengce yu
chengshi chuangxin - jiyu “zhongguo zhizao 2025” guojia ji shifan qu
zhengce de zhun ziran shiyan ——2025 (Local industrial policies and urban
innovation: a quasi-natural experiment based on the policy of “Made in China
2025” National Demonstration Zone), in Jingji wenti tansuo, 2025, pp. 128-140
CHEN, W. Anthony, CHEN, Jim, DONDETI, V. Reddy, “The US-China trade
war: dominance of trade or technology?”, Applied Economics Letter, 27, 11,
2020, pp. 904-909
CHEN, Kejing, MENG, Qiaoshuang, SUN, Yutao, WAN, Qingqing, “How
does industrial policy experimentation influence innovation performance? A
case of Made in China 2025”, in Humanities and social sciences
communications, 11, 40, 2024, pp. 1-17
CHEN, Xiaoyu, WANG, Zhengwei, CHEN, Juan , , ,
zhizaoye zhuanxing shengji yu xin zhi shengchanli fazhan — laizi qiye ‘guanli
ceng fenxi yu taolun’ wenben de zhengju —
(Transformation and upgrading of
manufacturing industry and development of new quality productivity:
Evidence from management discussion and analysis texts), in Chanye jingji
pinglun, 2025, pp. 28-48
CHENG, Enfu, GAO Jiankun, “Comments on and Prospects for China's
Current Macroeconomic Development: Ten Measures to Guide the Economic
New Normal”, in World Review of Political Economy, 7, 3, 2016, pp. 320-333
CHOW, C. Gregory, “China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development:
1978-2018”, 2018
148
CONSIGLIO, Elena, “Il segreto del successo politico di Deng Xiaoping :
uno sguardo alla recente storia politica cinese”, in Giornale di bordo, di storia,
letteratura ed arte, 47/48, 1/2, 2019, pp. 149-151
DAI, Kuizao, CHEN, Ali, YANG, Xinyu , , , “gongneng
xing chanye zhengce neng fou cujin qiye shengchanlu zengzhang—jiyu
‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ de zhun ziran shiyan” — 2025 (Can functional industrial
policy promote firm productivity growth? A quasi-natural Experiment Based
on Made in China 2025), in Nankai economic studies, 2, 2024, pp. 43-63
DING, Sai, GUARIGLIA, Alessandra, KNIGHT, John, “Does China
overinvest? Evidence from a panel of Chinese firms”, 2010
ERYILMAZ, Filiz, ERYILMAZ, Mehmet Eymen, “A Discussion about the
Possible Effect of Middle Income Trap on Large Scale Firms’ Selection of
Competitive Strategy”, in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 207,
2015, pp. 598–607
European Chamber, “China Manufacturing 2025. Putting industrial policy
ahead of market forces”, 2017
European Chamber, “Made in China 2025 the cost of technology
leadership”, 2025
European Commission, “China, challenges and prospects from an
industrial and innovation powerhouse”, 2019
FASULO, Filippo, FERIGOLLI, Sofia, COPPOLA, Francesca, FANALI, Chiara
GUAZZOTTI, Paolo, NEGRI, Valeria, “Made in China 2025: quadro generale e
implicazioni per la Lombardia”, Assolombarda, Fondazione Italia Cina, 2019
FENG, Lei, ZHANG, Xuehui, ZHOU, Kaige, “Current problems in China’s
manufacturing and countermeasures for industry 4.0”, in EURASIP Journal on
Wireless Communications and Networking, 2018, pp. 1-6
149
FRIETSCH, Rainer, “The development of China’s R&I system in the past 10
years”, Fraunhofer ISI Discussion Papers Innovation Systems and Policy
Analysis, 62, 2020
GIACCONI, D. Guido, “Made in China 2025 Unveiled: China breakthrough
industrial strategy for the next decades – Impact on the world economy,
opportunities and threats for Italian industries”, in3act, 2017
GLASER, S. Bonnie, “Made in China 2025 and the Future of American
Industry”, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2019
GODEMENT, François, VENDRYES, Thomas, MA, Hongmei, KRATZ,
Agatha, GARCIA-HERRERO, Alicia, “China: Hitting the Middle Income Wall”,
European Council on Foreign Relations, 2015
HANEMANN, Thilo, HUOTARI, Mikko, KRATZ, Agatha, “Chinese FDI in
Europe: 2018 trends and impact of new screening policies”, in Merics, 2019
HUANG, Jianbin, SONG, Tiebo, YAO, Hao , , , “zhineng
zhizao zhengce nengfou tisheng qiye quan yaosu shengchanlu?” ? (Can intelligent manufacturing policy increase
the total factor productivity?), in Studies in Science of Science, 40, 3, 2022,
pp. 433-442
HUANG, Qunhui, “A Few Comments on China’s Manufacturing Industry
Development and Technology Transfer”, Institute of Industrial Economics of
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2018
HUANG, Qunhui, “Understanding China’s Manufacturing Industry”, China
Insights, China social sciences press, 2022
JAIN, Romi, “China’s Economic Development Policies, Challenges and
Strategies, 1978-present: An Overview”, in Indian Journal of Asian Aûairs, 30,
1/2, 2017, pp. 65-84
KIM, Chongsup, LEE, Seungho, “Different Paths of Deindustrialization:
Latin American and Southeast Asian Countries from a Comparative
Perspective”, Journal of International and Area Studies, 21, 2, 2014
150
KUO, Chu-Chi, SHYU, Z. Joseph, DING, Kun, “Industrial revitalisation via
industry 4.0 — A comparative policy analysis among China, Germany and the
USA”, Global Transitions 1, 2019, pp. 3-14
LEI, Liping , “quwei daoxiang xing chanye zhengce nenggou cujin
chengshi shuzi chuangxin ma?” (Can Location-oriented Industrial Policies Promote Urban Digital Innovation?),
in xuexi yu shijian, 12, 2024, pp. 46-56
LEWIS, James, “Section 301 Investigation: China’s acts, policies and
practises related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and
innovation”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017
LI, JianMENG, WenyuGONG, Xue , ,, “chanye zhengce
shifou tishengle zhizao ye chanye lian zizhu ke kong nengli?—Jiyu ‘zhongguo
zhizao 2025’ de zhun ziran shiyan”?— 2025 Does Industrial Policy Enhance
the Autonomous Controllability of the Manufacturing Industry Chain—A
Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on " Made in China 2025”), in Qiye guanli,
2025, pp. 150-160
LI, Yuan, HE, Zhigao, “The Remaking of China–Europe Relations in the
New Era of US–China Antagonism”, Journal of Chinese Political Science, 27,
2022, pp. 439–455
LING, Li, “China's manufacturing locus in 2025: With a comparison of
‘Made-in-China 2025’ and ’Industry 4.0’ “, in Technological Forecasting &
Social Change, 135, 2018, pp. 66–74
LIU, Bingbing, LIU, Jiejiao , , ”quwei daoxiang xing chanye
zhengce de chuangxin qudong xiaoying —jiyu ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ guojia
ji shifan qu zhengce de zhun ziran shiyan” — 2025 (Innovation-driven
effects of location-oriented industrial policies: quasi-natural experiment
151
based on the policy of “Made in China 2025” National Demonstration Zone),
in Chanye jingji yanjiu, 2023, pp. 1-14
LIU, Kerry, “Chinese manufacturing in the shadow of the China-US trade
war”, Economic aûairs, Institute of Economic Affairs, 38, 3, 2018, pp. 307-324
MA, Yungao, XIA, Liyu, MENG, Weixuan, “Research on China’s
Manufacturing Industry Upgrading from the Global Perspective”, in IOP Conf.
Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 295, 2019, pp. 1-4
MALKIN, Anton, “Made in China 2025 as a Challenge in Global Trade
Governance:Analysis and Recommendations”, Centre for International
Governance Innovation, 183, 2018
MALKIN, Anton, “The made in China challenge to US structural power:
industrial policy, intellectual property and multinational corporations”,
Review of International Political Economy, 29, 2, 2022, pp. 538–570
MOHANTY, Manoranjan, “'Harmonious Society': Hu Jintao's Vision and the
Chinese Party Congress”, in Economic and Political Weekly, 47, 50, 2012, pp.
12-16
PAN, Lingyun , “chanye zhengce yu qiye shengchanlu — laizi
‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ banbu de zhun ziran shiyan” —
2025 (The “made in China 2025” plan and
firm productivity), in Jingji xuebao, 10, 4, 2023, pp. 284-304
QUAN, Xiaolei, “Research on the Manufacturing Development in China
under the US-China Trade War”, in BCP Business & Management, 26, 2022,
pp. 453-461
RASHIDIN, Salamun, JAVED, Sara, “ ‘Made in China 2025’ Strategy and
Trade Hostility: The United States VS China”, in Asian Journal of Business
Research, 10, 3, 2020, pp. 1-23
RUI, Mingjie, HAN, Jialing , , “chanye zhengce dui qiye yanfa
chuangxin de yingxiang yanjiu - jiyu cujin chuangxin xinxing chanye zhengce
‘xinxin xiaoying’ de shejiao” Ñ
152
(Research on the Impact of Industrial Policy on
Firms’ R&D—Based on the Confidence Effects of Innovation- promoting
Industrial Policy), in Research on Economics and Management, 41, 9, 2020,
pp. 78-97
SCHWAB, Klaus, SALA-I-MARTIN, Xavier, “The Global Competitiveness
Report 2014–2015”, Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2015
SU, Yumin, LIU, Zhenwei, WANG, Wei , , , “zhineng
zhizao chanye zhengce dui qiye shuzi jishu chuangxin de yingxiang yanjiu” (Research on the Impact of
Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Policy on Enterprise Digital Technology
Innovation), in Jinrong yu jingji, 2024, pp. 74-83
The Asia Group, “China’s Industrial Evolution: A Scorecard for 'Made in
China 2025’ ”, 2025
TIAN, Wei, HEI, Ye, “Trade protectionism and export adjustment on the
extensive margin: An analysis based on the China–US trade war”, in Asian
Economic Papers, 22, 1, 2023, pp. 11–32
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “Made in China 2025: Global Ambitions
Built on Local Protections”, 2017
WANG, Huiyan, CHEN You , , “chanye zhengce dui zhizao ye
qiye zhuanxing shengji de yingxiang yanjiu—jīyu ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ de
zhun ziran shiyan” —2025 (Research on the Impact of Industrial Policy on the
Transformation and Upgrading of Manufacturing Enterprises— A Quasi-
Natural Experiment Based on Made in China 2025), in Henan caizheng shuiwu
gaodeng zhuanke xuexiao xuebao, 37, 6, 2023, pp. 34-47
WANG, Lina, ZHAO, Hengyuan, “Comparative Analysis on Development
and Policy in Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Among China, the United
States, Japan and Germany”, in Proceedings of the 2022 2nd International
153
Conference on Economic Development and Business Culture (ICEDBC 2022),
2022, pp. 760-765
WANG, Weilong, WANG, Jianlong, XIE, Chengxing, LI, Zhongfeng ,
, , , “ ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ shidian shifan chengshi
jianshe dui chengshi luse fazhan xiaolu de yingxiang” 2025 (Impact of ‘Made in China 2025’ pilot
demonstration city construction on urban green development eiciency), in
China population, resources and environment, 33, 9, 2023, pp. 147-158
WEI, Shang Jin, ZHUAN, Xie, ZHANG, Xiaobo, “From “Made in China” to
“Innovated in China”: Necessity, Prospect, and Challenges”, Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 31, 1, 2017, pp. 49–70
WEI, Xiangjie, CHENG, Qi ,, , “chanye zhengce, xinhao xiaoying
yu qiye chuangxin —jiyu ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ zhun ziran shiyan” — 2025 (Industrial
policy, signal effect and enterprise innovation-based on the quasi-natural
experiment of “China Manufacturing 2025”), in Guangli pinglun, 35, 8, 2023,
pp. 117-130
WEN, Huwei, ZHAO, Zhao, “How does China’s industrial policy affect
firms’ R&D investment? Evidence from ‘Made in China 2025’”, in Applied
Economics, 53, 55, 2021, pp. 6333-6347
WRIGHT, Thomas, “Europe changes its mind on China”, Global China,
2020
WUBBEKE, Jost, MEISSNER, Mirjam, ZENGLEIN, J. Max, IVES, Jaqueline,
CONRAD, Björn, “Made in China 2025 The making of a high-tech superpower
and consequences for industrial countries”, in MERICS, 2, 2016
XING, Yuqing, “The People’s Republic of China’s High-Tech Exports: Myth
and Reality”, ADBI Working Paper 357, Tokyo: Asian Development Bank
Institute, 2012, pp. 1-11
154
XIONG, Yingzi, ZHANG, Bingqian, TANG, Yanzhao , , , “
‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ zhengce shifou cujin qiye jishu chuangxin?” 2025(Does the "Made in China 2025" Policy
Promote Technological Innovation of Enterprises?), in Chuangxin keji, 21, 4,
2021, pp. 19-32
XU, Lanxiang, “Towards Green Innovation by China’s Industrial Policy:
Evidence From Made in China 2025”, in Frontiers in Environmental Science,
2022, pp. 1-10
XU, Xing, WANG, Qihu, ZHANG, Ming, “The complementary effects of
‘Made in China 2025’ industrial policy and trade liberalisation on China’s
export of relevant products”, in Asian Journal of Technology Innovation, 2024,
pp. 1-30
YUAN, Jie, LIU, Shucheng, “A double machine learning model for
measuring the impact of the Made in China 2025 strategy on green
economic growth”, in Nature portfolio, 2024, pp. 1-16
ZENGLEIN, J. Max, HOLZMANN, Anna, “Evolving Made in China: China’s
industrial policy in the quest for global tech leadership”, in Merics, 8, 2019
ZHANG, Qianhua, BIAN, Zhiqiang , , “quwei daoxiang xing
chanye zhengce de jian wu jiang tan xietong xiaoying” (Synergistic Effect of Location-oriented Industrial Policies
on Pollution and Carbon Reduction), in Huangjing kexue, 2024
ZHANG, Yue, YAN, Mengke , , “ ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ shidian
shifan chengshi jianshe dui chengshi tan paifang xiaolu de yingxiang yanjiu”
2025 (Study on
the Impact of the Construction of "Made in China 2025" Pilot Demonstration
Cities on Urban Carbon Emission eiciency), in Journal of Chengdu university
of technology (social sciences), 33, 1, 2025, pp. 61-73
155
ZHAO, Fuquan, LIU, Zongwei , , “gongye 4.0 langchao xia
zhongguo zhizao ye zhuanxing celue yanjiu” 4.0 (Industrial Transformation Strategy for the manufacturing sector of
China in the tide of Industry 4.0), in Zhongguo kei luntuan, 2016, 1, pp. 58-62
156
Sitography
Attualità Parlamento Europeo, “Un nuovo strumento commerciale per
difendere l'UE dal ricatto economico”, 2023, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/
news/it/press-room/20230929IPR06122/un-nuovo-strumento-commerciale-
per-difendere-l-ue-dal-ricatto-economico, 19/08/2025
BATTAGLINI, Simone, “Made in China 2025: bilancio e obiettivi futuri”,
IARI Istituto Analisi Relazioni Internazionali, 2025, https://iari.site/2024/08/25/
made-in-china-2025-bilancio-e-obbiettivi-futuri/, 22/07/2025
Bloomberg, “US Efforts to Contain Xi’s Push for Tech Supremacy Are
Faltering”, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-us-china-
containment/, 07/08/2025
Boston Consulting Group, "Embracing Industry 4.0 and Rediscovering
Growth”, https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/manufacturing/industry-4.0,
12/10/2024
BOWN, P. Chad, “US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart”, PIIE,
2025, https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2019/us-china-trade-war-
tariffs-date-chart, 16/07/2025
Brand Finance, “Rising giants: Brands from China assert their global
influence”, 2025, https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/rising-giants-
brands-from-china-assert-their-global-influence, 25/07/2025
CACCAVELLO, Giovanni, “Cina 1978 – 2018, così da Deng a Xi ha vinto
l’abbraccio al capitalismo”, Econopoly, Il Sole 24 Ore, 2018, https://
www.econopoly.ilsole24ore.com/2018/12/30/rivoluzione-cina-deng-xiaoping-
xi-capitalismo/?refresh_ce=1, 11/02/2025
CAPACCIO, Anthony, “U.S. Faces ‘Unprecedented Threat’ From China on
Tech Takeover”, Bloomberg, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/
157
articles/2018-06-22/china-s-thousand-talents-called-key-in-seizing-u-s-
expertise, 10/03/2025
Ceicdata, https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/industrial-solid-wastes-
produced/cn-industrial-solid-waste-produced, 20/10/2024
Ceicdata, https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/water-resource/cn-water-
consumption-industry, 25/11/2024
Ceicdata, https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/labour-
productivity-growth, 12/11/2024
Ceicdata, https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/energy-consumption/cn-
energy-consumption-industry, 24/07/2025
CHEE, Foo Yun, “Breton urges more EU countries to ban Huawei, ZTE
from networks, Reuters, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/media-
telecom/eu-countries-decision-ban-huawei-zte-networks-justified-eus-
breton-says-2023-06-15/, 15/09/2025
CHEN, Eliot, “Made in China 2025” Unmade?, Macro Polo, 2019, https://
archivemacropolo.org/analysis/made-in-china-2025-dropped-media-
analysis/?rp=e, 16/11/2024
CHENG, Evelyn, “Where ‘Made in China 2025’ missed the mark”, CNBC,
2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/18/where-made-in-china-2025-missed-
the-mark.html, 26/07/2025
CHIANG, Sheila, “China’s new guidelines block Intel and AMD chips in
government computers: FT”, 2024, https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/
chinas-new-guidelines-will-block-intel-and-amd-chips-in-government-
computers-ft.html, 21/08/2025
China Daily, “Made in China 2025’ plan Unveiled”, 2015, https://
www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2015-05/19/content_20760528.htm,
02/11/2024
China Digital Times, “Zhenli bu guanyu zhong mei maoyi zhan deng”, (Propaganda Department Regarding the China–U.S.
158
Trade War), 2018, https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/587947.html,
16/11/2024
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), “Statistical Report
on I n ternet Developm e n t in China (Janu a r y 201 5 ) ”, htt p s ://
w w w . c n n i c . c o m . c n / I D R / R e p o r t D o w n l o a d s / 2 0 1 5 0 7 /
P020150720486421654597.pdf, 2015, 14/06/2025
China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), https://
english.cnipa.gov.cn/col/col3050/index.html, https://english.cnipa.gov.cn/
jianbao/year2020/b/b1.html, 14/06/2025
Chinese Communist Party News, “Xi Jinping: Speech at the 17th
Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 12th Conference of the
Chinese Academy of Engineering”, 2014, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/
2014/0610/c64094-25125594.html, 12/10/2024
DAVIS, Bob, “When the World Opened the Gates of China”, The Wall
Street Journal, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-world-opened-
the-gates-of-china-1532701482?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3,
10/12/2024
European Commission, “Communication from the commission to the
European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European
Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions,
Welcoming Foreign Direct Investment while Protecting Essential Interests”,
Brussels, 2017, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?
uri=COM:2017:0494:FIN:EN:PDF, 17/06/2025
European Commission, “State of play of EU-China relations”, 2019a,
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/633149/
EPRS_BRI%282019%29633149_EN.pdf, 17/08/2025
European Commission, “EU-China — Strategic Outlook”, 2019b, https://
commission.europa.eu/system/files/2019-03/communication-eu-china-a-
strategic-outlook.pdf, 17/08/2025
159
European Commission, “China: Challenges and prospects from an
industrial and innovation powerhouse”, 2019c, https://op.europa.eu/en/
publication-detail/-/publication/c89434b2-88cd-11e9-9369-01aa75ed71a1/
language-en, 10/06/2025
European Commission, “Foreign Subsidies Regulation”, 2023, https://
competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/foreign-subsidies-regulation_en,
20/08/2025
European Commission, “Corporate sustainability due diligence”, 2024,
https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/doing-business-eu/
sustainability-due-diligence-responsible-business/corporate-sustainability-
due-diligence_en, 20/08/2025
European Parliament, "Industry 4.0 Digitalisation for productivity and
growth”, 2015, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/
2015/568337/EPRS_BRI(2015)568337_EN.pdf, 10/06/2025
European Parliament, “EU-China relations: De-risking or de-coupling —
the future of the EU strategy towards China”, 2024
EZELL, Stephen, “How innovative is China in semiconductors?”, ITIF,
2024, https://itif.org/publications/2024/08/19/how-innovative-is-china-in-
semiconductors/, 10/03/2025
GARCIA-HERRERO, Alicia, VASSALIER, Abigaël, “Updating the EU strategy
on China: co-existence while derisking through partnerships”, Bruegel, 2024,
https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/updating-eu-strategy-china-co-
existence-while-derisking-through-partnerships?utm, 20/08/2025
GREGORY, C. Allen, “The True Impact of Allied Export Controls on the
U.S. and Chinese Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Industries”, CSIS,
2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/true-impact-allied-export-controls-us-
and-chinese-semiconductor-manufacturing-equipment, 11/11/2024
160
HASS, Ryan, “China is not ten feet tall”, in Foreign aûairs, 2021, https://
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-03-03/china-not-ten-feet-tall,
15/01/2025
HOPEWELL, Kristen, “What is ‘Made in China 2025’ and why is it a threat
to Trump’s trade goals?”, The Washington Post, 2018, https://
www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/05/03/what-is-
made-in-china-2025-and-why-is-it-a-threat-to-trumps-trade-goals/,
18/07/2025
IKE, Ijeh, “Technical Study: The world's first 3D-printed house, by CLS
Architetti”, in Building Design, 2018, https://www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/
technical-study-the-worlds-first-3d-printed-house-by-cls-architetti/
5093398.article, 20/11/2024
KENNEDY, Scott, “Made in China 2025”, Center for Strategic International
Studies (CSIS), 2015, https://www.csis.org/analysis/made-china-2025,
12/11/2024
KHAN, Safia, “Lessons from ‘Made in China 2025’: Will China Achieve its
Vision fro 2035?”, The Yale Review of International Studies, 2025, https://
yris.yira.org/column/lessons-from-made-in-china-2025-will-china-achieve-its-
vision-for-2035/, 25/07/2025
KUO, Kaiser, “Made in China 2.0: the future of global manufacturing?”, in
World Economic Forum, 2025, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/06/
how-china-is-reinventing-the-future-of-global-manufacturing/, 21/07/2025
KUO, A. Mercy, “Assessing the Success of ‘Made In China 2025’“, The
Diplomat, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/assessing-the-success-of-
made-in-china-2025/, 25/07/2025
KUO, A. Mercy, “CFIUS and China: The FIRRMA Factor”, The Diplomat,
2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/cfius-and-china-the-firrma-factor/,
21/08/2025
161
LI, Jingyi, “Beyond ‘Made in China 2025’”, Harding Loevner, 2025, https://
www.hardingloevner.com/out-of-our-minds/beyond-made-in-china-2025/,
24/07/2025
MCBRIDE, James, CHATZKY, Andrew, “Is ‘Made in China 2025’ a Threat to
Global Trade?”, Council on foreign relations, 2019, https://www.cfr.org/
backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade, 18/07/2025
MCBRIDE, James, CHATZKY, Andrew, “How Are Trade Disputes
Resolved?”, Council on foreign relations, 2020, https://www.cfr.org/
backgrounder/how-are-trade-disputes-resolved
MCCABE, David, “F.C.C. Designates Huawei and ZTE as National Security
Threats, New York Times, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/
technology/fcc-huawei-zte-national-security.html, 15/09/2025
MELONI, Matteo, ““Made in China 2025”: A Decade of Industrial Policy
and I t s G e o p o l i t i c a l Effects”, S p e c i a l e u r a s i a , 2025, h t t p s : //
www.specialeurasia.com/2025/05/02/made-in-china-2025/, 24/07/2025
Ministry of Ecology and Environment, "Report on the State of the Ecology
and Environment in China”, 2024, https://english.mee.gov.cn/Resources/
Reports/soe/SOEE2019/202408/P020240828593686591369.pdf, 13/03/2025
Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, “woguo sheli
xianjin zhizao ye chanye touzi jijin” (China
has set up an advanced manufacturing industry investment fund), 2016,
ht tps://www.mof.gov.cn/z he ngwuxinxi/caizhengxinwen/201607/
t20160715_2358336.htm, 21/07/2025
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, “2024 nian tongxin ye
tongji gongbao jiedu: tongxin ye gao zhiliang fazhan zai shang xin taijie”
2024 (Interpretation of
the Communications Industry Statistical Bulletin 2024: High-quality
development of the communications industry reaches a new level), 2025,
162
h t t p s : / / t j c a . m i i t . g o v . c n / x w d t / x y d t / a r t / 2 0 2 5 /
art_7c884a9bfb1f4fb6a939f76ec6059d86.html, 06/08/2025
MYLLYVIRTA, Lauri, “How China completely redefined a key energy
target”, in Dialogue Earth, 2024, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/how-china-
completely-redefined-a-key-energy-target/, 30/04/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “di wu ci quanguo jingji pucha gongbao (di
liu hao) — — bufen xinxing chanye fazhan qingkuang” —— (Fifth National Economic Census
Bulletin (No. 6) – Development of New Industries), 2024, https://
www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202412/t20241226_1957891.html, 6/08/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “Statistical Communiqué of the People’s
Republic of China on the 2024 national economic and social development”,
202 5, h ttps ://www.stat s.g ov.c n/en glis h /PressRele a se/202502/
t20250228_1958822.html, 23/08/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “2015 nian guomin jingji he shehui fazhan
tongji gongbao” 2015 (Statistical Bulletin on
National Economic and Social Development for 2015), 2016, https://
www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202302/t20230203_1899041.html, 23/08/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “China’s Expenditure on Research and
Experimental Development (R&D) Exceeded 3.6 Trillion Yuan in 2024”, 2025,
h t t p s : // w w w . s t a t s . g o v. c n /e n g l i s h / P r e s s R e l e a s e / 2 0 2 5 0 2 /
t20250207_1958579.html, 04/09/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “Communiqué on National Expenditures on
Science and Technology in 2019”, 2020, https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/
PressRelease/202008/t20200828_1786511.html, 04/09/2025
National Bureau of Statistics, “Communiqué on National Expenditures on
Science and Technology in 2018”, 2019, https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/
PressRelease/201909/t20190902_1695121.html, 04/09/2025
163
National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory
Committee, “ ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ zhongdian lingyu jishu luxian tu” 2025 (Roadmap of Major Technical Domains for
M a d e i n C h i n a 2 0 2 5 ) , h t t p s : //w w w. c a e . c n /c a e / h t m l / fi l e s /
2015-10/29/20151029105822561730637.pdf, 20/07/2025, partial translation in
English available at https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/
t0181_Made_in_China_roadmap_EN.pdf
People’s Daily, “ 'Made in China 2025' to focus on ten key sectors”, 2015,
https://en.people.cn/n/2015/0522/c98649-8895998.html, 13/08/2025
PERRY, J. Mark, “China Is Now World’s No. 1 Manufacturer”, AEIdeas, 2012,
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-china-is-now-worlds-no-1-
manufacturer/, 15/02/2025
PISANI-FERRY, Jean, WEDER DI MAURO, Beatrice, ZETTELMEYER, Jeromin,
“How to de-risk: European economic security in a world of interdependence”,
2024, Bruegel, https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/how-de-risk-european-
economic-security-world-interdependence?utm_, 20/08/2025
Q s t h e o r y, h t t p : //w w w.q s t h e o r y. c n /d u k a n /q s /2 0 24 - 1 2 /0 1 /
c_1130224011.htm#:~:text=%E8%9E%8D%E5%90%88%E6%96%B0%E7%94%9F
%E6%80%81%E6%8C%81%E7%BB%AD%E5%A3%AE%E5%A4%A7%E3%80%82
&text=%E6%88%AA%E8%87%B32024%E5%B9%B46%E6%9C%88,%E7%BA%A7
%E6%99%BA%E8%83%BD%E5%88%B6%E9%80%A0%E7%A4%BA%E8%8C%83
%E5%B7%A5%E5%8E%82%E3%80%82, 16/12/2024
SECNewgate, “EU’s International Procurement Instrument: what you
need to know about the latest trade tool in the shed”, 2022, https://
www.secnewgate.eu/eus-international-procurement-instrument-what-you-
need-to-know-about-the-latest-trade-tool-in-the-shed/, 20/08/2025
SHIVAKUMAR, Sujai, WESSNER, Charles, HOWELL, Thomas, “The Limits
of Chip Export Controls in Meeting the China Challenge”, Center for Strategic
164
and International Studies (CSIS), 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/limits-
chip-export-controls-meeting-china-challenge, 26/07/2025
SONAL, Patel, “Evolutionary Triumph: China's First ACPR1000”, in Power,
2019, https://www.powermag.com/evolutionary-triumph-chinas-first-
acpr1000/, 18/11/2024
South China Morning Post, "How did ‘Made in China 2025’ plan change
the country?”, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miPKujWXoGc,
21/07/2025
Statista, 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/278346/economic-
sector-distribution-of-the-workforce-in-china/, 02/09/2025
State Council, “Guowuyuan guanyu yinfa ‘zhongguo zhizao 2025’ de
tongzhi” 2025 (Notification on the Printing
and Distribution of Made in China 2025), 2015, https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/
content/2015-05/19/content_9784.htm, 12/09/2024
State Council, "China's competitiveness in manufacturing rises in 2024”,
2 0 2 4 , h t t p s : / / e n g l i s h . w w w . g o v . c n / n e w s / 2 0 2 4 1 2 / 2 5 /
content_WS676b40dec6d0868f4e8ee40a.html#:~:text=The%20national%20
manufacturing%20quality%20competitiveness,competitiveness%20in%20ter
ms%20of%20quality, 15/10/2024
TALIN, Benjamin, “Chinas Grand Strategy — ‘Made in China 2025’ “,
MoreThanDigital, 2021, https://morethandigital.info/en/chinas-grand-strategy-
made-in-china-2025-mic25/#5_New_Materials, 22/08/2025
TENG, Kayyuan, KANG, Chenkang, “AI Robots Go to Work at Three
Foxconn Lights-off Factories”, in CommonWealth Magazine, 2024, https://
english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3775, 14/10/2024
The Economist, “How ASML became chipmaking’s biggest monopoly”,
2020, https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-asml-became-
chipmakings-biggest-monopoly 16/07/2025
165
Trading economics, https://tradingeconomics.com/china/industry-value-
added-us-dollar-wb-data.html, 11/11/2024
TrendForce, “Intel CEO Claims China’s Chip Manufacturing Lags Behind
by 10 Years, Gap to Persist”, 2024, https://www.trendforce.com/news/
2024/01/19/intel-ceo-claims-chinas-chip-manufacturing-lags-behind-by-10-
years-gap-to-persist, 11/03/2025
TZIFA, Georgia, SHULHS, Mariia, “The EU Anti-Coercion Regulation: A
New Tool Against Economic Pressure”, Cells Institute, 2025, https://
www.celis.institute/celis-blog/the-eu-anti-coercion-regulation-a-new-tool-
against-economic-pressure/?utm, 19/08/2025
U.S. Department of State, "Military-Civil Fusion and the People's Republic
of China”, 2017, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/What-is-
MCF-One-Pager.pdf, 14/11/2024
White House, “Fact Sheet: Partnership for Global Infrastructure and
Investment at the G7 Summit”, 2024, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/
briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/06/13/fact-sheet-partnership-for-
global-infrastructure-and-investment-at-the-g7-summit-2/, 20/08/2025
WOLF, J. Kevin, DAVIS, C. Christina, “The CFIUS Reform Legislation —
FIRRMA— Will Become Law on August 13, 2018”, Akin, 2018, https://
www.akingump.com/en/insights/alerts/the-cfius-reform-legislation-firrma-
will-become-law-on-august-13, 18/07/2025
WONG, Jennifer Leung, GAIDA, Jamie, ROBIN, Stephar, CAVE, Danielle,
“ASPI’s Critical Technology”, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), 2023,
https://www.aspi.org.au/report/critical-technology-tracker/, 25/07/2025
World Bank Data, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?
locations=CN-DE-JP-US, 21/07/2025
Wo r l d B a n k D a t a , h t t p s : //d a t a .w o r l d b a n k .o r g / i n d i c a t o r/
EN.GHG.CO2.IP.MT.CE.AR5?locations=CN, 23/07/2025
166
Wo r l d B a n k D a t a , h t t p s : //d a t a .w o r l d b a n k .o r g / i n d i c a t o r/
EN.GHG.CO2.IC.MT.CE.AR5?locations=CN, 23/07/2025
World Bank Data, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.CD?
end=2023&locations=CN&start=2012, 02/09/2025
Wo r l d B a n k D a t a , h t t p s : //d a t a .w o r l d b a n k .o r g / i n d i c a t o r/
GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?end=2022&locations=CN&start=2016, 02/09/2025
Xinhua, “China’s CATL unveils cell-to-pack battery platform”, 2019, http://
www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/13/c_138389934.htm, 20/11/2024
Xinhua, ”China launches demonstration areas to boost Made in China
202”, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/2017-07/20/c_136456783.htm,
20/07/2025
YANG, Yang, “50 Chinese companies on world’s most influential brands
list”, Asia News Network ANN, 2024, https://asianews.network/50-chinese-
companies-on-worlds-most-influential-brands-list/, 25/07/2025
YU, Evelyn, “Xi Wants ‘New Productive Forces’ to Fit Local Conditions”,
Bloomberg, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-05/xi-
wants-new-productive-forces-to-be-based-on-local-conditions, 25/07/2025
ZHANG, Jianjun , “Woguo gui shang gongye danwei zengjia zhi
neng hao 10 nian leiji xiajiang chao 36%——gongye luse fazhan chengxiao
mingxian” 1036%—— (The energy consumption per unit of industrial added value in China’s
above-scale industries has decreased by over 36% in the past 10 years —
showing significant results in industrial green development), in Jingji ribao,
2023a, https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202306/content_6885847.htm,
30/04/2025
ZHANG, Tong, PENG, Dannie, “Made in China 2025: China meets most
targets in manufacturing plan, proving US tariffs and sanctions ineffective”,
South China Morning Post, 2024, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/
science/article/3260307/made-china-2025-china-meets-most-targets-
167
manufacturing-plan-proving-us-tariffs-and-sanctions?utm_source=copy-
link&utm_campaign=3260307,scmp_video_team&utm_medium=share_widget
?utm_source=youtube_description,referral, 12/12/2024
ZHANG, Wei, “CNC Machining Production in China: A Comprehensive
Overview”, SourcifyChina, 2025, https://www.sourcifychina.com/cnc-
machining-production-guide-in-depth/, 02/03/2025
ZHANG, Yinuo, “Rivoluzioniamo la pressofusione con la tecnologia Super
Large Die Casting di Xiaomi”, Pro-lean, 2023b, https://proleantech.com/it/
xiaomis-super-large-die-casting-technology/, 12/08/2025
168
