In China, the CCP Leads the Technological Revolution
Udumbara
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True to communist practice, China has bet its technological future on centralized direction. To be sure, the country can boast several impressive private tech startups, notably the artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer, DeepSeek.
But Beijing would readily sideline these efforts in favor of direction from government bureaus and groups. Although it has had some successes, notably in space exploration, the approach raises questions about how well it will serve China relative to the more diversified efforts employed elsewhere.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Committee has declared that it aims to discover what it refers to as “frontier disruptive technologies.” To do so, it has tasked the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, with CCP leader Xi Jinping as chairman, to authorize another government body, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), to organize the effort. (This is a lot of committee work, but the members of the CCP seem to enjoy it.)
The SASAC oversees 90 trillion yuan ($12.3 billion) in assets belonging to 98 centrally controlled state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Unsurprisingly, it has pledged to align its efforts to China’s strategic needs. Although it provides little specific guidance on those needs, it claims to have already identified 201 research fields across 60 industrial sectors to enable technological breakthroughs. Among these, it claims, are efforts in quantum information, 6G mobile networks, deep-earth and deep-sea exploration, advanced materials, and controlled nuclear fusion.
The group has not released a complete list of which SOE giants are involved, though media reports identify some 58 entities. The SASAC has revealed that in 2024, the most recent period for which information is available, it allocated 1.1 trillion yuan to research and development, establishing 100 new so-called research hubs.
Although a complete list of players is not yet available, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation appears to be involved, as do the State Grid Corporation of China, the China National Petroleum Corporation, and the 30th Research Institute of the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, among others.
As mentioned, the effort has met with some success. Centralized technology efforts have produced results with China’s Chang’e 6 probe that successfully landed on the dark side of the moon and returned with the first samples of material from that region. The group run by the SASAC can also boast advances in deep-sea mining and the development of the world’s fastest train, the CR450.
Americans might naturally draw a parallel between the efforts of the SASAC and those of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to put a man on the moon in the 1960s. Both, after all, are government-organized technological projects. There is, however, a huge difference. NASA in the 1960s had a singular target—putting a man on the moon and getting him back safely. The Chinese effort is much more generalized, aiming at technological breakthroughs across a broad front. The one lends itself to centralized direction. The other, not so much.
Rather than centralized direction, efforts to push back technological frontiers across a broad front might be better served by a variety of independent initiatives, some of which will fail and others will succeed, sometimes by pursuing directions that a centralized committee would ignore. After all, technological breakthroughs tend to come from imagination and not from committee work. It speaks to this difference that NASA began to fail when, after the moon landing, it turned to a more generalized effort.
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None of this suggests that the SASAC effort will fail. It has already made breakthroughs and will doubtless make others. Even when it succeeds, however, it will face a separate problem—applying the breakthroughs to economic and practical life in China.
According to professor Qian Aidai of the East China University of Science and Technology, the centralized approach has already shown itself to be less than effective at commercializing its innovations. In this context, the professor’s use of the word “commercialize” should be interpreted as a general boost to China’s economy and daily life.
It is noteworthy that NASA’s success with the moon landing had little direct benefit for the American economy or American life. Rather, the overall lift came from the commercialization of NASA’s breakthroughs in miniaturization, materials, and computerization, among others. Here, too, the economic and societal benefit stemmed from a variety of independent efforts rather than from centralized direction.
Given China’s track record to date, there can be little doubt that the SASAC effort will make some impressive technological breakthroughs. There can be even less doubt that, when they are announced, the news will cause a panic of sorts in parts of the American media and among some members of Congress. Beyond that, there is reason to doubt that the breakthroughs will lift China’s economy and society. Because few technological advances remain secret for long, this irony arises: The diversified efforts that dominate in the United States and the rest of the developed world may make greater use of SASAC discoveries than China does.
