China’s latest five-year plan, made public in March 2021, mandates 7 percent annual increases in R&D spending, a rate of growth faster than what is planned for the military budget. China’s banks have set aside tens of billions of dollars to lend to more than 1,000 Chinese firms in strategic industries, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, semiconductors, advanced robotics, and synthetic biology.27 The objective is for China to produce 70 percent of key components in strategic industries by the end of the decade.
