Technological and industrial history of China
Aiming to close the gap between its political ambitions and its phase of development, China began the Great Leap Forward, which sought to even more rapidly industrialize the country.
Following the Sino-Soviet split, Chinese leadership increasingly feared invasion from the Soviet Union or the United States.
During the Third Five-Year Plan period, China instituted the Third Front Campaign to develop national defense and industrial infrastructure in the country's interior.
[1]: 67 The experience of the Second Sino-Japanese War had convinced Communist Party leadership that industrialization was the ultimate source of military strength.
[4]: 18 With Soviet assistance in the form of both funds and experts, China began to develop industries from scratch.
Consistent with the focus on developing industry, northeast China was the region which received the greatest share of state funds during the Plan.
[2]: 145 The Great Leap Forward attempted to defy the conventional understanding of the time required for economic development and, through rapid industrialization, it aimed to close the gap between China's developmental stage and its political aspirations.
[3]: 316 Some resource extraction ministries were located elsewhere, for example oil and mining in Xinjiang and a large steel complex at Baotou.
[1]: 7 During the Third Five-Year Plan period, the Chinese government instituted the Third Front campaign to develop industrial and military facilities in the country's interior in preparation for defending against the risk of invasion by the Soviet Union or the United States.
These large plants were supplemented with many small-scale town and township enterprises, which accounted for significant percentages of national output of coal, construction materials, and leather products.
[10]: 116 In 2017, the State Council released its artificial intelligence development blueprint, outlining the goal of making China a global leader in AI by 2030.
[12]: 160 A 2023 Australian Strategic Policy Institute study of what it deemed as 44 critical technologies concluded that China leads the world in 37 of them, including 5G internet, electric batteries, and hypersonic missiles.
In the 1980s one leg consisted of the state-funded and state-controlled large and medium-sized plants with the most qualified personnel and the most advanced equipment.
In most cases the larger plants accounted for the bulk of production, but the smaller enterprises were increasing their share and producing a significant percentage of cement, fertilizers, and farm machinery.
[7]: 126 Chinese firms that developed into world industry leaders included BOE Technology, TCL-CSOT, TIANMA, and Visionox.
Housing conditions in 1949 were primitive and crowded, and massive population growth since then has placed great strains on the nation's building industry.
In 1985 housing built by state and collective enterprises in cities and towns totaled 130 million square meters of floor space.
Project directors often failed to predict accurately the need for such elements as transportation, raw materials, and energy.
Fiscal reforms in 1979 and 1980 exacerbated overinvestment by allowing local governments to keep a much greater percentage of the revenue from enterprises in their respective areas.
This administrative solution to overinvestment proved ineffective, and later reforms concentrated on economic measures such as tax levies to discourage investment.
Some of the projects involved were power-generating stations, coal mines, railroads, ports, airports, and raw-material production centers.
[20] These plants generated 417 TWh of electricity in 2022 [21] This is versus the September 2022 numbers of 53 nuclear reactors, with a total capacity of 55.6 gigawatt (GW).
[23] Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.
