China’s Five-Year Plan: A Vision for the Future
A country’s five-year plan reveals its leadership’s perspective on societal development. Essentially, it’s about engineering the future, where historical patterns guide nations. China has now released its 15th such plan. Over the years, the terminology has shifted; while past documents focused on heavy industry, today’s discourse covers concepts like “AI plus,” swarm intelligence, embodied AI, and intelligent agents. The term “rejuvenation” will echo throughout discussions. Interestingly, 2026 has been marked as a pivotal year for national progress.
In terms of research and development, China’s expenditure for 2025 is projected at 3.93 trillion yuan, which represents about 2.8% of its GDP. The nation boasts 6.3 million active invention patents; in just one year, 295,000 industrial robots were put to use, accounting for 54% globally. Additionally, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks among the top research institutions worldwide.
Currently, China’s supercomputers are regarded as the best in the world.
For the first time, the World Intellectual Property Organization has ranked China within the top 10 innovators globally, stating the country leads in technological and knowledge production. The Stanford AI Index indicates that the performance gap between U.S. and Chinese AI models is closing. These statistics reflect a pre-existing reality.
However, a thought-provoking question lingers: What forms of civilization will emerge from China’s technological advancements, and conversely, what will these technologies mean for civilization?
Engineering Everything
Writer Dan Wang contrasts China’s “engineering state” with the “lawyer society” of the United States. In the U.S. legal framework, matters revolve around dispute resolution, balancing interests, and negotiating rights within a precedent-based context. In contrast, an engineering state sees problems as systems to optimize. The approach is straightforward: instead of discussing the complexities of building a bridge, simply build it. Faster than anticipated, a railway might connect to this bridge, leading to a city sprouting around the station; eventually, the debate over the necessity of the city fades as it becomes bustling with commerce and activity.
By December 2024, China is expected to have 1.1 billion internet users, over a billion using online payments, and 974 million online shoppers, with a significant portion over 60 years old engaging in online shopping. Short videos have become the main retail channel, informing purchases for 71% of viewers. What’s happening is a compaction of social actions; entertainment, ads, recommendations, and purchases all converge into a seamless experience, creating a commercial atmosphere.
Philosopher Yuk Hui articulates that technology is never culturally neutral; rather, different civilizations maintain unique relationships with technology. The belief in a single universal technology, rooted in Greek and Western tradition, limits serious consideration of the implications of Chinese technology. China is crafting an AI governance framework that differs greatly from the American model, which often combines unrestricted innovation with late-stage regulation. The rules for algorithmic recommendations are already pushing platforms to align with “mainstream values.” Regulations for generative AI stress the importance of accurate data and guarding against harmful content.
Civilization in Crisis
This brings us back to a longstanding question posed in modern Chinese technological discourse, reminiscent of the self-strengthening movement in the 1860s. At that time, Qing reformers aimed to adopt Western industrial strategies while preserving the established social structure. The May Fourth Movement intellectuals later transformed science into a rallying cry for national renewal. The People’s Republic added a Soviet-style planning approach, continuously forcing each generation to reassess how much modern power can be integrated without fundamentally altering the civilizations utilizing it.
Current data suggests that while China excels in many technical facets, significant challenges persist. The nation leads in the deployment of research, manufacturing, interfaces, and public engagement, outpacing others. Shenzhen’s industrial park, for example, utilizes an AI that optimizes manufacturing parameters multiple times an hour. It’s claimed that China has deployed more robots than the rest of the world combined.
Our Future?
Despite China’s advances, the U.S. keeps producing more groundbreaking AI models and dominates data center infrastructure. The share of basic research within China’s R&D budget is on the rise but remains lower among top performers, moving from 6% in 2019 to about 7.08% by 2025. This indicates a trend toward application over deep investigation. While China’s supercomputers lead in overall rankings, they rank lower in AI workload performance, still using domestic chips that aren’t cutting-edge. The gap between registered and actual users of generative AI is quite pronounced—600 million users versus 249 million.
In all likelihood, China will become the epicenter of socialized 21st-century technology, embedding it into education, factories, transportation, and daily life. This shift could redefine the essence of everyday experiences. Yet, the crucial question looms as to whether anything exists that defies such systematic absorption. That’s a query that, it seems, can’t be answered merely by a five-year plan.
