China’s Economic Grand Strategy: Mission-Driven Finance and Tech Self-Reliance
- Zongyuan Zoe Liu
- 2 hours ago
- 39 min read
Beijing’s concerns about the risks of dependence have shifted from exogenous economic and financial contagion to geopolitically motivated, weaponized interdependence. The U.S. denial order against ZTE in 2018, the addition of Huawei and its affiliates to the Entity List in 2019, and the expansion of the foreign direct product rule in 2020 made the warning tangible: Commercial success cannot eliminate vulnerability when Chinese firms’ supply chains still depend on U.S.-origin technology, software, components, or compliance systems. Since late 2020, China’s economic strategy has become more about controlled interdependence as a source of resilience and leverage, with technological self-reliance the top priority. To this end, the Party-state has been rebuilding China’s entire financial system, pairing greater tolerance for technology investment risk with tighter controls on fraud, leverage, conflicts, and systemic spillovers. By 2026, a formal interagency mission-driven technology finance architecture has emerged. The system is designed to make public and private financial institutions behave more patiently, accepting more technological risks without granting capital or financial institutions greater autonomy from the Party.
China’s emerging strategy for a fragmenting global economy may appear to be contradictory. Beijing defends globalization while building fallback systems. It denounces economic coercion while expanding its own countermeasures. It promotes openness, but it is also committed to pursuing self-reliance, especially in technology and innovation. These tensions are not signs of confusion. They show a strategy of managing, not resolving, the contradiction between openness and security: how to remain inside an interdependent global system while reducing the risks of being coerced through it. It is a strategy for remaining embedded in the global economy while reducing the costs of being pressured within it.
The official language shows how Beijing defines the problem. Chinese documents rarely speak of “grand strategy.” They speak of “coordinating development and security” (统筹发展和安全), building a “new development pattern” (新发展格局), strengthening “high-level technological self-reliance” (高水平科技自立自强), securing “industrial and supply chains” (产业链供应链安全), and preserving the “strategic initiative” (战略主动).
Since late 2020, Chinese policymakers have elevated these vulnerabilities from sectoral problems to the core of its national development strategy. Finance, technology, and innovation stopped being matters of industrial policies for economic development and became linked to a national strategy of technological self-reliance and supply chain security. Between 2021 and 2025, the Party’s strategy has been gradually translated into a financial system reform agenda as the Party also reorganized the central-level command structure.
Strategic Reorientation Toward Technological Self-reliance
China is one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalization and integration into the global system. Up until the 2007–2008 Global Financial Crisis, China had not really encountered any major external setbacks. After the global financial crisis, Beijing’s planning documents framed the external risk mainly as one of economic and financial shock transmission. The 12th Five-Year Plan described the international financial crisis as having a “far-reaching impact” (影响深远), alongside slower world growth, changing global demand, and rising protectionism. The financial plan of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) likewise stressed macro-financial management, financial stability, risk-prevention capacity, systemic-risk early warning, and consolidation of China’s response to the international financial crisis. The concern, in other words, was that integration exposed China to external economic and financial instabilities.[1]
By the late 2010s, the lesson had become clear, and the concern had become more strategic. In 2018, Xi Jinping told leading scientists and engineers that “key core technologies cannot be asked for, bought, or begged for” (关键核心技术是要不来、买不来、讨不来的).[2] This was not yet a full economic strategy, but it captured a central diagnosis: China’s development could be constrained by dependence on technologies controlled by others. The U.S. denial order against ZTE in 2018, the addition of Huawei and affiliates to the Entity List in 2019, and the foreign direct product rule in 2020 made China’s dependence vulnerabilities more concrete.[3]
In this context, Beijing began to recast its dependence vulnerabilities as a central problem of national development. The Fifth Plenum communiqué called on China to “coordinate development and security” (统筹发展和安全), build a “new development pattern” (新发展格局), and treat technological self-reliance as a “strategic support” for national development (把科技自立自强作为国家发展的战略支撑).[4] In late October, Qiushi published an article by President Xi, “Several Major Issues in the National Medium- and Long-Term Economic and Social Development Strategy,” which originally had been a speech delivered to an April meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission. In this published speech, Xi introduces the “dual circulation” strategy that prioritizes the domestic market and self-reliance (“internal circulation”), while keeping China globally engaged in trade and investment (“external circulation”).[5] Xi’s explanation of the 14th Five-Year Plan recommendations further emphasized the priority and the rationale: building the new development pattern was a “strategic choice” (战略抉择), and a large economy had to be able to operate with internal circulation (内部可循环) to withstand external uncertainties.[6]
These terms entered the next year’s agenda at the December 2020 Central Economic Work Conference, which described technological self-reliance as a “fundamental support” (科技自立自强是根本支撑) and treated secure, stable industrial and supply chains as “foundational” to the new development pattern (产业链供应链安全稳定是构建新发展格局的基础). It urged China to use the “new-type whole-nation system” (新型举国体制).[7] The 14th Five-Year Plan codified the same logic in more concrete policy terms: it called for breakthroughs in “key core technologies” (打好关键核心技术攻坚战) and secure and controllable financial technology.[8] The 15th Five-Year Plan aggressively prioritizes technological self-reliance as a defensive shield against foreign restrictions and calls on the nation to “occupy the commanding heights of scientific and technological development” (抢占科技发展制高点).[9]
These are not mere slogans. Since late 2020, technology self-reliance has become the mechanism through which the Party and government operationalize “coordinating development and security” and their preferred answer to the limits of the old growth model and to indefinite strategic competition. Party and state documents have placed it at the center of modernization, linking it to high-quality development, industrial chain security, and China’s ability to withstand external pressures. They frame the task as moving from high-speed growth to high-quality development, building new drivers of growth, upgrading the industrial system, and raising total factor productivity. President Xi’s “new quality productive forces” sum up this logic: New quality productive forces are led by innovation, created through technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and industrial transformation, and they are marked by a substantial increase in total factor productivity.[10]
The logic is self-explanatory: The Party is counting on technological upgrading and innovation to drive China’s next stage of growth, and the U.S. restrictions since 2018 have shown that foreign control over critical technologies is not merely a commercial inconvenience but a potential constraint on China’s development strategy and national rejuvenation. Foreign chokeholds, such as advanced chips, semiconductor equipment, industrial software, advanced materials, and industrial mother machines, could slow not only individual firms or specific industries but the productivity project on which China’s next stage of growth depends. Self-reliance is therefore an attempt to protect the technological foundations of China’s future growth from foreign restrictions.
This means Beijing prioritizes technologies that meet this dual mandate rather than trying to indigenize everything: such technologies must matter for productivity growth, shape future industrial competitiveness, have security or dual-use significance, and reduce China’s exposure to foreign denials. To advance the strategic priority of technological self-reliance, the Party-state centralized organizational authority by creating two new central commissions in 2023 and by instructing the government to reform the financial system to better support it.
Governance Centralization and Financial System Reform
Xi and the Party have defined the role of finance in the Chinese economy as “finance should serve the real economy.”[11] In more concrete terms, this means “finance should serve as a catalyst that turns financial resources into strategic factors, guides capital toward strategic emerging and future industries, and serves as a channel directing capital to science and technology innovation.”[12] Since 2020, the Party-state has sought to redesign the institutions that determine which firms receive capital, how long investors remain committed, who bears losses, and how successful investments exit and are reinvested.
The reform must resolve a problem created by the technology campaign itself. Firms expected to produce breakthrough technologies are neither directly controlled by the Party-state nor well served by China’s traditional bank-dominated finance. China’s approach is conditioned on strengthening the Party’s leadership of the financial system and technology governance rather than its relinquishing control over either area, that is, tightening control over the strategic direction of capital flows while redesigning the incentives under which financial institutions can make individual funding decisions. The Party and central government agencies identify prioritized sectors, set eligibility criteria, lower funding costs for eligible tech ventures, redistribute downside risks, and expand exit channels for successful investments.
The emerging financial system is a mission-oriented system that consists of neither straightforward state-directed capital allocation nor free market finance. It is a Party-state coordinated technological capital allocation circuit built on centralized strategic direction, decentralized funding decisions, and selective socialization of risks. China’s technology-oriented financial reforms are an attempt to achieve control without ownership and greater risk-taking without financial liberalization.
The institutional reforms of 2023 supplied the command structure. As part of a broader centralization of Party authority over strategic domains, the Party created two Central Committee decision-making and coordination bodies in March 2023: the Central Science and Technology Commission (CSTC) and the Central Financial Commission (CFC).[13] Politically, these two commissions sit above the State Council ministries and the regulators responsible for implementation. The CSTC reviews major technology strategies, plans, and policies, determines national strategic technology tasks and major research projects, and coordinates strategic scientific capabilities. Its functions are carried out by the reorganized Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). The CFC provides top-level design, overall coordination, and implementation supervision for financial stability and development, and it reviews major financial policies and problems. The reform elevates both technology and finance to centralized Party-level governance structures and institutionalizes coordination between them. It also fits the stated goal of “strengthening Party leadership over science and technology and improving the new type of whole-of-nation system.”
Governance centralization cannot by itself solve the problem of a mismatch in the financial system. A bank-dominated system built to lend against tangible collateral, historical profits, and predictable cash flows is poorly suited to funding innovation characterized by long-horizon, intangible assets, and frequent commercial failures. The reforms that followed can be understood as a Party-state coordinated effort to reallocate the risks of financing innovation from those actors unwilling to bear them and to the state’s own balance sheet, so that banks and private capital will fund technological self-reliance despite the risks. Each instrument targets different aspects of risk: the cost of lending, the duration and exit horizon of equity capital, and the default risk.
This architecture emerged in stages. Beginning with the 19th Central Committee’s Fifth Plenum in 2020, the Party mandate has progressed from a broad instruction that finance should support innovation to proactively constructing a Party-directed, cross-agency technology finance regime organized around national technology priorities and long-term development goals. The 14th Five-Year Plan, approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2021, explicitly called for “improving financial support for the innovation system” (完善金融支持创新体系). It specified a portfolio of six principal financial instruments to be developed from both the credit and risk-sharing side and the equity side. On the credit and risk-sharing side, it promoted IP-backed lending, technology insurance, and public compensation for commercialization of loan losses. On the equity side, it called for better domestic listing channels, a stronger “hard technology” orientation for the STAR Market, improved ChiNext services, and greater use of angel, venture-capital, guidance-fund, and private-equity investments.[14] These channels addressed different constraints facing firms as technologies moved from development toward commercialization, expansion, and investor exit. Subsequent reforms have been attempting to convert this menu of instruments into a more coordinated financing system.
The April 2022 meeting of the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform (CCCDR), chaired by Xi Jinping, marked the conceptual shift from individual financing instruments to reforming the financial system as a whole. The meeting diagnosed the structural mismatch between China’s existing bank-dominated financial system and the long-term high-risk nature of technological innovation. According to state media Xinhua, the Party explicitly “required the financial system to become better adapted to contemporary innovation.” It also identified the principal components of the eventual coordinated system: a combination of bank credit provided by commercial banks and policy banks, multi-tier capital markets, insurance and financing guarantees for risk sharing, and dedicated support for SMEs engaged in critical technologies. The Commission also approved the Work Plan for Improving the Financial System Supporting Innovation during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period.[15] This decision provided the mandate and a preliminary targeted architecture for subsequent measures by the State Council, financial regulators, and other ministries. The problem was no longer insufficient technology financing; it was treated as an institutional incompatibility requiring reform across the entire financial system.
1. PBoC Structural Monetary Tools to Change Bank Incentives
The PBoC’s structural monetary policy tools demonstrate the operating logic of this system. Rather than lending directly to tech startups or compelling banks to lend, the Party-state defines the categories of eligible firms and projects, and it uses the central bank’s balance sheet to incentivize banks to lend to them – directing the strategic scope of lending without taking over transaction-level allocations or fully socializing default risks.
The first reform intervention addressed an incompatibility that banks feel most directly: the cost of funding a loan they are reluctant to make. Within ten days of this CCCDR meeting, the PBoC created an RMB 200 billion technology innovation relending facility for 21 commercial and policy banks. This instrument effectively uses the central bank’s balance sheet to subsidize these banks’ costs of financing eligible technology innovation.[16] This relending facility uses a reimbursement style: under its so-called “lend first, borrow afterward” arrangement (先贷后借), a participating bank can refinance 60 percent of an eligible technology loan principal with one-year central bank funding, at a 1.75 percent interest rate and renewable twice. The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) identify candidate firms meeting the specified technology and industrial policy criteria and supply the lists to participating banks. These firms are participants in national science programs, national manufacturing-innovation centers, “little giant” SMEs, manufacturing champions, important firms in critical industrial chains, and companies participating in national innovation platforms.
Inclusion on a list does not guarantee a loan. Banks retain the authority to reject applicants, determine loan terms, and bear default risks. Thus, the facility is neither direct central bank lending nor a guarantee against nonperforming loans. Its purpose is narrower: by replacing part of a bank’s ordinary funding with cheaper PBoC money, it improves the prospective returns on an eligible technology loan by creating room for a lower borrower rate, a wider bank margin, or some combination of the two, while preserving bank screening and risk bearing.
For illustration, refinancing 60 percent of a qualifying loan at 1.75 percent rather than the prevailing one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) rate of 2.85 percent will reduce the weighted funding cost to 2.19 percent, a reduction of 0.66 percentage point or roughly one-third of Chinese commercial banks’ average net interest margin of 1.97 percent in the first quarter of 2022. That can be large enough to change the relative attractiveness of eligible technology loans at the margin, particularly for creditworthy firms that banks otherwise would be hesitant to lend to.
Five months later, at the end of September, the PBoC introduced a second and more aggressive structural lending instrument that extended from financing the production of technology to financing its adoption.[17] The equipment upgrading and renovation relending facility (设备更新改造专项再贷款) originated from a State Council effort to stimulate demand by accelerating investment in state-prioritized areas, including industrial digitization, new infrastructure, energy conservation, charging facilities, education, health care, and SMEs. On September 7, the State Council approved a temporary two-year fiscal subsidy covering 2.5 percentage points of interest. It also called for corresponding monetary policy support for the lending banks.[18] Six days later, another State Council meeting paired that fiscal subsidy with a dedicated PBoC relending facility. The meeting directed national commercial banks to make medium- and long-term loans at no more than 3.2 percent and authorized the PBoC to refinance 100 percent of the qualifying loan principal through a facility of at least RMB 200 billion, with a one-year maturity and renewable twice.[19] Together, the fiscal subsidy and the lending rate ceiling could reduce the borrower’s effective interest cost to no more than 0.7 percent. Then, on September 27, the PBoC, the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and three other agencies translated these State Council decisions into operating rules.
The facility subsidized both sides of the lending transaction. PBoC refinancing lowered the bank’s funding cost, while the MoF subsidy reduced the borrower’s interest burden. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) works with local governments, central agencies, and central SOEs to compile approved project lists in ten designated areas. Twenty-one financial institutions then decide whether to lend, on what terms, and whether to bear the full default risk. The instrument’s immediate purpose was macroeconomic stabilization through accelerated capital expenditures rather than tech financing, but its relevance to self-reliance was substantial: financing invention alone cannot produce technological capability; producers also need to provide customers with the means to buy.
By the end of 2023, the two temporary facilities had expired and ceased accepting new PBoC refinancing applications, creating the need for a successor.[20] Their expiration coincided with the convergence of two agendas: adapting the financial system to technological innovation, and using equipment renewal to support domestic demand while upgrading productive capacity. The October 2023 Central Financial Work Conference elevated technology finance to one of the financial system’s five principal national assignments (金融五篇大文章) and situated it within a broader restructuring of financial supply with more equity financing, differentiated financial institutions, and long-term capital.[21] The State Council’s March 2024 campaign to promote large-scale equipment upgrading and consumer trade-ins established a multi-year national program with targets through 2027. The program uses subsidized capital expenditures to induce near-term investment demand while accelerating digitization, decarbonization, and industrial upgrading.[22]
Against this background, on April 1, 2024, the PBoC, together with five other agencies, replaced the two separate 2022 relending facilities with a consolidated RMB 500 billion technology innovation and equipment upgrading relending facility.[23] Of the RMB 500 billion, RMB 100 billion was reserved for first bank loans for early- and growth-stage technology SMEs, and RMB 400 billion was reserved for digital, intelligent, high-end, and green equipment upgrades. It retained the established reimbursement model. The MOST and the MIIT used an Innovation Points system to identify candidate technology firms, while the NDRC and industry ministries compiled lists of eligible modernization projects. Banks remained free to reject listed applicants and retained the full default risk, but after making a qualifying loan they could refinance 60 percent of the principal with one-year PBoC funding at 1.75 percent, renewable twice. Relative to the benchmark 2.5 percent MLF rate at the time, this reduced the weighted funding cost of a qualifying loan to 2.05 percent.
Table 1 Summary of PBoC Relending Facilities and the Maximum Implied Bank Loans
Relending facility | PBoC quota | Refinancing ratio | Maximum implied qualifying bank loans |
2022 technology innovation relending facility | RMB 400bn | 60% | RMB 666.7bn |
2022 equipment upgrading relending facility | RMB 200bn | 100% | RMB 200.0bn |
2022 combined facilities | RMB 600bn | Mixed | Approximately RMB 866.7bn |
2024 consolidated technology-equipment relending facility | RMB 500bn | 60% | Approximately RMB 833.3bn |
2025 consolidated relending facility expansion | RMB 800bn | 60% | Approximately RMB 1.3tn |
2026 consolidated relending facility expansion | RMB 1.2tn | 60% | RMB 2.0tn |
Note: PBoC quotas are announced, not disbursements. The 2022 technology innovation relending facility was established in April 2022 with a quota of RMB 200bn and subsequently expanded to RMB 400bn. The 2024 consolidated facility was expanded by RMB 300bn in May 2025, to RMB 800bn, and by a further RMB 400bn in January 2026, to RMB 1.2tn.[24] The 2024, 2025, and 2026 rows report successive quotas of the same facility, not additive. No change to the 60 percent for the 2022 technology innovation relending facility has been announced, hence carried forward. Also, in January 2026, the structural relending rate was lowered to 1.25 percent. Maximum implied loans assume full quota utilization and are ceilings rather than realized lending: outstanding balances under the two 2022 facilities stood at RMB 255.6bn and RMB 156.7bn at end-2023, both below their end-September 2023 levels. | |||
This redesign placed the financing of innovation and diffusion under a single monetary instrument. On the supply side of innovation, the state identifies tech startups that have not yet established a credit relationship with a bank. On the demand side, it identifies industrial modernization projects that firms could purchase. The facilities illustrate how Beijing engineers controlled risk-taking through the existing banking system: strategic eligibility is centralized, financial screening remains decentralized, and the central bank intervenes between these two levels by reducing the cost of lending within the state-defined perimeter, without becoming a direct technology lender.
The effect of the PBoC facilities to support tech innovation and adoption can only partially be shown in the size of its fund disbursement. Official figures show that bank lending under the unified relending facility reached RMB 1.5 trillion by April 2026, including RMB 218.8 billion classified as technology-innovation loans.[25] The important part is that the central bank uses its balance sheet to incentivize banks to play the role of patient capital, especially to tech startups that never before received a bank loan.
But this is also the facility's limit. Cheaper funding cannot supply collateral or create predictable cash flows. It cannot shorten the commercialization period or reduce the chances of failure. It cannot compensate banks for the full loss if the borrower fails and defaults. Thus, the relending facility addressed one dimension of the institutional mismatch – the cost and profitability of tech lending – while leaving the deeper problems of uncertainty and high risk largely intact. To address these issues, it will still need more capital market reforms.
2. Broader Capital Market Reforms
At the June 2024 National Science and Technology Conference, Xi Jinping called on financial capital to “invest in early-stage, small-scale, long-term, and hard technology.”[26] This formulation highlights several deficiencies in China’s capital market: Too little capital was entering firms at an early stage; investment funds were too small or fragmented to sustain firms through commercialization; investors were evaluated over shorter time horizons than the development cycles of frontier technologies; capital was not sufficiently willing to bear the risk of long-term high-risk tech investment. The July Third Plenum converted this diagnosis into an explicit institutional reform objective: it called for “constructing a technology finance system compatible with technological innovation” and for “improving policies encouraging capital to invest in early-stage, small-scale, long-term, and hard technology.”[27]
Subsequent measures, intended to address these deficiencies across the investment lifecycle, included public equity reforms to make the market more accessible to strategically qualified tech firms and to provide exits for their early investors; reforms to cultivate long-term patient capital; venture capital reforms to mobilize long-duration funding; bond market reforms to provide longer-term funding to mature tech companies; and risk reforms to broaden risk sharing and to shift default burdens off commercial lenders. Collectively, they were intended to connect the entire lifecycle of tech financing from fundraising and investment to commercialization, exit, and reinvestment. The system by design has greater tolerance for commercial failure but less tolerance for fraud, hidden leverage, and loss of regulatory control.
Public Equity Market. China’s public equity reforms since 2024 combined two objectives: imposing tighter discipline on the market as a whole while providing greater regulatory accommodation to strategically important technology firms.
To mobilize capital in the public equity market, Chinese authorities first had to boost confidence in China’s A-share market amid a multi-year slump and to pivot the market to support long-term national objectives. In April 2024, the State Council issued the new “Nine Measures” to impose tighter supervision, raise the entry bars for companies trying to go public, and mandate aggressive delisting of zombie and shell companies.[28] By eliminating speculative or fraudulent listings, these measures channel capital toward sectors encouraged by the state and toward firms approved by the state. This makes the public equity market serve the Party-state’s interests by funding strategic technologies rather than non-productive companies.
Within this more restrictive framework, regulators created differentiated access for firms judged to possess strategically important technologies: a specialized high-tech fast track for qualified tech startups. On June 19, the China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the STAR Market Eight Measures, a policy specifically designed to support unprofitable tech startups with core technology in raising funds.[29] The Measures established a mandate to prioritize listing approvals for firms making breakthroughs in critical technologies, and for channeling funds into the exact sectors prioritized by the state.
Listing access alone does not solve the patient capital problem. Public equity markets also need investors willing to hold tech firms through long development and commercialization cycles. In September, regulators issued guidance on bringing medium- and long-term capital into the public equity market. This was followed by an implementation plan issued in January 2025.[30] It sought to mobilize insurance funds, social security and pension funds, enterprise annuities, and public investment funds as a more stable source of equity capital for listed companies, including tech startups. The key reform in this plan was to lengthen institutional investment horizons by replacing annual performance evaluations with three- to five-year review periods and setting targets for greater A-share participation. This complemented the listing reforms since easier market access means little without investors willing to hold through commercialization cycles.
The June 2025 STAR Market “1+6” reform package extended this differentiated approach. It created a STAR Growth Layer and reopened a listing route for qualifying tech companies that had demonstrated technological capability and commercial potential but had not yet converted them into profit or commercial success.[31] The reform aimed to address the mismatch between conventional listing requirements and the long-term, capital-intensive development cycles of frontier technologies, allowing such firms to raise capital in the public equity market and giving their early investors a potential exit. The Growth Layer also subjected these high-risk companies to differentiated disclosure rules, making the public equity market more tolerant of the financial characteristics of strategic tech firms without abandoning regulatory discipline or opening the market indiscriminately.
Public market reform also addressed the exit side of the technology finance system. As the new “Nine Measures” tightened listing standards and regulatory scrutiny and thereby made the traditional IPO route more selective, regulators sought to develop additional channels through which private capital could realize successful investments. In September, the CSRC issued a six-measure package to reform the listed-company M&A market.[32] The measures explicitly supported commercially justified cross-industry acquisitions, and allowed listed companies to acquire high-tech, pre-profit firms using their own shares as acquisition currency. This regulatory change created an alternative exit route for venture capital and private equity funds, and it transformed acquisitions from a secondary corporate finance tool into an integral part of China’s technology-financing system. By linking public market liquidity with private early-stage financing, the reform was intended to make it easier for venture capital to exit mature portfolios, return liquidity to investors, and reinvest that patient capital into new tech ventures. The Chinese leadership seeks to make the public equity market more accommodating of qualified firms’ pre-profit status, intangible assets, long commercialization periods, and technological uncertainty without liberalizing the market itself. The result is a more selective market in which the Party-state exercises greater influence over which forms of risk the financial system should accept.
Venture Capital and Private Equity Markets. China’s venture capital and private equity reforms are intended to construct the institutional conditions under which capital serving firms at the earliest and most uncertain stages can be more patient. They tackled four interconnected weaknesses: fragmented government funding, insufficient long-duration private and institutional capital, incentives that discourage fund managers from taking risks and accepting failures, and inadequate exits. These systemic weaknesses created a system in which large amounts of nominally available capital did not translate into sustained financing for early-stage and frontier technologies.
Chinese policymakers had to break this disconnect to funnel capital into emerging and frontier areas that the Party-state deems critical for the future. The first step was to consolidate the state’s role as an anchor and coordinator of venture investment. The January 2025 State Council guidance on government investment funds sought to shift the sector from proliferation and local duplication toward clearer policy mandates, professional management, and stronger coordination across levels of government.[33] The national venture capital guidance fund announced by the NDRC in March 2025 is designed to enhance central coordination and serve as an anchor investor in strategic critical technology and frontier industries. The fund was capitalized with RMB 100 billion from ultra-long special Treasury bonds, and it formally began operations in December 2025.[34] This model lets the government anchor other investors by defining broad sectoral mandates, absorbing part of the early-stage uncertainty, and attracting co-investment from local governments, SOEs, banks, and private institutions. Professional fund managers still choose individual portfolio companies, but within a structure organized around state-defined priorities. In this way, the model extends Party-state direction over venture capital allocation without owning either the funds or the companies they finance.
The next step was to broaden the sources and lengthen the investment duration of venture funding by restructuring the source of capital and shaping the incentives of professional fund managers. To this end, the State Council issued a set of seventeen policy measures to reform the entire venture capital lifecycle, from fundraising to investment, fund management, and exit (募投管退).[35] These measures aimed to attract institutional money, such as insurers, asset managers, corporate investors, and foreign-invested renminbi funds, as these investors could provide more stable and long-duration funding than capital facing short redemption cycles or performance pressures. They also sought to change the fund managers’ incentives and broaden the exit routes. The underlying logic was that tolerance of failure and credible means of recycling capital are necessary to sustain patient capital through the innovation cycles.
These measures framed subsequent reforms by Chinese regulators and local governments. For example, in its Guiding Opinions on Effectively Implementing Five Major Areas of Finance, the State Council set a 2027 goal of making China’s science and technology financing system more compatible with the needs of achieving technological self-reliance.[36] It also prescribed how the financial system should be organized: full supply chain and full life cycle financing through equity, debt, and insurance; stronger support for major national technology tasks and tech SMEs; more venture, angel, and long-term capital; and closer coordination among monetary, fiscal, regulatory, industrial, and tech policies. In March 2026, the NDRC also announced plans for a national-level M&A fund intended to improve venture-capital exits and capital recycling.[37]
The May 2025 seven-agency package supplied more concrete mandates. The MOST, the PBoC, the MoF, and four other agencies jointly launched fifteen measures in a policy document whose title is self-evident: Policy Measures to Accelerate the Construction of a Science and Technology Finance System to Strongly Support High-Level Scientific and Technological Self-Reliance.[38] This policy package defines financial capital as “an important force” for technological self-reliance and calls for “full-lifecycle, full-chain financing” for technology innovation. It outlines specific mandates to align a variety of instruments beyond traditional bank credit and fiscal support, such as venture capital and insurance systems, behind high-tech companies.
These reforms aim to make capital better able to assume technological risks without granting it greater independence from the Party-state. The Party-state sets the strategic direction and state-owned funds anchor the investments. State-shaped exit routes reward and redeploy capital aligned with its objectives. This emerging system is not an autonomous venture capital market but a Party-governed, state-coordinated system with state-controlled exits.
Bond Market. Since 2025, Chinese regulators have conducted bond market reforms to address a gap that the STAR Market and venture capital reforms do not reach. As tech companies move from early-stage experimentation to commercialization, they need relatively inexpensive long-term funding for R&D, production, and expansion. Bond market reform is intended to fill this later-stage financing gap by allowing more mature tech firms to obtain debt financing without further diluting their ownership.
China’s existing sci-tech innovation bond market was ill-suited for this function. Since China launched its sci-tech innovation bond pilot program in 2021, SOEs have dominated the issuance. By the end of 2024, the amount of outstanding sci-tech innovation bonds issued by central and local SOEs accounted for nearly 94 percent.[39] Their creditworthiness was derived from state ownership rather than from innovation capability, which means the sci-tech innovation bond market excluded the exact companies that financing was meant to reach. It failed to support private tech companies and venture funds facing acute funding constraints, and it reproduced the traditional bias of China’s financial system.
In an attempt to correct this problem, Chinese authorities started by changing three features of the market: who could issue, how creditworthiness would be evaluated, and how the resulting risks would be distributed. In May 2025, the PBoC and CSRC jointly issued Announcement No. 8 of 2025 on Supporting the Issuance of Technology-Innovation Bonds.[40] The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII) and the Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing exchanges then, on the same day, issued detailed implementation rules.[41] Together, these measures established what Beijing calls the bond market’s “technology board.” This reform expanded eligible issuers to include tech companies, financial institutions, and private equity and venture capital funds. Including venture capital and private equity as eligible issuers expanded their capacity to finance seed-stage tech startups that are too risky to borrow in the bond market on their own. The exchanges and the NAFMII also created fast-track review procedures. The Shanghai Stock Exchange provided an “immediate submission, immediate review” channel, promising review within ten working days for clean applications. The NAFMII established initial feedback periods of five working days and two thereafter.
To address the informational mismatch embedded in conventional credit assessments, the NAFMII encouraged credit rating agencies to revise their rating methodologies to account for the unique characteristics of the tech and innovation industry. Conventional ratings are based predominantly on existing profitability, tangible collateral, and historical cash flows, none of which are to the advantage of sci-tech innovation bond issuers. In March 2026, the NAFMII issued new rules that encourage credit rating agencies to put more weight on firms’ or funds’ intangible assets, such as core technologies, R&D capabilities, investment performance, and scale and quality of assets under management.[42] But technological capability is far more difficult to evaluate than tangible collateral or existing cash flows. An optimistic assessment of future potential may conceal weak repayment capacity. The revised credit rating criteria may make the bond market more accessible but without eliminating commercial uncertainties. Thus, bond market reform will have to be accompanied by mechanisms that redistribute portions of the associated credit risk.
3. Risk Distribution Reforms
Neither the PBoC facilities nor the capital market reforms change the root cause of why lenders and investors do not want to commit their money: the high risk of failure and thus borrower defaults and investment losses and opportunity costs. Chinese policymakers have therefore attempted to redistribute and socialize risks that cannot be eliminated. They have constructed guarantees, insurance arrangements, credit enhancement mechanisms, fiscal compensation, and central bank facilities to divide potential losses among institutions with varied capacities and policy mandates. In this way, the state shoulders some of the costs so that commercial lenders and investors no longer have to bear every step of the risks alone. Through these mechanisms, the Party-state intends to make technological uncertainties and risks financeable without replacing commercial judgment with a blanket state guarantee.
The most direct intervention addressed credit risk. Commercial lenders are always concerned that tech borrowers may fail and default. To shift part of the default burden away from commercial lenders, in July 2024 the MoF, MOST, MIIT, and the financial regulator introduced a special guarantee plan for technology SMEs.[43] Under the plan, the government financing guarantee system may assume up to 80 percent of the credit risk, whereas the lending bank must retain at least 20 percent. The National Financing Guarantee Fund’s share was raised from 20 percent to as much as 40 percent for priority categories. The maximum guarantee per company was raised from RMB 10 million to RMB 30 million. The retention requirement is critical for socializing risk and for ensuring that the state does not provide an unconditional guarantee for commercial underwriting. The guarantee reduces the losses a bank would incur if an eligible technology borrower were to default, but it does not insulate the bank completely. By requiring that lenders have skin in the game, the state preserves their incentives to screen and reject commercially implausible projects and to continue to monitor borrowers throughout the lending term. During 2025, the program supported approximately 34,400 companies in obtaining more than RMB 140 billion of bank loans, with reported comprehensive financing costs below 5 percent.[44]
A second set of mechanisms addressed the risks created by opening the tech innovation bond market to private tech companies and venture investment institutions in a market previously dominated by SOEs. Chinese regulators have established a set of risk-sharing mechanisms using guarantees, fiscal loss sharing, credit enhancement, and the PBoC refinancing facility. State-owned entities, such as China Bond Insurance, provide absolute credit guarantees for qualified issuers of sci-tech innovation bonds to raise the issuers’ creditworthiness and to lower their borrowing costs. Commercial banks, policy banks, and brokerage firms purchase these guaranteed sci-tech bonds and then take them to the PBoC. The PBoC created a sci-tech innovation bond risk-sharing tool, supplying low-cost relending funds to support purchases or credit enhancement of qualifying bonds.[45] This was designed to help private tech firms and venture fund issuers tap the public debt market to fund the state’s strategic objectives. In January 2026, the PBoC combined this instrument with the existing private-enterprise bond-support tool, creating a unified technology-innovation and private-enterprise bond risk-sharing facility backed by RMB 200 billion of relending capacity.[46] The MoF also announced the allocation of special fiscal loss-sharing funds to provide credit support for bonds issued by private companies and private-equity institutions and to compensate investors for part of their losses.[47]
Chinese policymakers have been developing technology insurance to address risks that conventional credit guarantees do not. A financing guarantee protects a lender or bondholder against a specified portion of the loss due to borrower default. Technology insurance can cover particular technical, operational, legal, or commercialization events that occur before or alongside any default and that might otherwise make a project too uncertain to finance. The April 2025 banking and insurance implementation plan promoted insurance coverage for R&D, pilot production, first equipment, first batches of materials, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and technology commercialization.[48] It also encouraged co-insurance pools and reinsurance so that a single insurer would not bear full exposure from a highly uncertain technical project. By 2025, regulators reported technology insurance coverage (amount of risk insured) exceeding RMB 2 trillion, alongside the creation of a national commercial space insurance pool.[49] This technology insurance approach has been formalized in a dedicated twenty-measure technology insurance framework jointly issued in March 2026 by financial regulators, MOST, MIIT, and intellectual property authorities.[50] It called for specialized insurance products covering the entire innovation lifecycle, from R&D to commercial conversion and industrialization. It also called for dedicated products for AI, integrated circuits, quantum technology, brain–computer interfaces, and other frontier fields prioritized by the Party-state.
Risk distribution reform completes the logic of Beijing’s technological financing system. The Party-state cannot eliminate risks associated with technological failure or assume all the resulting losses. By developing technology insurance instruments, Chinese policymakers intend to separate identifiable technological and commercialization risks from the general credit exposure borne by lenders and investors and to assign them to institutions designed to pool and price such risks. In this way, tech innovation risks are not concentrated on any single financial institution. This arrangement combines centralized direction with decentralized commercial judgments. The Party sets strategic goals, and state agencies define eligible technologies and build the mechanism through which risks are socialized. The system is designed to be more tolerant of failures, but the direction and distribution of financial risks remain subject to Party-state determination.
Conclusion
Since 2020, the Party-state has revamped China’s financial system to serve the strategic priority of achieving technological self-reliance. By 2026, the principal architecture of this financing system has taken shape. China will continue to add instruments and to fine-tune their designs, but the direction is already clear: China’s plan to win the global technology competition is increasingly underwritten by a Party-directed technology finance system.
A defining feature of how China finances its pursuit of technology self-reliance is that it does not rely exclusively on industrial policies, state subsidies, or capital directly allocated by the state. It has constructed a division of labor. The Party retains a monopoly over the financial system and centralizes the strategic direction of where finance and capital should go. Government agencies identify priority technologies and industries, set eligibility criteria, supply anchor capital, subsidize financing costs, and determine which risks the state will share and how much. Financial institutions make their own commercial judgments within the boundaries and incentive structures defined by the Party-state, bear part of the downside risk, and are rewarded through exits controlled by the state.
China’s emerging technology financing system allows the Party-state to extend control without direct ownership of every firm or making every investment decision. It is designed to encourage greater risk-taking over longer time horizons to maximize funding for the Party’s capital-intensive pursuit of technological self-reliance, not toward financial liberalization. In fact, financial liberalization would derail this project.
A more complete set of domestic tech financing channels may also make China more resilient to external pressures. The reform measures since 2020 can reduce the dependence of Chinese tech firms on foreign investment and foreign listings, which will reduce their vulnerability to U.S. restrictions, such as forcing U.S. investors to divest or threats of forced de-listing from U.S. exchanges. The domestic channels cannot fully replicate access to global capital and the associated expertise and prestige, but limited exposure also means limited fear of being cut off in times of geopolitical crises.
In this context, the nature of U.S.-China technology competition is not only a contest of specific technologies, tech companies, industrial policies, or subsidies. It is also competition between two different financial systems with different methods of producing risk capital, scaling innovation, rewarding success, and socializing failures. China has responded to the more market-led American model with a mission-driven system that combines centralized strategic agenda-setting with decentralized transaction-level decision-making. Whether the Chinese design will make China more capable of making genuine breakthroughs remains uncertain. But it certainly increases China’s ability to finance its preferred technologies that are aligned with its strategic priorities, even under conditions of prolonged strategic competition with the United States. China may not be able to command innovation, but it is building a financial system designed to ensure that a shortage of domestically mobilized capital does not prevent it from trying.
About the Contributor
Dr. Zongyuan “Zoe” Liu is Maurice R Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She teaches as an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She is also Senior Research Scholar at the Institute of Global Politics at SIPA. Her most recent book is Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, 2023). She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter-holder.
Notes
[1] National People’s Congress (全国人民代表大会), “Outline of the 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China (中国华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十二个五年规划纲要), https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/fggz/fzzlgh/gjfzgh/201109/P020191029595702423333.pdf ; People’s Bank of China (中国人民银行), “The PBC Released the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ for the Financial Industry” (中国人民银行发布《金融业发展和改革“十二五”规划》), 2012, https://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/130721/2025080815064312954/index.html
[2] Xi Jinping (习近平), “Speech at the 19th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 14th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering” (在中国科学院第十九次院士大会、中国工程院第十四次院士大会上的讲话), May 28, 2018, Xinhua News Agency (新华社) / Central People’s Government of the PRC (中华人民共和国中央人民政府), May 28, 2018, https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-05/28/content_5294322.htm
[3] U.S. Department of Commerce “Secretary Ross Announces Activation of ZTE Denial Order in Response to Repeated False Statements to the U.S. Government,” April 16, 2018, https://2017-2021.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2018/04/secretary-ross-announces-activation-zte-denial-order-response-repeated.html; Bureau of Industry and Security, “Addition of Certain Entities to the Entity List,” October 9, 2019, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/10/09/2019-22210/addition-of-certain-entities-to-the-entity-list; Bureau of Industry and Security, “Addition of Huawei Non-U.S. Affiliates to the Entity List, the Removal of Temporary General License, and Amendments to General Prohibition Three,” August 20, 2020, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/20/2020-18213/addition-of-huawei-non-us-affiliates-to-the-entity-list-the-removal-of-temporary-general-license-and
[4] Xinhua News Agency (新华社). “Communiqué of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China” (中国共产党第十九届中央委员会第五次全体会议公报), October 29, 2020, https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2020-10/29/c_1126674147.htm
[5] Xi Jinping (习近平), “Several Major Issues Concerning China's Mid- to-Long-term Economic and Social Development Strategy” (国家中长期经济社会发展战略若干重大问题), Qiushi 《求是》, October 31, 2020, https://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2020-10/31/c_1126680390.htm
[6] Xi Jinping (习近平), “Explanation of the CPC Central Committee Recommendations for Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Long-Range Objectives” (关于《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和二〇三五年远景目标的建议》的说明), Central People’s Government of the PRC (中华人民共和国中央人民政府), November 3, 2020, https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-11/03/content_5556997.htm; Xi Jinping (习近平), “Accelerate the Building of a New Development Pattern with Domestic Circulation as the Mainstay and Domestic and International Circulation Mutually Reinforcing” (加快构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局), Xinhua News Agency (新华社), November 25. 2020, https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/leaders/2020-11/25/c_1126785254.htm
[7] Xinhua News Agency (新华社), “ Central Economic Work Conference Held in Beijing; Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang Deliver Important Speeches” (中央经济工作会议在北京举行 习近平李克强作重要讲话), December 18, 2020, https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/leaders/2020-12/18/c_1126879325.htm
[8] Xi Jinping (习近平), “Explanation of the CPC Central Committee Recommendations for Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Long-Range Objectives” (关于《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和二〇三五年远景目标的建议》的说明), Central People’s Government of the PRC (中华人民共和国中央人民政府), November 3, 2020, https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-11/03/content_5556997.htm; National Development and Reform Commission (中华人民共和国国家发展和改革委员会), “Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035” (中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和2035年远景目标纲要), https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghwb/202103/P020210313315693279320.pdf
[9] National Development and Reform Commission (中华人民共和国国家发展和改革委员会), “Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China” (中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要), March 2026, https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/fggz/fzzlgh/gjfzgh/202603/U020260317369114704096.pdf
[10] Xi Jinping (习近平), “Developing New Quality Productive Forces Is an Inherent Requirement and Important Focus for Promoting High-quality Development” (发展新质生产力是推动高质量发展的内在要求和重要着力点), Qiushi 《求是》 , no. 11 (2024), May 31, 2024, https://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2024-05/31/c_1130154174.htm
[11] Zhang Haiwen (张海文), “Adhere to Finance Serving the Real Economy” (坚持金融服务实体经济), Red Flag Manuscripts (红旗文稿), no. 8 (2024), April 27, 2024, https://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/hqwg/2024-04/27/c_1130133389.htm
[12] Ibid.
[13] “The CPC Central Committee and the State Council Issued the ‘Plan for Party and State Institution Reform’” (中共中央国务院印发《党和国家机构改革方案》), People's Daily (人民日报), March 17, 2023, http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2023/0317/c1001-32645833.html
[14] National Development and Reform Commission (中华人民共和国国家发展和改革委员会), “Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Long-Range Objectives Through 2035” (中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和 2035 年远景目标要), https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghwb/202103/P020210313315693279320.pdf
[15] Xinhuanet (新华网), “Xi Jinping Presided over the 25th Meeting of the Central Committee for Deepening Overall Reform, Emphasizing the Strengthening of Digital Government Construction and Promoting the Reform of the Fiscal System Below the Provincial Level” (习近平主持召开中央全面深化改革委员会第二十五次会议强调 加强数字政府建设 推进省以下财政体制改革), April 19, 2022, https://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/2022-04/19/c_1128575366.htm
[16] People’s Bank of China, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (中国人民银行 科技部 工业和信息化部), "Notice on the Establishment of Science and Technology Innovation Relending” (关于设立科技创新再贷款的通知), 银发[2022] 104号, April 28, 2022, https://kj.quanzhou.gov.cn/xxgk/tzgg/202206/P020220616626078538749.pdf; Office of the Financial Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPC (中共广东省委金融委员会办公室), “The People's Bank of China Establishes Science and Technology Innovation Re-loans to Guide Financial Institutions to Increase Support for Science and Technology Innovation (with Q&A)” (中国人民银行设立科技创新再贷款 引导金融机构加大对科技创新的支持力度（附答记者问）, April 29, 2022, https://www.gdjr.gov.cn/gdjr/jrzx/jryw/content/post_16731.html
[17] People’s Bank of China, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, National Audit Office, and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (中国人民银行 发展改革委 财政部 审计署 银保监), “Notice on Matters Concerning the Establishment of Special Re-loans for Equipment Upgrades and Renovations” (关于设立设备更新改造专项再贷款有关事宜的通知), 银发[2022] 211号, September 23, 2022, https://share.google/rbKby02N96sFZQBOF
[18] China Government Website (中国政府网), “State Council Executive Meeting Outlines Measures to Step Up Support for Employment and Entrepreneurship, Expand Employment Opportunities, and Foster Stronger Market Entities and New Drivers of Economic Growth” (国务院常务会议部署加力支持就业创业的政策 拓展就业空间 培育壮大市场主体和经济新动能), September 9, 2022, https://m.mof.gov.cn/czxw/202209/t20220909_3839435.htm
[19] Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国财政部), "The State Council Executive Meeting Decided to Further Extend the Manufacturing Tax Deferral Payment Period to Increase Assistance and Relieve Difficulties for Enterprises, etc.” (国务院常务会议决定进一步延长制造业缓税补缴期限加力助企纾困等), September 15, 2022, https://www.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/caizhengxinwen/202209/t20220915_3840454.htm
[20] People’s Bank of China Monetary Policy Analysis Group (中国人民银行货币政策分析小组), “China's Monetary Policy Execution Report, Q4 2023” (2023年第四季度中国货币政策执行报告), February 8, 2024, https://www.pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu/113456/113469/2025092212553775596/2024030610591528512.pdf
[21] Office of the Central Financial Commission and Central Financial Work Commission (中央金融委员会办公室 中央金融工作委员会), “Unswervingly Take the Path of Financial Development with Chinese Characteristics” (坚定不移走中国特色金融发展之路), Qiushi 《求是》, no. 23 (2023), December 1, 2023, https://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2023-12/01/c_1129998578.htm
[22] State Council (国务院), “Notice of the State Council on Issuing the Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-ins” (国务院关于印发《推动大规模设备更新和消费品以旧换新行动方案》的通知), 国发[2024] 7号, March 7, 2024, https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/202403/content_6939232.htm
[23] People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Other Relevant Government Departments (中国人民银行、科学技术部等相关部门), “The People's Bank of China Jointly with the Ministry of Science and Technology and Other Departments Established a Relending Facility for Technology Innovation and Technical Renovation” (中国人民银行联合科技部等部门设立科技创新和技术改造再贷款), April 18, 2024, https://www.most.gov.cn/kjbgz/202404/t20240417_190211.html
[24] “China's central bank vows more financial support for certain sectors via relending,” Xinhua, May 7, 2025. https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202505/07/content_WS681af3f6c6d0868f4e8f250e.html; “China’s Central Bank to Cut Rates in 2026 and Increase Tech Lending,” CGTN, January 15, 2026. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-01-15/PBOC-to-cut-rates-in-2026-and-increase-tech-lending-1JXeiZNgBKo/p.html
[25] State Council Information Office (国务院新闻办公室), "Increase Counter-Cyclical and Cross-Cyclical Adjustment Efforts! The Central Bank's Press Conference is Informative" (加大逆周期和跨周期调节力度！ 央行发布会信息量很大), Chinese Government Website (中国政府网), July 15, 2026, http://big5.www.gov.cn/gate/big5/www.gov.cn/zhengce/202607/content_7075657.htm
[26] “Speech at the National Science and Technology Conference, the National Science and Technology Awards Conference, and the General Assemblies of the Members of the China Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering” (在全国科技大会、国家科学技术奖励大会、两院院士大会上的讲话), Xinhua Net (新华网), June 24, 2024, https://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/20240624/16741a201e564d8d8775ffb1450ecf29/c.html
[27] “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese-style Modernization” (中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革 推进中国式现代化的决定), July 18, 2024 CPC News Network (党建网) and People's Daily (人民日报), July 22, 2024, http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0722/c117092-40282216.html
[28] China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会), “Several Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening Supervision, Preventing Risks, and Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Capital Market” (国务院关于加强监管防范风险推动资本市场高质量发展的若干意见), 国发[2024] 10号, April 12, 2024, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7473562/content.shtml
[29] China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会), "Eight Measures of the China CSRC on Deepening the Reform of the Science and Technology Innovation Board to Serve Scientific and Technological Innovation and the Development of New Quality Productive Forces" (中国证监会关于深化科创板改革 服务科技创新和新质生产力发展的八条措施), June 19, 2024, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7487999/content.shtml
[30] Central Financial Work Office, China Securities Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, People’s Bank of China, and National Financial Regulatory Administration (中央金融办、中国证监会、财政部、人力资源社会保障部、中国人民银行、金融监管总局), "Implementation Plan for Promoting the Entrance of Medium- and Long-Term Funds into the Market" (关于推动中长期资金入市工作的实施方案), China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会), January 22, 2025, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7535174/content.shtml
[31] China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会 ), “Opinions on Setting Up a Sci-tech Innovation Growth Layer on the STAR Market to Enhance Institutional Inclusiveness and Adaptability” (关于在科创板设置科创成长层 增强制度包容性适应性的意见), 2025年6月18日, June 18, 2025, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7565137/content.shtml; Shanxi Bureau of China Securities Regulatory Commission (山西证监局), “The ‘1+6’ Policy Supporting Rules for the STAR Market Are Here! Capital Market Support for Tech Innovation Welcomes Major Reform Once Again” (科创板“1+6”政策配套规则来了！资本市场支持科创再迎重磅改革), 2025年7月17日, July 17, 2025, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/shanxi/c106408/c7571727/content.shtml
[32] China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国证券监督管理委员会), "CSRC Releases ‘Opinions on Deepening the Market Reform of Mergers and Acquisitions of Listed Companies’" (证监会发布《关于深化上市公司并购重组市场改革的意见》), 2024年9月24日, September 24, 2024, https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7508366/content.shtml
[33] General Office of the State Council (国务院办公厅), "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Government Investment Fund” (国务院办公厅关于促进政府投资基金高质量发展的指导意见), Guobanfa no. 1 (2025) (国办发[2025] 1号), January 8, 2025, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国生态环境部), https://www.mee.gov.cn/zcwj/gwywj/202501/t20250108_1100235.shtml
[34] Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委政策研究室), "NDRC Press Conference Introduces Relevant Work on the National Venture Capital Guiding Fund” (国家发展改革委新闻发布会 介绍国家创业投资引导基金有关工), December 26, 2025, https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xwdt/wszb/cytzyd/; CCTV News (央视新闻), "Our Country's 'Carrier-Class' Fund in the Venture Capital Field Has Arrived!" (我国创投领域“航母级”基金来了！), Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center (北京国际科技创新中心), March 7, 2025, https://www.ncsti.gov.cn/kjdt/ztbd/qglh2025/jjkc/202503/t20250307_197586.html
[35] General Office of the State Council (国务院办公厅), "Notice on Issuing the 'Several Policy Measures for Promoting the High-Quality Development of Venture Capital'" (国务院办公厅关于印发《促进创业投资高质量发展的若干政策措施》的通知), Guobanfa no. 31 (2024) (国办发[2024] 31号), June 15, 2024, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国生态环境部), https://www.mee.gov.cn/zcwj/gwywj/202406/t20240620_1076246.shtml
[36] State Council General Office (国务院办公厅), “Guiding Opinions on Implementing ‘Five Major Areas of Finance’” (关于做好金融“五篇大文章”的指导意见), Guobanfa no. 8 (国办发[2025] 8号), March 2, 2025, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, March 6, 2025, https://www.mee.gov.cn/zcwj/gwywj/202503/t20250306_1103481.shtml
[37] Zhu Yanran (祝嫣然), "A National-Level Merger and Acquisition Fund Will Be Established This Year, Leveraging Over 1 Trillion Yuan of Various Capital" (今年将设立国家级并购基金，撬动各类资金规模超1万亿), Yicai (第一财经), March 6, 2026, https://www.yicai.com/news/103074618.html
[38] “Notice on Issuing ‘Policy Measures to Accelerate the Construction of a Science and Technology Finance System to Strongly Support High-level Scientific and Technological Self-Reliance’” (科技部 中国人民银行 金融监管总局 中国证监会 国家发展改革委 财政部 国务院国资委 关于印发《加快构建科技金融体制 有力支撑高水平科技自立自强的若干政策举措》的通知), Ministry of Science and Technology, May 13, 2025, https://www.most.gov.cn/xxgk/xinxifenlei/fdzdgknr/fgzc/gfxwj/gfxwj2025/202505/t20250513_196348.html; Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China and Other Relevant Authorities (中华人民共和国科学技术部等), “Officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology and Six Other Government Departments Answer Questions from Reporters on the Several Policy Measures to Accelerate the Development of a Science and Technology Finance System and Provide Strong Support for High-Level Self-Reliance and Self-Strengthening in Science and Technology” (科技部等七部门有关负责同志就《加快构建科技金融体制 有力支撑高水平科技自立自强的若干政策举措》答记者问), May 22, 2025, https://www.most.gov.cn/xxgk/xinxifenlei/fdzdgknr/fgzc/zcjd/202505/t20250522_196381.html
[39] Meng Jingjing, Ouyang Wanming, and Qing Mengyu (孟婧婧、欧阳婉鸣、青蒙雨), "Sci-Tech Innovation Bond Market Operation Status” (科创债市场运行情况), China Bond Rating Co., Ltd. (中债资信评估有限责任公司), 2025年4月 (April 2025), Special Report 2025 No. 21, Serial No. 2013 (题报告 2025 年第 21 期 总第 2013 期), https://www.chinaratings.com.cn/upload/docs/2025-04-30/doc_2841745975555.pdf
[40] People's Bank of China and China Securities Regulatory Commission (中国人民银行、中国证券监督管理委员会), "Joint Announcement by the People's Bank of China and the CSRC on Matters Concerning Support for the Issuance of Sci-Tech Innovation Bonds” (中国人民银行 中国证监会联合发布关于支持发行科技创新债券有关事宜的公告), 2025年5月7日 (May 7, 2025), PBC & CSRC Announcement no. 2025-8 (国人民银行 中国证监会公告[2025] 8号), https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c100028/c7555683/content.shtml
[41] National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (中国银行间市场交易商协会), "Notice on Launching Sci-Tech Innovation Bonds and Building a ‘Sci-Tech Board’ in the Bond Market” (关于推出科技创新债券 构建债市“科技板”的通知), 2025年5月7日 (May 7, 2025), https://www.nafmii.org.cn/ggtz/tz/202505/t20250507_322039.html; Shanghai Stock Exchange (上海证券交易所), “Notice on Further Supporting the Issuance of Sci-Tech Innovation Bonds to Serve New Quality Productive Forces” (关于进一步支持发行科技创新债券服务新质生产力的通知), 2025年5月7日 (May 7, 2025), SSE Issuance No. 2025-65 (上证发[2025] 65号), https://www.sse.com.cn/lawandrules/sselawsrules2025/bond/review/c/c_20250519_10779403.shtml
[42] National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (中国银行间市场交易商协会), "Notice on Further Optimizing the Mechanism for Sci-Tech Innovation Bonds” (关于进一步优化科技创新债券机制的通知), 2026年3月2日 (March 2, 2026), NAFMII Issuance No. 2026-40 (中市协发[2026],40号), https://www.nafmii.org.cn/ggtz/tz/202603/t20260302_324902.html
[43] Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and National Financial Regulatory Administration (财政部、科技部、工业和信息化部、金融监管总局), "Notice on Implementing the Special Guarantee Plan to Support Technological Innovation" (关于实施支持科技创新专项担保计划的通知), Financial Department of the Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国财政部金融司), July 24, 2024, https://jrs.mof.gov.cn/zhengcefabu/phjr/202407/t20240726_3940510.htm
[44] Ministry of Finance News Office (财政部新闻办公室), "Transcript of the State Council Information Office Press Conference on Giving Play to the Role of Active Fiscal Policy to Promote High-Quality Economic and Social Development" (发挥积极财政政策作用 推动经济社会高质量发展国新办新闻发布会文字实录), Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国财政部), January 20, 2026, https://www.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/caizhengxinwen/202601/t20260120_3982255.htm
[45] China Securities Regulatory Commission (国证券监督管理委员会), “SCIO Holds Press Conference to Introduce the ‘Package of Financial Policies to Stabilize the Market and Central Expectations’” (国新办举行新闻发布会 介绍“一揽子金融政策支持稳市场稳预期”有关情况), 2025年5月7日 (May 7, 2025), https://www.csrc.gov.cn/csrc/c106311/c7555758/content.shtml
[46] State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Shanghai Branch (国家外汇管理局上海市分局), "SCIO Holds Press Conference to Introduce the Results of Monetary and Financial Policies Supporting the High-Quality Development of the Real Economy” (国新办举行新闻发布会 介绍货币金融政策支持实体经济高质量发展成效), January 30, 2026, https://www.safe.gov.cn/shanghai/2026/0130/2391.html
[47] Guandian New Media (观点新媒体), "Ministry of Finance Launches Risk-Sharing Mechanism for Private Enterprise Bonds to Help Private Enterprises Expand Financing Channels” (财政部推民企债券风险分担机制 助民企拓宽融资渠道), Sohu (搜狐), 2026年1月20日 (January 20, 2026), https://www.sohu.com/a/978148367_655634
[48] National Financial Regulatory Administration, Ministry of Science and Technology, and National Development and Reform Commission (国家金融监督管理总局办公厅、科技部办公厅、国家发展改革委办公厅), "Implementation Scheme for the High-Quality Development of Sci-Tech Finance in the Banking and Insurance Industries" (银行业保险业科技金融高质量发展实施方案), National Financial Regulatory Administration (国家金融监督管理总局), March 13, 2025, https://www.nfra.gov.cn/cn/view/pages/governmentDetail.html?docId=1203324&itemId=861&generaltype=1
[49] “‘High-Quality Completion of the 14th Five-Year Plan’ Series of Thematic Press Conferences: Introducing the Achievements in Science and Technology Innovation During the 14th Five-Year Plan Period—Transcript” (高质量完成“十四五”规划系列主题新闻发布会 介绍“十四五”时期科技创新发展成就文字实录), Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国科学技术部), September 18, 2025, https://www.most.gov.cn/xwzx/twzb/fbh2025091801/twzbwzsl/202509/t20250918_194727.html
[50] Ministry of Science and Technology, National Financial Regulatory Administration, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and China National Intellectual Property Administration (科技部、金融监管总局、工业和信息化部、国家知识产权局), "Several Opinions on Accelerating the High-Quality Development of Sci-Tech Insurance to Strongly Support High-Level Technological Self-Reliance and Self-Improvement" (关于加快推动科技保险高质量发展 有力支撑高水平科技自立自强的若干意见), March 2, 2026, https://www.most.gov.cn/kjbgz/202602/t20260228_195995.html
Photo credit: Max12Max, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; RoadMaster19, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
