The Chinese government is steadily moving ahead with a ten-year IT plan that lays out a broad set of information technology goals and also signals a continuing commitment to increasing government oversight and control in cyberspace. On July 27, 2016, the State Council and the Communist Party Central Committee jointly released a blueprint for the country’s national IT strategy, which will guide Chinese government policy efforts over the next decade. Beijing sees the plan and its targets as critical to establishing China as an innovation and technology “powerhouse.”
Creating a World-Class IT Sector as Top Priority
The blueprint—formally titled the “Outline on the National Information Technology Development Strategy”—lays out the government’s IT goals and targets for the next ten years. Principally, China aims to boost its domestic IT sectors substantially, while fostering a number of globally competitive Chinese IT and internet companies by 2025. The Strategy sets its sights high, mapping out a series of progressively more ambitious targets that will enable China eventually to surpass global tech leaders like the United States and Germany. (A full English translation of the Outline is available from China Copyright and Media.)
