CHINA'S LEADERS VOW TO BECOME SELF-RELIANT TECHNOLOGY POWER

China’s leaders are vowing to make their country a self-reliant “technology power” as a feud with Washington cuts access to U.S. computer chips and other high-tech components, hampering Beijing’s industrial ambitions.

Leaders of the ruling Communist Party made the announcement Thursday after a meeting to draft a development blueprint for the state-dominated economy over the next five years.

President Xi Jinping’s government is trying to limit damage from the Trump administration’s curbs on technology sales to China in a fight over security and spying. Those threaten to disrupt plans to create Chinese companies able to compete in telecoms, biotech and other fields, which communist leaders see as a path to prosperity and global influence.

“Science and technology should be self-reliant as a strategic support for national development,” said a party statement. It promised to “accelerate the building of a science and technology power” but gave no details.

Five-Year Plans, issued since the 1950s, form the basis of regulation and industry initiatives in an economy where the ruling party still plays a leading role after four decades of market-style reforms. The full plan is due to be released in March. Changes in regulations and plans for individual industries will be announced after that.

Thursday’s statement promised to promote “green and low-carbon development” and to raise Chinese living standards. It called for unspecified steps to strengthen the 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army and to “ improve our strategic ability to defend national sovereignty.”

China faces a “complicated international situation,” it said, but it made no mention of the coronavirus pandemic or its tariff war with Washington.