Xi Jinping’s ‘New Productive Forces’ Don’t Add Up
China’s focus on expanding its industrial capacity threatens to stoke global tensions. Above, electric vehicles made by Geely at the Port of Taicang in Jiangsu Province as they awaited shipment to Europe last year.
Photograph: Bloomberg
The Chinese Communist Party loves slogans, as this newsletter has observed before. In the coming week’s annual convocation of China’s legislature, watch for repeated endorsements of “new productive forces.”
In the run-up to the National People’s Congress (NPC), the party’s Politburo declared, “it is imperative to boost the endeavors to modernize the industrial system, and accelerate the development of new productive forces.” State-run news agency Xinhua touted that entrepreneurs are eyeing the theme with enthusiasm, that the “forces” are “spurring revival of northeast China,” and even how “green productive forces” are emerging.