In China (Chapter 23), the “Made in China 2025” program was adopted in 2015 to help ten strategic industries reduce their dependence on a number of key foreign technologies through government subsidies, mobilization of state-owned companies and the pursuit of the intellectual property acquisition policy. Among the leading-edge manufacturing sectors concerned are: electrical automotive, aerospace engineering, biomedicine, advanced robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI).
China aspires to be “the world’s leading hub in the field of AI innovation by 2030.” For now, this country is the largest patent holder in AI, but it lacks enough top-notch research staff in this area. Looking ahead to 2030, the government has launched science and engineering megaprograms that span the fields of quantum computing and brain sciences.
Chinese strategic industries want the government to protect their intellectual property more. In April 2019, the Law against Unfair Competition and in 2020 the Law on Patents were amended to better protect, respectively, trade secrets and the rights of patent owners. China has also established its first courts of law specialized in intellectual property.
In 2015, the Law on Promoting Transformation of Scientific and Technological Results of 1993, also known as the Bayh-Dole Law of China, was amended to help universities and public research institutions transfer technologies to agencies. industrial. This may encourage the central government and local authorities to invest more in basic research, which in 2018 represented only 6% of gross research and development spending (GBID).
China aims to achieve zero CO2 emissions by 2060. To reach its goal of 20% non-fossil fuel use in energy consumption by 2030, China is developing nuclear and hydroelectric power plants, as well as wind and solar power. At the same time, it should be noted that the number of permits granted for the construction of coal-fired power plants has increased since 2019.
Chinese companies are being encouraged to cooperate scientifically with the countries associated with the Belt and Road Initiative. The adoption of a series of guidelines in 2017 is intended to give a “greener” trajectory to that initiative.
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