Indications are that the 'Made in China 2025' plan for upgrading China's technological capabilities is being reworked ahead of the Central Economic Work Conference scheduled for December 19. The US pressure appears to be responsible. The Wall Street Journal (December 13) said “China’s top planning agency and senior policy advisers are drafting the replacement for Made in China 2025 [MiC 2025], President Xi Jinping’s blueprint to make the country a leader in high-tech industries including robotics, information and clean-energy cars”and that “The revised plan…would play down China’s bid to dominate manufacturing and be more open to participation by foreign companies.” Quoting sources the WSJ said “Vice Premier Liu He, and other senior officials have criticized Made in China 2025 for creating waste.” They also said “Cheap loans made available by various levels of government, for example, have led to extreme overcapacity among electric-vehicle battery makers in the past couple of years.” Reports claim that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is in the doghouse for the way the plan was crafted and promoted. The WSJ also reported that in the revised Made in China plan “A key concession under consideration would be dropping the numerical targets for market share by Chinese companies. Made in China 2025 sets defined goals of raising domestic content of core components and materials to 40% by 2020 and 70% by 2025.” Additionally, “Beijing may postpone some aspects of its ambitious industrial program by a decade to 2035”, but also that “Beijing hasn’t made a final decision on revising the Made in 2025 plan". Meanwhile, Caixin reported that among the policy priorities for the local governments in 2019 listed by the State Council on December 10 one that was missing in the Made in China 2025, was "cutting overcapacity in the steel and coal sectors, and promotion of public-private partnerships" that were on the 2016 list.
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