The Technocracy: Making the MOST of Institutional Power to Advance China’s Innovation

More than a year after Beijing touted the reorganization of the science and technology agencies at the March 2023 National People’s Congress, more clarity is emerging on the scope and purpose of these changes.

The 2023 restructuring resulted in three outcomes: creating a Central Science and Technology Commission (CSTC) at the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) level endowed with decision-making authority; refining the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) by shedding its project management responsibilities and strengthening its focus on high-level strategic policy setting; and designating the entirety of the leaner MOST as CSTC’s executive office.

At a fundamental level, this organizational restructuring should be viewed through the lens of a leadership intent on imbuing its technocracy with two core features: 1) direct Chinese Communist Party (CCP) oversight of tech and innovation priorities and 2) better leveraging existing agencies as instruments of execution.

The Setup

CSTC is not just another “leading group.” It has the authority to execute policy and allocate funding—where the real power lies. Designating MOST as CSTC’s executive office also elevates MOST’s authority: anything the ministry issues will be interpreted as reflecting the mandate of the PBSC. This new institutional setup is designed to avoid the pitfalls of other central leading groups, which have ended up becoming cat herders of agencies with relatively equal rank.

In practice, CSTC aims to ensure that government research funding flows to sci-tech programs that align with central Party priorities. It appears that CSTC’s first target is centralizing longstanding innovation initiatives, such as National Key R&D Projects that receive central government funding and are managed by various agencies.

Through MOST, CSTC has already compelled the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Chinese Academy of Engineering to adopt new guidelines that emphasize the CSTC’s oversight over National Key R&D Projects. The Ministry of Transportation is also drafting similar rules to ensure its projects remain eligible for central government funding.

The message seems clear: If you want public research funds, your projects must align with the science and technology goals prioritized by CSTC and the new technocracy.

Such an institutional setup—characteristic of Beijing’s now favored “top-level design” approach—is somewhat akin to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as well as the technology and national security portfolio under the National Security Council.

In Zhongnanhai’s version, MOST is a more powerful OSTP that leverages its staff’s subject matter expertise to execute the top leadership’s plans, while CSTC sets the strategic agenda at the “White House” level and is led by someone with proximity to the president.

The Priorities

The priorities CSTC will pursue under this new institutional setup will be decided in large part by its director Ding Xuexiang, a PBSC member and the CCP’s highest ranking technocrat. As a technocrat-politician, Ding seems well suited to run CSTC. He is not only trained in materials science, where China wants to see breakthroughs, but is also close with President Xi Jinping. That could make him effective in managing the all-important technology and innovation portfolio from the top (see The Committee for Ding’s career trajectory).

As such, one way to examine CSTC’s priorities is to play “follow the leader.” Over the last six months, Ding’s activities suggest he assigns high value to firms’ role in accelerating key sci-tech breakthroughs. He has led inspection tours to companies, universities, and research labs across five provinces (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1. Following DingSource: People’s Daily. 

These trips, which also include frequent visits to High-Tech Industrial Development Zones, are indicative of Ding’s focus on tightening the links of the “innovation chain” to accelerate the commercialization of potential breakthrough technologies, which requires collaboration between research and industry. These coordination efforts are clearly in line with Beijing’s desire to create a “New National Innovation System” that integrates high-tech talent, research, and commercialization.

But CSTC has inherited a longstanding obstacle to advancing state-directed innovation: getting enough actors to consistently march to the same drumbeat. Relative to previous sci-tech oversight bodies, CSTC certainly has more teeth and is more able to bare them, but its attempt to reshape China’s sci-tech ecosystem will likely be arduous. Beijing insists on directing the show, but whether the myriad actors will faithfully play their parts is far from a guarantee. That will be the subject of future analysis in The Technocracy series.

Jackson Martin is a research associate at MacroPolo. His work focuses on China’s political economy, elite politics, and institutional reforms.