context: 2022 marks the 9th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to shore up global demand in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, while opening supply chains on on the PRC's western, Eurasian flank. Despite unfathomed environmental and geopolitical risks, BRI was written into the Constitution as core foreign policy. XI's Report to the 20th Party Congress singled out ’industry and supply chain stability’ for attention, already aired at a Global Industry and Supply Chain conference (Hangzhou, 19 September). Making this as the point of Xi-branded BRI implies limiting Xi's pre-COVID 'dual circulation'.
'BRI perspectives on multiple shocks to and countermeasures for stable development of industry and supply chains’ were analysed by Xu Yifan 徐以汎 and Liu Jianlin 刘建林, professors at Fudan University’s School of Management, at a forum on BRI and Global Governance held at Fudan University 10-12 November, co-hosted by the 'BRI Think Tank Alliance', an initiative of the CPC Central Committee's International Department. They argue
- The PRC should have a new vision in response to external and internal challenges.
- the US strategic asset portfolio lists chips and oil as materials for overlapping infrastructure, dependency and cumulation strategies, deeming tech innovation as of equal importance as conventional energy strategy
- neither anger nor fear can make up for the gap in strength between China and the US; we must work to catch up
- Xi's 20th National Party Congress Report replaced earlier talk of ’development’ as the top priority with 'high-quality development’
- the state seeks progress while maintaining stability, and guarantees a new development pattern with a new security pattern
- take industry and supply chains supporting PRC exports of new energy vehicles
- the PRC is 'choked' for chips, and also for minerals, battery manufacturing and logistics
- also for stable supply of a range of factors, e.g. market and development space
- 80 percent of batteries and key mineral resources are dependent on foreign countries.
- the PRC has the tech needed, but the mineral materials are overseas, which is quite 'lethal’
- not only in export terms, PRC enterprises must ’go global’ for products and services, and for innovation and branding.