{"id":9533,"date":"2022-02-25T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=9533"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:44:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:44:24","slug":"what-does-chinas-science-and-technological-progress-law-mean-for-british-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/what-does-chinas-science-and-technological-progress-law-mean-for-british-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"What China’s Science and Technological Progress Law means for British business"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chinese government is pinning the country\u2019s development on science and technology, ensuring the Party can innovate its way out of any problems the future may hold. British businesses could find themselves at a disadvantage as a new \u2018techno-nationalism\u2019 grips China\u2019s industrial markets and results in the adoption of a \u2018China first\u2019 principal in government procurement, writes Joe Cash<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cMr Science\u201d has made many cameo appearances in the Party\u2019s presentation of the birth of modern China. Now he is set to get his own show. First recruited by the May Fourth movement students of the early 20th century, \u201cMr Science\u201d has inspired generations of Chinese scientists to push the boundaries in the pursuit of national greatness. Progress personified, President Xi appears keen to resuscitate him \u2014 science and technology has become one of his foremost \u2018national projects.\u2019 And President Xi is willing to spend. Forget the multibillion-dollar budget of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Chinese Communist Party is about to unleash a super-charged legislative agenda intended to see \u201cMr Science\u201d turn the stuff of dreams into China\u2019s every day.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"launchpad<\/a><\/p>\n

Enter the Science and Technological Progress Law (SPTL). The government hopes that its impact on society will be the same: to inspire China to look to infinity and beyond (to quote Buzz Lightyear). At 117 articles long, it is a treatise on adopting a top-down approach to fostering individual innovation. Concerningly for British businesses, the SPTL also contains several clauses that could see foreign firms excluded from public procurement programmes or their innovations commandeered by the Chinese Communist Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Science and Technological Progress Law?<\/span><\/h4>\n

China\u2019s leadership<\/a> has long distinguished itself through its technocratic tendencies, while Western cabinets continue to more commonly consist of classicists rather than chemists. That alone goes a long way to explaining why the country is a leader in both the pursuit of a digital currency<\/a> and the rollout of 5G technologies, and also now ranks first in terms of the number of filed patents. Take President Xi, for example \u2013 he is a chemical engineer and a scholar of Marxist theory by formal training, well versed in the affairs of the Soviet Union, whose government came to typify technocracy. He is far from alone in the top tiers of the Party in that regard. Now his government wants to \u201cpromote science and technology as the primary productive force\u2026 to support and lead economic and social development and build a modern socialist country in an all-around way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The SPTL is not a new law; the Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress has passed revisions to legislation that came into force in 1993 before being revised once prior in 2007. That\u2019s a point for the pedants, though, as CBBC has already heard from members that these changes have turned what used to be a benign piece of legislation that went largely unnoticed \u2013 given that the previous version existed as a piece of legislative advocacy rather than enforceable law \u2014 into a new non-market access barrier. Indeed, some provinces have reportedly interpreted the STPL as a new requirement to take a <\/span>\u2018China first<\/span>\u2019 approach to R&D funding and government procurement.<\/span><\/p>\n