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2026-10-20 Guizhou Provincial People's Government Implementation Plan for the High-Quality Development of the Health and Pharmaceutical Industry in Guizhou Province (2026–2030) (Draft for Public Consultation) [Capital grant] └ Biomedicine and health
2026-10-13 Ministry of Commerce and 8 others Accelerating the Promotion of Science and Technology in Commerce └ Science and innovation
2026-10-09 State Council Developing New-Quality Productive Forces └ Science and innovation
2026-10-08 Chongqing Municipal Several Measures for Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Human Resources Services Sector through Artificial Intelligence in Chongqing [Capital grant, Vouchers for firms] └ AI and computing · Consumption and services
2026-10-08 Quanzhou Municipal People's Government Building an Innovation System with Quanzhou Characteristics to Promote High-Quality Development in All Respects [Tax relief] └ Science and innovation
2026-09-29 Ministry of Transport and 2 others Action Plan for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vessels on Inland Waterways (2026–2030) └ Energy and power · Marine economy
2026-09-29 General Office of the Tianjin Municipal People'… Work Plan for Accelerating Scenario Innovation and Application in Tianjin [Capital grant] └ Science and innovation
2026-09-28 Changsha Municipal People's Government Administrative Measures for Science and Technology Enterprise Incubators in Changsha [Guidance fund / state equity] └ Science and innovation
2026-09-25 General Office of the State Council Developing Sporting Events to Stimulate Consumer Spending └ Consumption and services
2026-09-20 General Office of the Liaoning Provincial Peopl… Liaoning Province “15th Five-Year Plan” for Opening Up [Foreign investment rule] └ Trade and investment
2026-09-18 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products’ (Batch 410), ‘Catalogue of Energy-Efficient and New Energy Vehicle Models Eligible for Vehicle and Vessel Tax Relief’ (Batch 89), ‘Catalogue of New Energy Vehicle Models Eligible for Vehicle Purchase Tax Relief’ (Batch 34) └ Autos and NEVs · Taxes and fees
2026-09-18 Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio and Television Measures for the Support and Management of Key Projects to Promote the High-Quality Development of the “Artificial Intelligence + Audiovisual” Industry in Beijing (2026–2029) [Capital grant] └ AI and computing · Culture and media
2026-09-17 Xiamen Municipal People's Government Implementation Plan for Expanding Capacity and Improving Quality in Xiamen’s Service Sector [Capital grant, Interest subsidy] └ Consumption and services
2026-09-16 Xiamen Municipal People's Government Several Measures for Accelerating the High-Quality Development of the BRICS New Industrial Revolution Partnership Innovation Base in Xiamen [Capital grant] └ Advanced manufacturing · Science and innovation
2026-09-15 General Office of the Haikou Municipal People's… Regulations on the Management of Government-Invested Projects in Haikou [Capital grant, Interest subsidy] └ Construction and infrastructure · Investment and business relief

Analyst view Opens on the Summary; every view lists its caveats and data. Data

Insights · evidence from 1,146 State Council directives and their provincial echoes

How Chinese policy travels, what it favours, and what it moves

One evidence base in six views. Every figure states its sample, its uncertainty and how it was measured. The data behind each chart can be downloaded.

The main findings across all views. Read the two-page briefing note →

151 days

median time for a province to restate a State Council directive; 59% of directives are restated within a year by at least one province

Built from 50,271 Chinese government documents linked by their own citations, measuring province by province and directive by directive how central policy travels.
Import-substitution language stepped up around 2020: 1.9% of sector policy documents in 2017–19, 6.4% in 2020–22 and 6.1% in 2023–26; 49% of documents that use it carry support measures, against 30% of those that don't.
The first 15th Five-Year Plan documents name new priorities: future industries, low-altitude economy, equipment renewal and trade-in, biomanufacturing and the bioeconomy.
51% of Switzerland's exports to China (excluding gold) are in product lines Beijing now targets for substitution.
Firm-level evidence for trade defence: MIIT's own tables show ¥16.9bn in central NEV subsidies approved for BYD Group, one of the groups in the EU's BEV case.
Every figure carries its sample size, uncertainty and a hand-validation check; the data behind each chart can be downloaded.

1,146

State Council directives, 2013–2026

5,644

directive–province pairs followed

provinces enumerated in full

40/40

hand-checked matches confirmed

Policy transmission

Provinces take up most State Council directives, and take about 5 months to do it

151 days

median time from a State Council directive to a province's implementing document (middle half 84–259 days)

59%

of directives (2013–2025) answered within a year by at least one of 6 fully listed provinces (653 of 1,112)

Why it mattersA State Council directive is usually restated by some province within months. Watching the provincial layer shows where and how fast central policy lands.

Data table

Directive cohort	Responses	Median days to respond
2013–15	456	170
2016–18	648	144
2019–21	177	166
2022–26	100	136

How we know

1,381 basis responses: a provincial-government document whose opening names the directive as its basis, in six provinces whose government documents are listed in full. Two independent coders confirm 99–100% of the responses this detects (reports/pap_responsiveness_results.md).

Whether provinces respond less often than they used to is not established: see the pre-registered test on the Data page.

responses.csv directives.csv Trace any directive, province by province →

Industrial strategy · Import substitution

The language of import substitution stepped up around 2020, from 1.9% of sector policy documents in 2017–19 to 6.4% in 2020–22, and has stayed there (6.1% in 2023–26)

2.8%

of policy documents call for 国产替代, 进口替代, 自主可控 or 卡脖子 fixes, 2013–16 (n = 251)

6.1%

in 2023–26 (n = 2,407)

×1.03

odds per year (95% CI 0.99–1.07), central and local documents, 3,834 documents

“构建福州、泉州、厦门联动发展格局，推动光电元器件在“卡脖子”领域的应用创新…”
Build a Fuzhou–Quanzhou–Xiamen development pattern, and push the application of optoelectronic components in "chokepoint" fields … (Fujian's 15th Five-Year Plan for emerging and future industries)闽政〔2026〕12号福建省人民政府关于印发《福建省“十五五”新兴产业和未来产业发展规划》的通知 · 2026-07-30 · Future industries

“利用自主可控新型网络通信协议技术，构建即联即算、毫秒用算、安全可靠的城市算网融合网络。”渝府发〔2026〕20号重庆市人民政府关于印发《重庆市“十五五”人工智能发展规划（2026—2030年）》的通知 · 2026-07-31 · AI and computing power

Share of sector policy documents using import-substitution language, by period of issue

Whiskers: 95% Wilson interval.

Why it mattersSelf-reliance used to be a headline in a few national plans. Since about 2020 it has been an operating instruction in local implementing rules, with money attached: grants for 卡脖子 projects, "揭榜挂帅" challenge prizes, domestic-substitution targets. For a foreign supplier, the question is no longer whether China wants to replace its product, but which provincial programme is paying to do it.

Data table

Period	Policy documents	With substitution language	Share	95% CI
2013–16	251	7	2.8%	1.4%–5.6%
2017–19	485	9	1.9%	1.0%–3.5%
2020–22	691	44	6.4%	4.8%–8.4%
2023–26	2407	147	6.1%	5.2%–7.1%

How we know

Full text of every policy document (has a 文号 or an instrument title; news and Q&As excluded) in the 29 sector topics: 3,834 documents, 2013–2026. Substitution language: 国产替代, 国产化替代, 进口替代, 替代进口, 国产化率, 自主可控, 卡脖子, 受制于人. Not 安全可控, which usually means "safely and controllably". Logit of any mention on year and level (central vs local), robust standard errors.

Checked by hand: 39/40 randomly sampled matches are genuine calls for substitution or domestic control of a technology (95% CI 87%–100%); the miss used 卡脖子 for a rural power-grid bottleneck.
Each document is counted once, whichever sectors it belongs to.
Coverage is the corpus: deepest for Fujian, Guangdong, Beijing and Anhui, and the central libraries.
A mention is a stated aim, not evidence that substitution happened; the trade cards test that.

topic_docs.csv substitution_validation.csv

What comes next · The 15th Five-Year Plan

The first 15th Five-Year Plan documents name a new set of industries: low-altitude flight, future industries, data and robotics

12% → 23%

of plan documents name future industries

19% → 28%

of plan documents name low-altitude economy

6% → 14%

of plan documents name equipment renewal and trade-in

15th-plan documents (2025–26, n = 271) vs 14th-plan documents (2020–25, n = 501)

Named more oftenNamed less oftenNo clear change

Whiskers: 95% interval for the difference (Newcombe).

Why it mattersFive-year plan documents set what provinces and cities will fund for the next five years. The first 15th-plan documents mention the last decade's winners (electric vehicles, charging, solar) about as often as before, and add the "new quality productive forces" list on top: low-altitude aviation, future industries, the data economy, robotics and biomanufacturing. These are the sectors where the next round of local subsidies, guidance funds and procurement preferences will appear, and where today's trade flows are still small enough for exporters to be early.

Data table

Sector	14th plan	15th plan	Change (pp)	95% CI
Future industries	12% (61)	23% (61)	+10	+5 to +16
Low-altitude economy	19% (97)	28% (75)	+8	+2 to +15
Equipment renewal and trade-in	6% (32)	14% (39)	+8	+4 to +13
Biomanufacturing and the bioeconomy	3% (15)	7% (18)	+4	+1 to +7
Specialised SMEs (专精特新)	11% (56)	14% (39)	+3	-2 to +8
Consumption and services demand	6% (31)	9% (25)	+3	-1 to +8
Data as a factor of production	14% (72)	16% (44)	+2	-3 to +8
Seed industry	12% (61)	12% (32)	-0	-5 to +5
Shipbuilding and marine equipment	4% (20)	2% (6)	-2	-4 to +1
Government procurement and domestic products	10% (50)	8% (22)	-2	-6 to +3
Civil aircraft and aero-engines	5% (23)	2% (6)	-2	-5 to +1
Industrial machine tools (工业母机)	6% (31)	4% (10)	-2	-6 to +1
Robotics and embodied AI	20% (101)	17% (47)	-3	-8 to +3
Critical minerals and export control	8% (42)	6% (15)	-3	-6 to +1
Hydrogen and fuel cells	14% (68)	10% (28)	-3	-8 to +2
New-type energy storage	16% (79)	12% (33)	-4	-8 to +2
Overcapacity and anti-involution	7% (34)	2% (5)	-5	-8 to -2
Drones and UAV technology	17% (84)	12% (32)	-5	-10 to +0
Semiconductors and software	18% (91)	11% (31)	-7	-12 to -1
New energy vehicles	23% (115)	16% (42)	-8	-13 to -2
Pharmaceuticals and biopharma	26% (129)	18% (48)	-8	-14 to -2
First-of-kind major equipment (首台套)	18% (90)	10% (27)	-8	-13 to -3
Medical devices and equipment	18% (89)	10% (26)	-8	-13 to -3
Foreign investment	14% (71)	6% (16)	-8	-12 to -4
Import-substitution language	16% (82)	7% (20)	-9	-13 to -4
Solar PV	20% (99)	10% (28)	-9	-14 to -4
Charging infrastructure	22% (112)	13% (34)	-10	-15 to -4
New materials	28% (140)	17% (47)	-11	-16 to -4
Unified national market and fair competition	28% (138)	16% (42)	-12	-18 to -6
AI and computing power	57% (284)	41% (112)	-15	-22 to -8

How we know

Documents with 十四五 or 十五五 in the title (the plans themselves), full text, each sector's own vocabulary. 15th-plan documents so far: 0 central, 0 provincial, 0 city or county. Difference in shares with a Newcombe interval.

The 15th-plan season has just begun: these are the first plans out, not the full set, and the mix of plan subjects (transport, education, digital) differs between the two rounds.
Naming a sector is not funding it; the topic trees will show the money as implementing rules follow.

From buyer to rival

China now exports more machine tools than it imports, and robots are at parity; in chip-making equipment, dependence is still growing

0.21 → 1.42

Machine tools: dollars exported per dollar imported, 2012 → 2025

0.16 → 0.97

Industrial robots: dollars exported per dollar imported, 2012 → 2025

0.53 → 0.84

Medical devices: dollars exported per dollar imported, 2012 → 2025

China's exports divided by its imports of the same products, 2012–2025

Machine toolsIndustrial robotsMedical devicesChip-making equipment

Above the line at 1, China exports more of the product than it imports.

Why it mattersThis is what substitution looks like when it works: the same customs code goes from import line to export line within a decade. For European and Swiss machine-tool and automation makers, the competition is no longer only for Chinese orders but for third markets. Chip-making equipment is the exception: despite a decade of support, China still buys about nine dollars of tools abroad for every dollar it sells.

Data table

Product group	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Pharmaceuticals	0.21	0.20	0.18	0.18	0.17	0.15	0.17	0.14	0.24	0.82	0.21	0.16	0.18	0.24
Medical devices	0.53	0.51	0.52	0.54	0.50	0.48	0.47	0.51	0.55	0.57	0.62	0.63	0.75	0.84
Machine tools	0.21	0.28	0.29	0.34	0.37	0.37	0.39	0.56	0.61	0.64	0.88	1.18	1.26	1.42
Chip-making equipment	0.15	0.14	0.14	0.12	0.14	0.11	0.08	0.08	0.08	0.09	0.12	0.12	0.11	0.11
Industrial robots	0.16	0.19	0.15	0.18	0.18	0.16	0.23	0.24	0.23	0.22	0.30	0.36	0.89	0.97
Aircraft & engines	0.11	0.11	0.13	0.18	0.22	0.20	0.17	0.22	0.26	0.23	0.31	0.33	0.30	0.21
Seeds for sowing	0.79	0.66	0.63	0.52	0.49	0.35	0.30	0.33	0.34	0.28	0.31	0.34	0.42	0.33

How we know

UN Comtrade, China as reporter: exports (FOB) divided by imports (CIF) at the same HS codes, by year.

Unit values differ: China's exports are on average simpler machines than its imports, so a ratio above 1 does not mean technological parity.
Exports include foreign-invested plants in China.

Switzerland

Switzerland's exports to China are concentrated in sectors Beijing has marked for substitution

$17.0bn

Swiss goods exports to China excluding gold, 2025 (gold: 53% of the $36bn total)

44%

of it is pharmaceutical products

51%

falls in the exact product lines China targets for substitution

Composition of Swiss exports to China excluding gold, 2025, share by HS chapter

Why it mattersPharmaceuticals, medical and precision instruments and machinery are Switzerland's China business, and each is now a named substitution target. Three Chinese levers bear on them directly: volume-based procurement of medicines, the 2026 domestic-product price preference in public procurement (hospital equipment is public procurement), and first-of-kind support for domestic machine tools. The 2014 China–Switzerland FTA cuts tariffs; it does not cover these.

Data table

Year	Total $bn	Excluding gold $bn	Gold share	Target products share
2012	9.93	7.72	22%	26.2%
2013	20.99	8.65	59%	31.8%
2014	18.42	9.42	49%	36.5%
2015	20.13	8.9	56%	39.0%
2016	27.17	9.64	64%	44.9%
2017	24.49	11.07	55%	43.6%
2018	30.26	11.9	61%	40.6%
2019	21.54	12.6	42%	43.2%
2020	17.44	14.68	16%	44.1%
2021	33.07	15.51	53%	37.9%
2022	44.1	15.37	65%	42.1%
2023	45.16	15.78	65%	41.8%
2024	41.83	16.94	60%	48.8%
2025	35.97	17.03	53%	51.1%

How we know

UN Comtrade, Switzerland as reporter, exports to China by HS chapter. Gold (HS 71) is excluded, as in the Swiss customs administration's business-cycle total, because refining flows swamp the rest.

Swiss export values (FOB) and Chinese import values (CIF) for the same flow differ; each card uses one reporter.
Chapter shares are coarse: chapter 84 includes much more than machine tools.

Government procurement

From 2026, "domestic" in Chinese public procurement means made in China, at a 20% price advantage

20%

price deduction for products meeting the domestic-product standard (from 1 January 2026)

80%

cost share at which a whole bid qualifies

5 years

to set product-by-product component thresholds

2021 · 财库〔2021〕35号

Equal treatment of domestic- and foreign-invested firms for products made in China. Bans discrimination by ownership, investor nationality or brand.

2025 · 国办发〔2025〕34号

A domestic-product standard: made in China (a change of character inside China's customs territory) plus a minimum share of component cost produced in China, set product by product with 3–5-year transitions. Qualifying products get a 20% price deduction in bid evaluation. Ownership-neutral: foreign-invested plants in China qualify.

Why it mattersThe preference has moved from who owns the firm to where the product is made. For a Swiss or EU exporter selling to Chinese public buyers from Europe, a 20% handicap applies. The incentive is to localise production. The notice defers to treaties that cover procurement; China is not yet a party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (Switzerland and the EU are). Medical devices are where this bites: hospital equipment is public procurement, and in June 2025 the EU used its International Procurement Instrument for the first time, limiting Chinese bidders in EU medical-device tenders above €5 million.

How we know

Both notices are in the corpus with full text; provisions quoted from the documents.

Product-specific thresholds are still to be issued; until then, made in China suffices.

Whose authority

Provincial documents have swapped State Council citations for Xi Jinping

50%

of provincial-government documents cited a State Council document number in their opening, 2016

in 2026

invoked Xi Jinping in 2013; 54% at the peak

What the opening paragraph of provincial-government documents invokes, by year

Cites a 国发/国办发 by numberInvokes Xi JinpingInvokes the Party Centre

Why it mattersLocal policy increasingly grounds itself in political authority rather than in a numbered State Council document. That makes it harder to trace through document numbers, and it may be part of why fewer responses are detected by citation in recent years.

Data table

Year	Documents	Cites a State Council document (国发/国办发) by number	Invokes Xi Jinping	Invokes the Party Centre (党中央/中共中央)
2013	272	24.6%	2.9%	4.0%
2014	345	29.0%	1.5%	5.5%
2015	435	42.3%	7.6%	9.9%
2016	599	49.6%	24.2%	12.7%
2017	730	40.1%	27.3%	18.4%
2018	523	35.8%	49.7%	22.4%
2019	254	32.3%	44.5%	19.3%
2020	205	24.4%	44.9%	24.9%
2021	240	26.2%	52.1%	20.0%
2022	248	24.6%	46.8%	28.6%
2023	165	8.5%	38.8%	18.8%
2024	159	10.7%	54.1%	19.5%
2025	196	9.7%	28.1%	23.0%
2026	150	8.7%	40.0%	18.7%

How we know

4,521 documents from the governments of six provinces; first 400 characters of the body. Trend from 2016, logit with province fixed effects: odds of citing a State Council number ×0.792 per year (95% CI 0.768–0.816); Xi ×1.075 per year.

Party-document numbers (中发/中办发) are almost never printed in openings: most are unpublished.

prov_docs.csv

EU anti-subsidy case on battery-electric vehicles

Chinese settlement tables put numbers on central subsidies to the carmakers the EU sampled

¥16.9bn

BYD Group · EU duty 17.0%

¥4.1bn

Geely Group · EU duty 18.8%

¥2.3bn

SAIC Group · EU duty 35.3%

Central NEV purchase subsidies approved, ¥ billion (2015-and-earlier to 2017 cohorts)

Why it mattersThe EU investigation measured subsidies in its 2022–23 investigation period. These tables document the earlier, larger wave that built the groups' scale, from the Chinese government's own publications. That is the kind of evidence an FSR filing or a trade-defence submission can cite.

Data table

Group (EU duty)	≤2015	2016	2017	Total ¥bn	Vehicles (incl. 2018)
BYD Group (17.0%)	2.01	9.65	5.24	16.9	335,171
Geely Group (18.8%)	0.61	1.7	1.78	4.08	119,686
SAIC Group (35.3%)	0.02	1.17	1.13	2.32	125,860

How we know

MIIT/MOF 新能源汽车推广应用补助资金清算 tables, parsed firm by firm; amounts are the panel's approved figures (应清算补助资金). Groups matched by name: BYD; Geely incl. 豪情/力帆乘用车/山西新能源; SAIC incl. SAIC-GM-Wuling and Maxus.

2018 tables give vehicles only, no money, so 2018 is in the vehicle count but not the ¥ total.
Tesla Shanghai began deliveries after the last held settlement round.

Trade

China's electric-car exports grew more than 300-fold in eight years

$36.4bn

battery-electric car exports, 2025

331×

the 2017 value

$77bn

lithium-ion batteries, 2025

China's exports, US$ billion a year

Battery-electric cars (HS 870380)Lithium-ion batteries (HS 850760)

Why it mattersA decade of production-side support now shows up in trade. The provincial measures in this corpus are the documentary trail behind those capacities.

Data table

Year	Electric cars $bn	Li-ion batteries $bn
2017	0.11	7.98
2018	0.13	10.83
2019	0.44	13.03
2020	1.58	15.94
2021	8.59	28.32
2022	20.09	50.92
2023	34.13	65.01
2024	31.97	61.13
2025	36.4	76.75

How we know

UN Comtrade, China as reporter, annual, summed over partners.

Values as reported by China. Monthly 2025 data are not yet in Comtrade; annual 2025 is.

Sources: Chinese government publications held in this corpus (State Council and ministry libraries, provincial government portals), UN Comtrade, the EU Publications Office, US-listed market prices. Built 2026-10-25. Statistics: Kaplan–Meier and Cox models (lifelines), logit and OLS (statsmodels). Findings are descriptive of published documents; they are not legal determinations.