“Made in China 2025,” a government-led industrial program at the center of the contentious U.S.-China trade dispute, is officially gone—but in name only.
During a nearly 100-minute speech to China’s legislature Tuesday, Premier Li Keqiang dropped any reference to the plan that the Trump administration has criticized as a subsidy-stuffed program to make China a global technology leader at the expense of the U.S. The policy had been a highlight of Mr. Li’s State-of-the-Nation-like address for three years running.
Instead, Mr. Li said the government would promote advanced manufacturing. He ticked off a list of emerging industries to nurture—next-generation information technology, high-end equipment, biomedicine and new-energy automobiles—that were also in “Made in China 2025” and with a similar goal: “Buy China.”
