Two Sessions Photo:Xinhua

 
China has set a special section for safe development in its draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for the first time in history, detailing arrangements on grain, energy and finance security as the country's economy roars amid a complicated global environment, especially with threats and obstructions from the US government.
 
Hu Zucai, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference on Monday that China will "insist on bottom-line thinking" and "coordinate in development and security".
 
The country will also strive to strengthen construction of a national security system, he said.
 
China is mounting efforts to safeguard economic and national security at a time when it is increasingly facing social and economic crackdown from overseas countries, particularly the US, on the back of its economic surge. Such crackdown covers a wide range of sectors including the ban on Chinese tech companies, crackdown on Chinese companies listed overseas, interference in Hong Kong and so on.
 
"The focus on securities issues in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) shows that China has paid 'all-directional' attention to security issues, not just restricted to social security issues like in the past when it is facing multiple threats from the US," said Dong Dengxin, director of the Financial Securities Institute at Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
 
According to Dong, the US' crackdown on Chinese tech companies has threatened the completeness of Chinese industrial chains and China's rights to develop the economy.
 
"In the finance area, the US' unreasonable crackdown on overseas banks has also posed threats to global financial security, including that of China. The US' ultra-loose monetary policies and massive debts was also a kind of extortion on global fortunes," he told the Global Times on Monday.
 
Last year, the US State Department had warned international financial institutions doing business with certain individuals in Hong Kong that they could soon face tough sanctions for supporting the Chinese mainland government.
 
According to Dong, to protect China's economic and social security, China should strengthen input in scientific research of core technologies, while strengthen military power to balance the US. He also noted that the possibility exists that China might also punish overseas companies for trampling on domestic security.
 
The outline is submitted for approval by the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress, China’s legislative body.
 
Global Times