Illustration: VCG

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has investigated integrated circuit (IC) companies and chaired a symposium with them on Thursday, emphasizing the importance of mobilizing nationwide resources in the industry's development, and vowing to provide "real national treatment" to foreign experts amid the nation's strengthened commitment for core technology breakthrough.

During the symposium, Liu highlighted the advantage of the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide in the development of the IC industry, asking to make better use of both government and market resources together, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

Authorities should formulate IC industry policies in line with national conditions and new situations, set pragmatic development goals and development ideas, help enterprises coordinate and solve difficulties, play an organizational role in areas where the market fails, guide long-term investment, and give equal preferential policies to domestic talents, Liu said.

Specifically, Liu demanded "real national treatment to foreign experts" and vowed to help enterprises to speed up the introduction and training of talents in the area.

"We must meanwhile attach great importance to the important role of market forces and industrial ecology, establish a research mechanism with enterprises as the main body, and rely on entrepreneurs to achieve the healthy development of the IC industry," Liu said.

Liu noted that enterprises should especially be good at "discovering and cherishing leading talents with technological knowledge and strong organizational skills and providing them with full room for development."

"We must always adhere to international cooperation, make friends, expand opening-up, and firmly maintain the stability of the global industrial and supply chains," said Liu.

Industry observers said the voice from the top, which comes as US' intensified sanctions on Chinese high-tech industries, was both timely and targeted, providing a rather detailed guidance to industry players.

The US has been aggressively pushing forward a tech decoupling with China over the recent years, with measures such as banning sales to Chinese firms, and it is now pressuring on its so-called allies to decouple from China and squeeze China out of the chip supply chain.

In a fresh move, the US Commerce Department on Tuesday released details for accepting subsidy applications from semiconductor makers. The $39 billion program came along with a series of conditions, including investment restrictions in China.

The act will seriously disrupt the previously efficient global value chain, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times, warning that US enterprises and society have had to bear the "bad consequences" since China is an indispensable part of global chip industrial chain.

China has remained the world's largest semiconductor market for many years. SMIC, for example, recorded a revenue of $7.2 billion in 2022, up 34 percent from the previous year, despite the crackdown by the US.

The move also comes as the central government's accelerated efforts in pushing for key technology breakthroughs. Chinese authorities have vowed to mobilize all of the nation's available resources to make breakthroughs in core technologies in order to overcome obstacles hindering the country's development and to gain a competitive edge in key fields.

Global Times