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How China’s ‘dual circulation’ drive is shaping up – and what’s next on the agenda
- Four years ago, China put forward its ‘dual circulation’ strategy to shore up the domestic market and reduce dependence on the West – has it made progress?
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Mandy Zuoin Shanghai
The Communist Party of China is about to hold its much-delayed third plenum, traditionally a time for unveiling major economic strategies for the next five to 10 years. The fourth of a six-part preview series examines the state of the country’s “dual circulation” campaign, a long-term plan to boost domestic markets and reduce reliance on international trade for the sake of security.
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Though the days of four-legged transport - and the humble carrot as a fuel source - have passed, the root vegetable continues to serve as a rhetorical stand-in for incentives of all types. But in modern parlance, that incentive is rarely an actual carrot; humans have, after all, come to desire more than what might satisfy a mule.
But for Samuel Ling and his colleagues at an agricultural company in Shanghai, metaphor and reality have merged.
Two years ago, his employer – a specialist in seeds – was given an important mandate by the government, he said: replace imported seeds with ones “developed ourselves”. At the top of the list? A new variety of carrot.
Like countless industries in China, self-reliance has become a watchword for agriculture. The drive for building more domestic production capacity – already seen as vital since the start of a trade war with the United States in 2018 – was kicked into higher gear in 2020 after Beijing adopted a strategy of “dual circulation”.
I think it’s worth the effort, as it means Chinese farmers will have access to cheaper seeds of our own making
From seeds to semiconductors, the world’s second-largest economy is rushing to replace Western technologies and goods with domestic alternatives under this new paradigm, where domestic consumption and international trade – “internal” and “external” circulation per official terminology – are rebalanced, granting the internal market preferential status amid a fraught geopolitical atmosphere.
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