- 29
- August
Technology self-reliance (科技自立自强) is one of the 18 sections of China's 15th Five-Year Plan, and the section that names most explicitly which foreign dependencies China intends to end. The US Congressional Research Service summarises the plan as calling for "extraordinary measures" to reduce dependence across seven major areas. This is part three of our series, following part two on the AI+ initiative.
In short: China intends to stop buying certain things from abroad within five years. The side effect that reaches Thailand directly is fewer opportunities to co-produce and receive technology transfer — better finished goods at lower prices, but less chance to learn how they are made.
Six areas where China still depends on others
The CRS report identifies where China still relies on the United States, Europe and Japan, and where the plan directs extraordinary measures to cut that reliance: aircraft; agriculture; advanced equipment, instruments and tools; energy; gas turbines; software; and semiconductors.
| Area | What the plan specifies | What it means for world markets |
|---|---|---|
| Semiconductors | Integrated circuits, both mature and advanced nodes | More supply and lower prices for the chips used in everyday products |
| Software | Foundational software and development tooling | More Chinese options in the enterprise software market |
| Aviation | Large civil aircraft, BeiDou satellite systems | More choice in aviation and navigation systems |
| Agriculture | 85% seed self-sufficiency target | implies China's imported-seed market narrowing toward the remaining 15% |
| Energy | Energy storage, green hydrogen | Storage system costs likely to fall |
| Gas turbines | Heavy-duty turbines for power generation | More suppliers in the power equipment market |
| Advanced equipment, instruments and tools | Industrial machinery, high-end measuring instruments | Thai manufacturers gain lower-cost machinery options |
Note that the market-impact column is not all bad news. China producing these things itself means more global supply, which benefits buyers like Thailand in the short run. The problem is longer term.
Why "self-reliance" is harder than it sounds
Self-reliance sounds like a question of investment alone. In practice there are at least three layers to clear: being able to make it, being able to make it at a competitive price, and being able to make it in volumes that supply a real market consistently. Plenty of technologies announced as "achieved" are still stuck at the first layer.
China's innovation indicator reflects this. Rather than targeting patent counts or the number of technology firms, the plan measures society-wide R&D spending growing at least 7% a year on average — a figure that is harder to game and better reflects sustained investment.
The seriousness also shows in the process: the NDRC says close to 200 supporting research reports fed into the drafting before the plan was distilled from them. For Thai business owners, the same lesson applies at a much smaller scale — before deciding whether to build or buy, you should know at what price and volume the work becomes worthwhile, which is unanswerable without knowing your own true unit cost.
Strategic industries and future industries
| Tier | Named areas |
|---|---|
| Strategic industries Revenue-generating, being scaled | Next-generation IT · new energy · robotics · aerospace · advanced materials (specialty steel, rare earths, ceramics) |
| Future industries Named at plan level for the first time | Quantum technology · brain-computer interfaces · embodied AI · intelligent connected new-energy vehicles · commercial space · biomanufacturing · deep-sea economy · 6G |
The plan also adds five new "power" goals — agriculture, finance, aerospace, energy and tourism. The last two are areas where Thailand has long held an advantage.
A supply chain designed to be controllable
CRS describes China as building "PRC-controlled and vertically-integrated global supply chains" through the Belt and Road Initiative, including the setting of technical standards.
Often overlooked: setting technical standards outlasts selling products. Once a standard is fixed, other manufacturers must build to it for decades. That is why a seat at the standards table often matters more than a good price negotiation.
What this means for Thailand
ASEAN-focused analysis notes that as China internalises semiconductor and electronics production, traditional Thai manufacturers and firms tied to internal combustion engines face margin compression, while health and food sectors still attract Chinese investment.
| Thai business segment | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ICE automotive components | Heavy pressure | Know cost per part precisely, so you can decide which parts to stop making |
| Contract electronics manufacturing | Heavy pressure | Move from assembly toward work requiring precision and certification |
| Processed agriculture and food | Opportunity remains | Build end-to-end traceability, which price alone cannot compete against |
| Medical and health services | Strong opportunity | China's elderly market is expanding, per the 73% nursing-bed target |
| Machinery and systems work | Mixed | Cheaper equipment, but you need a team that can service and tune it |
Technology transfer — the part worth stating plainly
MERICS records a marked drop in how often "reform and opening" appears compared with the 14th Plan. The reasonable inference for trading partners — ours, not MERICS’ — is that as domestic capability replaces imports, technology transfer and joint ventures become less available than they were a decade ago.
For Thailand, this translates directly: waiting for technical capability to arrive alongside foreign investment is a riskier strategy than it was a decade ago. This is the same theme we covered in our piece on Thailand's digital sovereignty and in how China and South Korea promote domestic software.
The risk that comes with cheap supply
Supply concentration warning: when a category of goods narrows to a few dominant producers, lower prices arrive together with the risk that a single disruption affects the whole chain.
If you are considering switching to cheaper machinery or components, ask alongside the price question: if this source cannot ship for three months, does the business keep running, and is there a tested alternative? The good answer is not to avoid that source — it is to know in advance what you would do.
In practice, the organisations that answer this fastest are those whose inventory and purchasing data live in one system, because they can immediately list every material dependent on a single supplier. Organisations with departmental silos typically need weeks to find out where they are exposed, which is far too long once the event has already happened.
Choose a good vendor rather than avoiding all dependence
The wrong lesson to draw here is "make everything yourself", which is neither true nor affordable for most organisations. Even China, with enormous resources, targets only the seven named areas rather than everything.
The more useful question is who does your organisation depend on, and what happens if they disappear? The first system to ask this of is the one holding your core data, because it is the hardest to move.
| Question to ask your core system vendor | The answer you want |
|---|---|
| Where is our data stored, and can we extract all of it? | Exportable in standard formats, without asking permission each time |
| If we leave, how do we keep using our data? | A handover procedure written into the contract |
| Does the system keep working if the internet or an external provider fails? | Critical operations continue at some level |
| Who else can modify the system besides the original vendor? | More than one option, or documentation good enough for another team to take over |
These four questions exist to help you select a vendor who can answer them, not to avoid vendors. Three signals are worth checking in practice: whether you can choose between on-premises and cloud deployment, whether you can reach the database directly rather than through the vendor every time, and whether a data-handover procedure is written into the contract on the day you sign it rather than negotiated on the day you leave.
The fourth question deserves asking of every vendor, especially the one you already use, because the answer shifts with how many people in the market still know that system. That makes it something to revisit periodically, not to check once at purchase. For related background, see how to make every ERP system communicate.
A realistic path for Thailand
Thailand does not have the domestic market scale to do what China is doing, and does not need to. The route available to a mid-sized economy is to go one layer deeper where it already has something, rather than chasing every field a larger country announces.
Agriculture and food is the clearest example: Thailand already has the raw materials, the operators and the international reputation. What is often missing is not production technology but traceable data from field to destination — increasingly a purchasing condition from overseas buyers, and something low prices alone cannot substitute for.
Health services and elderly care is the second. China's own indicators point to that market expanding, with a 73% nursing-bed target and a life expectancy goal of 80 years. A country with recognised clinical staff and service standards starts from a better position than one building a reputation from scratch.
Conclusion
China's self-reliance strategy will widen technology choice and lower prices worldwide, while narrowing the chance to learn how things are made for countries that wait for transfer. The answer is not to build everything yourself, but to decide clearly what your organisation will be good at, and what it will buy from someone better.
The next part compares Thai and Chinese planning mechanics — the 20-Year National Strategy, the 23 master plans, and the draft 14th Plan. Read part four, or start from part one.
Dependence is not the problem. The problem is depending on something without knowing what your organisation would do the day it disappears.
- Paitoon Butri · Network & Server Security Specialist, Grand Linux Solution Co., Ltd.
References
- Congressional Research Service IF13204 — China’s 15th Five-Year Plan: S&T and Economic Priorities
- MERICS — Deciphering the 15th Five-Year Plan
- Business Today — ASEAN Lens On China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (10 March 2026)
- NPC of China — Draft Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, summary
- NDRC — Press briefing explaining the draft outline (9 March 2026)
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