As China transitions from the 14th to the 15th Five-Year Plan, Beijing appears to be pursuing “de-risking” with greater confidence and strategic assertiveness, while re-elevating development under the overarching policy principle of “balancing development and security” (统筹发展和安全). In practice, this means not only addressing bottlenecks, weak links, and external dependencies across industrial and supply chains, but also proactively building up capabilities so that they serve not merely as safeguards against risk, but as sources of competitiveness and ultimately strategic advantage under a more adverse external environment — supported by ongoing adjustments and additions at the policy-tool level to support that shift.

This webinar will examine how that “de-risking” logic, rooted in the “strategic shift” in development strategy embedded in the 14th Five-Year Plan, became a top-level policy dimension in the wake of the 2018 US-China trade war. A key part of that shift was the growing emphasis on building geo-economic capacity. In that context, export control governance evolved from a narrow regulatory function into a broader tool for operationalizing that capacity through new geoeconomics control points.

That evolution is visible both in the sophisticated, more targeted, and more geo-economic design of controls introduced since 2020. The recent Regulations on Industrial and Supply Chain Security should be understood in the same vein: as tactical elements in China’s “Trump 2.0” strategic playbook within a wider effort to strengthen China’s position in anticipation of a more turbulent external environment.

The implications are extending well beyond China, with growing relevance for global supply chains and corporate risk management. The session will conclude with practical implications for Swedish companies, drawing on China Macro Group’s assessment of the business-strategy and operational factors most likely to matter in the 15th Five-Year Plan period.