Confucian order meets algorithmic governance in Beijing’s pursuit of strategic autonomy.
At the heart of China's technological strategy is a concept that condenses history, philosophy, and power: 自主可控 (zìzhǔ kěkòng). Literally, "autonomy and control". More than a slogan, it is a national doctrine: China not only wants to grow, it wants to control the technologies that sustain that growth.
From semiconductors to artificial intelligence, this vision seeks to break dependence on foreign critical inputs. But how do you measure that silent power? How to translate a civilizational ideogram into a functional metric?
This article proposes an answer: the National Technological Product (NTP). Unlike GDP, the NTP measures a nation's ability to sustain, scale, and govern key technologies. In the following pages, we will explore this concept through six strategic variables and comparative visualizations, with a clear objective: to understand why the future will not be measured in numbers, but in capabilities.
China and the logic of technological power: when GDP is no longer sufficient
Introduction: Beyond Economic Growth
For decades, China's economic rise was measured by a single metric: gross domestic product (GDP). Double-digit annual growth, accelerated urban transformation, and the emergence of an industrialized middle class defined the dominant narrative. Today, however, the Chinese leadership has begun to leave that obsession behind. Instead, a new way of measuring national progress is imposed, less focused on the volume of production and more on the quality of strategic capabilities: self-sufficient technological development.
This change is not minor and its origin can be traced back to 2018, with the trade war and US sanctions on companies such as Huawei or ZTE, China realized its vulnerability in key sectors such as semiconductors, chip design software (EDA), and operating systems. This provoked a political and economic reaction aimed at building technological self-sufficiency.
The key concept of this transformation is 自主可控 (zìzhǔ kěkòng) which literally translates as "autonomy and control", and in this context, it implies that China seeks to develop, own and control its own technological ecosystem, without relying on foreign critical technologies (such as chips, advanced software, strategic materials, etc.). To understand this shift, we propose a new framework of analysis: the National Technological Product (NTP), a conceptual tool that helps to understand how nations build power from the technological base.
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The above graph visually illustrates the transformation of the Chinese development model: the shift from an economy focused on the volume of production, traditionally measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to a model focused on the accumulation of strategic technological capabilities, synthesized in the concept of National Technological Product (NTP). It should be clarified that this indicator is not an official indicator, but a conceptual framework proposed in this note to understand this expression.
The blue line represents the evolution of GDP indexed on a base of 100 in the year 2000. This curve shows sustained growth over three decades, highlighting the economic success accumulated by China in its phase of accelerated industrialization and global expansion. Until 2020, GDP functioned as the main indicator of progress, reflecting a strategy oriented towards mass production, foreign trade and urbanization. However, from that point on, although growth continues, it begins to lose prominence in the face of other long-term objectives.
In parallel, the dashed green line represents the National Technological Product index. Until 2020, this line grew more gradually, accompanying the development of infrastructure, the formation of human capital and the first innovation policies. From that date on, the NTP takes a much steeper upward turn, reflecting a deliberate shift in national strategy: the pursuit of self-sufficiency in critical sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, clean energy and advanced robotics. This change is not only driven domestically, but also by growing geopolitical tensions and technological constraints imposed from abroad.
The graph also incorporates key annotations that mark strategic milestones in this transformation. 2015 marks the launch of the "Made in China 2025" program, which officially inaugurates the shift towards technology as the axis of development. In 2023, the "AI Plus" policy stands out, aimed at integrating artificial intelligence into the entire productive apparatus. A turning point is anticipated by 2025 with the peak of adoption of electric vehicles, a symbol of the convergence between hardware, software and national manufacturing. Finally, by 2030, the graph marks the stated goal of achieving full technological self-sufficiency.
Taken together, the visualization allows us to understand that the new axis of Chinese economic power is not based solely on how much the country produces, but on its ability to control, scale, and innovate in the technologies that will define the global economy of the 21st century.
The concept of NTP: a new way of measuring economic power
Unlike GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced in an economy in a given period, the NTP seeks to capture the set of accumulated and functional technological capabilities that a country possesses. These capabilities not only allow innovation to be generated, but also to adapt, resist and project influence in an environment of technological geopolitical competition.
We can define the NTP as a function composed of six interdependent factors:
NTP = f(T, H, Kᵀ, S, Iᵗ, G)
Each of these variables represents a critical dimension of technological power:
- T (Accumulated Technological Capital): Refers to codified knowledge, patents, scientific publications, and developments in frontier technologies. China, for example, has exponentially increased its production of patents in artificial intelligence, surpassing the United States in volume.
- H (Advanced Human Capital): Includes the training and availability of talent in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines. China graduates four times as many engineering graduates as the U.S. and twice as many PhDs in STEM, indicating a sustained commitment to domestic talent.
- Kᵀ (Technological Infrastructure): Encompasses the physical and digital infrastructure necessary to develop and scale technologies: semiconductor factories, applied physics laboratories, data centers, 5G networks, among others.
- S (Self-Sufficiency Systems): Measures a country's ability to produce key technological components locally, avoiding strategic dependencies. The development of SMEE as a domestic alternative to ASML (Dutch Advanced Lithography Company) is an emblematic example.
- Iᵗ (Investment in R&D): Represents sustained expenditure on research and development, both public and private. For seven years, China has increased its investment in R&D at rates of more than 10% per year, with companies such as Huawei allocating more than 20% of their revenues to this purpose.
- G (Strategic Governance): Evaluates the coordination between the State, companies and universities to direct the technological effort towards national objectives. China is explicitly inspired by the US model of national laboratories such as Argonne or Los Alamos, but under centralized governance.
We can consider the NTP as the operational materialization of the concept 自主可控: a nation that accumulates knowledge (T), trains talent (H), builds infrastructure (Kᵀ), eliminates dependencies (S), invests in the long term (Iᵗ), and coordinates with strategy (G) is in real conditions to be autonomous and exercise control from the technological plane.
Strategic Technology Profile: China vs the U.S.
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This radar-type graph represents in a synthetic and visually powerful way the structural technological capabilities accumulated by both countries, as defined by the concept of National Technological Product (NTP). Unlike indicators such as GDP, this profile does not measure the amount of goods produced, but the degree of technological readiness of a nation to compete, innovate and sustain its autonomy in a world increasingly defined by technology.
China (solid red line)
China's profile shows high technological intensity, with outstanding scores in R&D investment, technological self-sufficiency and strategic governance. The country has developed a comprehensive response capacity, supported by centralized planning, modern infrastructure, and a massive educational ecosystem that graduates millions of engineers a year. Its particularly high score on "S" (self-reliance) and "G" (governance) reflects the deliberate focus on reducing dependence on foreign suppliers and strengthening industrial autonomy.
USA (dashed blue line)
The United States, for its part, maintains a clear leadership in technological infrastructure and advanced human capital, with maximum scores in high-level training and cutting-edge technological deployment. However, its profile shows lower relative self-sufficiency compared to China, reflecting its high dependence on global chains for certain critical components (e.g., in semiconductor manufacturing). Its system, although dynamic and decentralized, shows less state coordination, which translates into less directed strategic governance.
Simulation of the National Technological Product
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The image represents a three-dimensional simulation of the National Technological Product (NTP), based on the V=P×T model, where P refers to technological potential and T to active capabilities. Technological potential measures the quality of accumulated knowledge, proximity to the frontier of innovation and the efficiency with which a nation converts science into useful technology. Active capabilities, on the other hand, represent the magnitude of human resources, infrastructure, investment, and institutions mobilized to develop and apply technology. The result of this multiplication, V, expresses the total value of national technological power.
The surface of the graph illustrates the possible values of V when combining different levels of P and T. Two key cases stand out on this surface: China and the United States. China appears with a very high level of active capabilities (T ≈ 9000), a product of its extensive manufacturing base, skilled workforce and scientific infrastructure. Its technological potential (P ≈ 0.88) is also high, although it has not yet reached the peak. The United States, on the other hand, is positioned with a slightly higher technological efficiency (P ≈ 0.92), but with a somewhat more contained production base (T ≈ 8000), which reflects its specialization in frontier technologies, with greater dependence on global networks for manufacturing stages.
Both countries are at the top of the chart, indicating that they have achieved a high NTP, although they have done so by different routes. While the U.S. concentrates technological quality on a smaller scale, China seeks to accumulate massive capabilities to compete at the systemic level. The graph thus illustrates the structural transition from classical economic power, based on GDP, to a form of national power that combines scale and technological sophistication in keeping with 自主可控.
In this new paradigm, the core of the geoeconomic conflict between China and the US is no longer limited to the quantity produced, but to the possibility of sustaining leadership in key technologies without depending on the outside. The NTP model allows this competence to be visualized in structural terms, pointing out that autonomy, investment in science and the density of national technological capabilities are now the true strategic assets of the twenty-first century.
Technology as a new basis of national power
The NTP model allows us to interpret the change in Chinese strategy as more than a sectoral reorganization. It is a new vision of economic development that decouples growth from the quantity produced to focus on the quality of accumulated capabilities. In other words, what matters is not how much an economy produces, but whether it can sustain and master key technologies without relying on the outside.
This is reflected in the concept that Xi Jinping has promoted as the axis of recent economic policy: the "new quality productive forces". This notion rescues elements of Marxist thought – such as the role of the productive forces in history – but gives them a contemporary twist by linking them to science and technology as the main engines of transformation.
NTP model with FTR
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The attached image operationalizes this transition from volume to technological value. The three-dimensional graph illustrates the NTP (National Technological Product) model as a function of two fundamental variables: the Relative Technological Frontier (FTR) on the horizontal axis – which acts as a proxy for the accumulated technological potential (P) –, and the active capabilities (T) on the vertical axis, which express the magnitude of the national effort mobilized: infrastructure, talent, investment and institutions.
This graph is, ultimately, an empirical translation of an ideological idea: that development, in the age of technology, is no longer a matter of volume, but of relative position in relation to knowledge and of the internal capacity to appropriate that knowledge without intermediaries.
This type of visualization also enables a geostrategic reading: countries such as the US and China not only compete for who arrives first at a technology, but also for who is capable of sustaining a stable, autonomous and controlled vector of accumulation. In this sense, the graph could be interpreted as a topography of possible trajectories:
- Countries with high T, but low FTR (India, Brazil) → have scale, but are far from the border.
- Countries with high FTR, but low T (Switzerland, Korea) → are close to knowledge, but with less scale to dominate global industries.
- Only a few combine both factors in a sustained way (the US, China).
Self-sufficiency as a defensive and offensive strategy
One of the differentiating factors of the Chinese model is that it seeks not only technological leadership, but also structural self-sufficiency. The sanctions imposed by the United States in the semiconductor, telecommunications and advanced computing sectors have accelerated this strategy. Beijing has responded with a large-scale mobilization to build national alternatives in all layers of its tech ecosystem: from operating systems to chips, from AI software to electric vehicles.
In this context, the technological decoupling from the US is not an accident, but a state policy. The underlying logic is clear: in a confrontational scenario, the real power lies not in the size of the market, but in the ability to sustain and scale technology without depending on the adversary.
A concrete example is the technological mobilization plan of the province of Guangdong, where the local government simulates war scenarios in which industrial capacity is reconverted for defense. This is not only reminiscent of the military production strategies of World War II, but demonstrates the depth with which China articulates its civilian and military capabilities based on its NTP.
"Good enough" and dominance in global markets
Another key dimension of the Chinese model is the "good enough" strategy. Not every innovation needs to be the most advanced in the world to conquer markets. Huawei, DJI, and BYD have shown that it is possible to win on a global scale with technologies that deliver 80% of the performance at 50% of the cost. This strategy has been particularly successful in countries where the priority is not to have the latest technology, but accessible and functional solutions.
Thanks to this logic, China has managed not only to sell products, but also to build entire technological ecosystems in telecommunications, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure. And unlike previous cycles, the revenues generated by these markets are reinvested directly in R&D, creating a virtuous cycle that raises the national NTP.
China's transition to quality productive forces
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The image graphically depicts the strategic transformation of China's economic development, visualizing the shift from a model based on traditional production volume to one focused on strategic technological accumulation. The graph is built on two key axes: the horizontal axis shows technological dependence on the outside (from high to low, from left to right), while the vertical axis indicates traditional economic output as a relative volume (heavy industry, manufacturing, etc.).
Each point in the trajectory represents an approximate historical stage – from the year 2000 to projections for 2035 – in which China has simultaneously moved in two directions: it has reduced its dependence on foreign technology and it has sustained or increased its productive capacity. However, what is most remarkable is how this progress is correlated with a growing accumulation of technological capabilities, measured in this model by a National Technological Product (NTP) index.
The intensity of the color of each dot indicates the level of NTP: as China moves towards the upper right corner of the graph (high production with low dependency), the dots become darker, reflecting a greater concentration of innovation, technological autonomy, and dominance of strategic sectors. This shift is not simply quantitative; it reflects a qualitative transformation in the bases of national power.
Conclusion: the future will be measured in capabilities, not in numbers
Beyond the technique, the concept of "自主可控" reflects a modern and systemic concern: the need to ensure security, autonomy and stability in an interconnected but risky world.
We could say that it is a technological way of dealing with dependency anxiety: a form of "digital biopolitics", where states not only control bodies or territories, but also cognitive and computational infrastructures.
The National Technological Product has been used in this note to represent this conception that represents a different way of understanding what development is in the twenty-first century, it allows us to focus on the accumulation of scientific capabilities, strategic infrastructures and autonomous talent becomes the new base of national power.
China, a country with a millenary history, allows us to relate this metric to The sinograms 自主可控 lead us as a metric to propose The National Technological Product (NTP), by valuing the accumulation of active capabilities and the proximity to the frontier of knowledge, acts as a modern matrix of that ancient civilizational rationality. Instead of measuring development by its result (GDP), it measures it by its internal structure of functional capabilities, a logic reminiscent of the model of imperial exams: rather than counting soldiers or territories, the dynasty evaluated its vigor by the quality of its system of training, transmission and control of knowledge.
The formula used can be understood in this way in the following terms:
- T (technology) would be the imperial library.
- H (talent), the scholars.
- Kᵀ (infrastructure), the canals and hydraulic systems that articulated the empire.
- S (self-sufficiency), the principle of non-dependence on external taxes.
- Iᵗ (investment in R&D), investment in astronomers, engineers and cartographers.
- G (strategic governance), the heart of heaven's mandate (天命 tiānmìng): to govern is to foresee and sustain.
All of the above leads us to wonder whether China's GDP will grow more or less in 2025. The real question is: which country will have the capabilities to master the next technological revolution? And in that race the winner will lead the 21st century.
References
How China Armed Itself for the Trade War - Zongyuan Zoe Liu China Is Still Winning the Battle for 5G—and 6G - Anne Neuberger America’s R&D Reckoning - Jordan Schneider (ChinaTalk)
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