In 2025, China reframed its development strategy to navigate “great changes unseen in a century.” Facing domestic economy headwinds, including sluggish demand, a property downturn, and acute demographic aging, China pivoted toward “new quality productive forces,” such as artificial intelligence and quantum technology. Key policy shifts included raising the statutory retirement age and enacting the Private Economy Promotion Law to restore market expectations. Internationally, despite technology blockades and trade restrictions from the US and other Western countries, China maintained strategic autonomy. It balanced managed competition with the US while strengthening ties with neighboring partners like Russia and the DPRK, and using the 80th anniversary of the victory in WWII to reinforce nationalist narratives. This year of defensive assertiveness reflected a core logic of strengthening state capacity to hedge against uncertainty, and attempting to establish a new institutional equilibrium between security and development.
Miao et al. (Sun,) studied this question.