The West keeps asking how much China subsidises its industries. That is the wrong question.

{
  "headline": "China’s tech rise: Why commercialisation beats subsidies",
  "synthesis": "China’s dominance in clean energy and AI is not primarily the result of subsidies, but of a strategic focus on commercialisation—scaling technology from lab to global market faster than competitors.

## Overview
Western policymakers have long fixated on China’s industrial subsidies as the key driver of its technological rise. However, the real advantage lies in China’s ability to commercialise technology at unprecedented speed and scale. While subsidies play a role, they are not the defining factor. Instead, China’s system of state-funded competition, supply chain integration, and iterative improvement has created a commercialisation machine that outpaces Western economies in critical sectors like electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, and AI.

## The commercialisation advantage
China’s shift from traditional exports (textiles, furniture) to the “new three” (EVs, batteries, solar panels) is not symbolic—it is measurable. In 2025, clean energy accounted for over a third of China’s GDP growth. Chinese companies shipped 68 gigawatts of solar panels in March 2026 alone, double the previous month’s total, while battery exports hit $10 billion. BYD sold 4.54 million new energy vehicles in 2025, and CATL held 39.2% of the global EV battery market. Six Chinese battery manufacturers now control 69% of global installations.

This dominance stems from a system that moves technology from laboratory to factory to global market faster than competitors can respond. Unlike Western innovation, which often prioritises invention, China’s model focuses on scaling existing technologies at lower cost with continuous improvement. Government venture capital funds invested $184 billion in AI-related firms between 2000 and 2023, but this funding was spread across thousands of companies, fostering competition rather than creating a single national champion. The survivors—BYD, CATL, Huawei, DJI—emerged from this state-funded competition, not central planning.

## R&D and strategic planning
China’s R&D spending reached $569 billion in 2025, with R&D intensity at 2.8% of GDP. By some measures, China surpassed the U.S. in total R&D spending in 2024, with $1.03 trillion compared to America’s $1.01 trillion. Chinese entities filed 1.8 million patent applications in 2024, triple the U.S. total, and have led globally in the share of the top 1% most-cited scientific papers since 2019.

The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) formalises this approach, targeting 7% annual