W10 - The Logic of National Projects

The state recently launched the “East Data West Computing” initiative. Similar to that, we have many national-level projects, each often a decades-long mega-project. From the national perspective, how are these mega-projects organized, and what do they ultimately serve? I’ve had some reflections on this recently. Considering these questions now also helps restore confidence — after all, “green hills calm my anxious heart” — a self-made tonic for reassurance.

National-level projects must serve national-level strategies. I tentatively divide the problems national strategy addresses into three domains: survival, development, and influence.

Projects addressing survival issues generally revolve around the theme of “security,” covering policies in areas such as food, national defense, energy, and international finance.Survival is a first-order issue; when development conflicts with it, survival usually takes precedence. Many policies and phenomena that seem puzzling in everyday life can often be traced back to survival. For example, in many parts of China where the economy isn’t particularly strong, you’ll still find one or two central enterprises or research institutes that stand out. Take Pangang, which is nearly a third-tier enterprise — it is a product of the “Third Front” construction. Beginning in the 1970s, China carried out a fifteen-year Third Front construction campaign. To respond to the hostile international environment with the US and USSR and to build strategic depth, many machinery manufacturers and research institutes were relocated from the more developed eastern coastal plains to the interior of the central and western regions. Although conditions were harsh and challenges abundant, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the War of Resistance against Japan, the state was willing to sacrifice short-term economic growth to achieve strategic defense. The mistake referred to was that at that time we lacked strategic depth; after the Japanese advanced, they quickly seized our weapons manufacturing capability, and we were forced to cobble together the Southwest Associated University.

Development issues mostly relate to the economy and public livelihood.Our country is largely mountainous and hilly, with transportation barriers, highly uneven distribution of resources and population, and ecological degradation. These challenges can only be addressed by national-level projects. Hence the various nation-rebuilding efforts to connect regions, reorganize space, and restore ecosystems. Examples include the eight horizontal and eight vertical railway axes, north-to-south coal transport, west-to-east gas pipelines, and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project; East Data West Computing can also be categorized here.

Influence is generally advanced through representative, high-profile flagship projects that realize national aspirations.For example, after two decades of planning and deployment, we completed the BeiDou satellite navigation system. Likewise, the crewed space program — Shenzhou — has progressed from the 1999 launch of Shenzhou 1 to last year’s Shenzhou 11. Over 20-plus years we moved from unmanned to crewed missions, from one person for one day to multiple people for multiple days, and from spacewalks to rendezvous and docking. After the International Space Station retires in 2024, China will be the only country with an operational space station.

Finally, any national-level project is extremely long in duration — often intergenerational. The Three-North Shelter Forest Program taught in our elementary textbooks, for example, has a planned implementation period of 73 years and will not conclude until 2050. Compared with companies and individuals, the state needs to be even more patient and long-term in order to accomplish something significant.