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Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for strengthening the strategic, forward-looking, and systematic layout of basic research and supporting scientists and researchers in delivering more original innovations, Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a recent instruction on work related to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Noting the NSFC's positive role in advancing basic research and nurturing innovators over the past four decades, Xi urged the foundation to seize the opportunities presented by the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and deepen the reform of the science funding system to further refine the funding framework and enhance funding efficiency.

He called on the NSFC to help foster a sound research ecosystem and expand international collaboration, thereby empowering scientists and researchers to yield a greater output of original innovations, and to contribute more to achieving greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology.

The NSFC was established in February 1986 and has become a major channel for national funding of basic research.

Over the past 40 years, the budget of the NSFC has increased from 80 million yuan ($11.5 million) in 1986 to 39.5 billion yuan in 2025. It has set up 18 types of project categories, stably supporting the balanced and coordinated development of disciplines, covering all stages of researchers' career growth, and gradually forming a fully functional funding system, according to another Xinhua report on Thursday.

Earlier on Monday, during his first local inspection tour in 2026, the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), Xi stressed self-reliance and strength in science and technology, hailing it as the "key" in building China into a great modern socialist country, when he visited a national information technology innovation park in Beijing.

The recent consecutive key instructions by the Chinese leader on science and technology as well as self-reliance at the very beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) sent a strong signal that China will prioritize the development of new quality productive forces even more prominently and strengthen the internal impetus of innovation, in order to infuse greater new momentum and new advantages into the advancement of Chinese modernization, according to some Chinese scientists and industry observers reached by the Global Times on Thursday. 

Institutional advantages 

China's basic research capabilities have increased significantly, yielding a number of key original achievements with global influence, Vice Minister of Science and Technology Long Teng said at a State Council Information Office press conference in September 2025, citing accomplishments such as the development of a novel programmable technology for the precise manipulation of large chromosomal DNA fragments, as well as the first-ever revelation of young magmatic activity on the far side of the moon, which has provided key scientific evidence to improve our understanding of lunar evolution.

China's scientific and technological innovation represents a comprehensive force, driven by the comprehensive strength of the entire nation, said Guo Guoping, chief scientist of Origin Quantum and director at the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center.

Early last year, the release of DeepSeek-R1 sparked heated debate in the US tech community over a "Sputnik moment." This year, the continued breakout success of Seedance 2.0 - a newly released AI video generation model developed by Chinese company ByteDance - has gone even further, giving rise to a wave of admiration within Silicon Valley. 

Behind these innovations lie the country's unique institutional advantage and also the strategic resolve to pursue greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology, Guo noted. 

True innovation stems from a comprehensive synergy of strengths and capabilities, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Zhongguancun Modern Information Consumer Application Industry Technology Alliance, a telecom industry association, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

With strong national leadership, broad collaboration across society, and a thorough, systematic strategic deployment, China is poised to steadily accumulate even greater advantages in the realm of science and technology, Xiang predicted. 

Increasing budget input in the innovation field could also embody the national focus on driving greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on January 19 showed that in 2025, China's research and development (R&D) intensity - measured as R&D spending as a share of GDP - reached 2.8 percent in 2025, exceeding the average level of OECD countries for the first time.

The Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, also noted that "We should significantly strengthen our capacity for basic research and original innovation, achieve faster progress in securing breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, and see that China keeps pace or even leads the way in many more fields. Full integration should be achieved between technological and industrial innovation, and innovation should play a more prominent role in driving development."

The clearest and most definitive message in the planning recommendation is "achieving high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening." This is an essential path to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, Zhang Shuangnan, a senior professor with the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and principal investigator of the institute's Gamma-ray Burst Polarimeter - POLAR project, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Overall, in the past four decades, China's basic research has advanced at a remarkable pace and now ranks among the world's top tier. However, in general, there has been more follow-up research but fewer breakthroughs in basic research, which means there is more work to be done, Zhang noted.

Door to technological cooperation to open wider

China is strengthening basic research in order to participate in the global scientific community and to contribute "Chinese solutions" through high-level self-reliance and self-strengthening, Chu Jianxun, a research expert on the national innovation ecosystem and professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, told the Global Times.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China has achieved extensive and in-depth international sci-tech collaboration, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun disclosed in a press conference in September 2025. 

China has established sci-tech cooperation relationships with more than 160 countries and regions. It has signed 119 inter-governmental sci-tech cooperation agreements, and joined over 200 international organizations and multilateral mechanisms, according to the minister. 

"China's door to technological collaboration will open even wider," Yin said, reaffirming China's commitment to expanding international sci-tech exchanges and cooperation.