In many ways, China s quest to innovate and develop emerging technologies is not new. In the early 1980s, Jiang Zemin, the future president and then-Minister of the Electronics Ministry, stressed the need for China to catch up with its more advanced counterparts in information technology, which he deemed the strategic high ground in international competition. Major policies since then, such as the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development and China s Twelfth and Thirteenth Five-Year Plans have responded to this need to enhance China s technological capabilities. Calls in these plans for promoting indigenous innovation, leapfrogging in priority fields, and developing “strategic emerging industries, among other tasks, reflect some of the main goals outlined in the draft Fourteenth Five-Year Plan.