The 2025 trade war launched by the United States is shaping up to become a watershed moment for Chinese policymakers.
While the country's economic resilience and role at the centre of global supply chains helped secure a 90-day truce with Washington, Beijing is digging deep to fight a protracted conflict. The forthcoming Five-Year Plan - China's signature development blueprint - is expected to fortify the domestic economy in the pursuit of global leadership.
Provincial leaders are seizing opportunities to align with the national strategy, as the 2026-2030 development plan, officially released in March 2026, promises to reshape the nation's economic and industrial landscape.
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Guizhou, a mountainous province in Southwest China, 400 kilometres from the nearest coast, has barely felt the shock waves from Donald Trump's unprecedented tariff blitz. Instead, officials have identified opportunities as Beijing strategically pivots to the domestic market and renews its focus on economic security.
"We must fully play up our comparative advantages to serve the national strategy," said Xu Lin, Guizhou's party chief, at a preparation conference for the Five-Year Plan on May 28.
Guizhou now counts on the "strategic hinterland strategy", introduced during a policymaking conference in December 2023.
The plan focuses on developing inland industrial bases, material reserves and infrastructure. It has drawn widespread comparisons to China's Third Line Construction Project - when the central government relocated tens of thousands of defence projects and strategic factories to the mountainous west in the 1960s and 1970s amid escalating tensions with the Soviet Union.
The strategic hinterland became a formal long-term strategy at the Communist Party's third plenum in July 2024, when officials endorsed support for critical industries in China's inland provinces.
In a research report released in May, Pangoal Institution, a Beijing-based think tank, outlined the Greater Hinterland Strategy - a blueprint that would consolidate 10 central and western provinces, including Guizhou, into an economic zone to empower domestic markets and counter external risks.
"Such a redistribution of regional economic layout would help offset external uncertainties and foster new growth engines," the report's authors said.
"It would be a proactive strategic choice."
During the era of central planning in the 1950s and 1960s, the central government directed funds to build factories in Northeast China, in regions bordering Russia's Far Eastern District. The area became an industrial powerhouse, earning the nickname China's "elder son".
Next came the final supreme leader.Deng Xiaoping's reformsIn 1978, a change occurred that moved the center of economic growth to coastal areas such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, with exports fueling China's rapid economic expansion.
The Pangoal Institution is currently advocating for a change in direction. This research organization has encouraged the national government to implement a comparable approach in the upcoming Five-Year Plan, where state-owned businesses and key industry players would direct increased investment toward China's.hinterland provinces.
The research group suggested that these areas need a greater number of national research facilities and government-sponsored initiatives to tackle obstacles to progress.
Ding Shuang, Standard Chartered Bank's top economist for the Greater China region, stated that the strategic hinterland primarily demonstrates Beijing's focus on essential considerations. He added, "Given the unavoidable importance of security for China, it's crucial to have backup industries."
He noted that the western provinces have outpaced the country's average growth rate, attributing this to the swift expansion of infrastructure in recent years.
Western regions possess benefits such as lower expenses, plentiful resources, and established industrial bases. Increased investment would be drawn to these areas with further enhancements to their business climate.
Derek Scissors, the top economist at China Beige Book, a research company in New York, expressed doubt that these comparatively minor markets could make up for financial setbacks resulting from the US situation.
He stated that coastal infrastructure offers better connections for production hubs within China and for overseas trade. "It would be wiser to relocate more internal migrants to coastal regions," he added.
Guizhou, an inland province that turned into a key area in President Xi Jinping's.anti-poverty campaign, long struggled to attract investors due to its mountainous terrain.
Over the last 20 years, numerous towering bridges have been constructed to improve road and railway connections to China's thriving economic centers. Some of these bridges are as impressive in size as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. However, opinions on these developments are divided. Local residents welcome the increase in tourism and financial input, while international commentators express concern about the growing national debt.
In 2024, Guizhou's economy expanded by 5.3% compared to the previous year, reaching 2.27 trillion yuan (US$317 billion). This placed it 22nd among China's 31 provincial-level regions, a position similar to the US state of Kentucky.
When finalising the previous Five-Year Plan in 2020, the last year of Trump's first presidential term, Guizhou was assigned a more prominent role in promoting common prosperity after it successfully eliminated absolute poverty. Targets included an annual growth rate of 7 per cent, with increased spending on high-speed rail, expressways and digital infrastructure.
As per a State Council document issued in January 2022, the province was also urged to strengthen key industries, such as materials and advanced equipment.
In this year's work report, provincial leaders pledged to seize a "historic opportunity", naming "backup industries" as one of six industrial pillars alongside strategic mineral development, new energy batteries and materials, computing resources, Chinese liquor and energy.
The decision has historical roots, since the mountainous province once served as a strategic shelter against foreign attacks.
During World War II, Guizhou helped defend the wartime capital Chongqing from Japanese aggressors, and hosted relocated industries from coastal regions.
When Cold War tensions reached a fever pitch, the province - together with neighbouring Sichuan, Chongqing and Hubei - became a core area in China's Three Line Project.
President Xi has endorsed Guizhou's strategic industrial development, highlighting its unique location during a two-day inspection in mid-March.
The province is situated between two of China's four major economic zones - the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and the Sichuan-Chongqing economic belt - which together account for about one-fifth of national GDP.
Guizhou also links the West China Land and Sea Corridor, a mega transport project designed to attract inbound investment and connect inland western provinces to Southeast Asia via ports in the Beibu Gulf.
As part of China's broader strategic shift, Guizhou has received central government approval to launch two national industrial backup programmes.
Though authorities have not disclosed a list of projects, local media reports suggest an aviation estate in Anshun city, a former base in Guizhou that hosted Third Line industrial projects.
More than 10 local firms already supply the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), which builds the single-aisle C919 plane. A supply chain for aircraft engines and parts - one of the latest flashpoints between Beijing and Washington - is also taking shape.
The Trump administration has banned US companies from exporting aviation engine technology to Comac, drawing condemnation from Beijing. A foreign ministry spokesperson has accused Washington of politicising economic and tech issues to contain China.
Beyond aviation, Guizhou has become a front runner in certain sectors of China's digital economy, leading the way in the big data, data storage and computing industries.
In a May visit to Guizhou's data centre parks, the words of President Xi - praising the province's big data capabilities - adorned the walls of the exhibition hall.
Local officials proudly claim that Guizhou has built a complete industrial chain covering data storage, computing services and industrial applications. Tech giants Apple, Huawei Technologies and Tencent have set up businesses in the province.
Digital services now account for half of the province's GDP, with the speed of expansion leading the country for nine consecutive years.
Guizhou is "already a highland in the digital economy", the officials told visiting media.
The province's computing power capacity has surpassed 55E FLOPS - about one quarter of the national total - in support of China's "Eastern Data, Western Compute Project" that diverts data from economically thriving eastern regions.
For local cadres, Guizhou's increasing strategic importance has unlocked new funding opportunities, a growing influx of industries and more infrastructure projects. Among them: a world record-breaking 625-metre-high canyon bridge that, when built, will be nearly 1.5 times the height of New York's Empire State Building.
Plans to welcome new investment projects, relocated from eastern regions, are also in the pipeline.
"We must identify which industries and firms in the eastern region are ready to relocate. We must also clarify which industries Guizhou can accept based on its transport, industrial foundations and resources," a local advisory group proposed to the provincial people's congress in January.
At an investment meeting in late May, Xie Qiang, head of the Guizhou Investment Promotion Bureau, highlighted three new priority industries: fabric and clothing, food processing and pharmaceuticals.
"Guizhou is a land of opportunities," Xie told dozens of visiting entrepreneurs. "You are investing in your future here."
In 2024, Guizhou signed 298 industrial projects that will be relocated from eastern regions. So far, 190 have started the process, with a planned investment totalling 261.6 billion yuan, local media reported.
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