Xi Jinping wants China to stop being the world's most accomplished technology copyist and start producing genuinely original innovations. He has even borrowed a phrase to describe this ambition - "zero to one" - which happens to be the title and central concept of a 2014 bestseller by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, based on a Stanford University class on tech startups.
The irony is hard to miss. Hudson Institute analysts Patrick Cronin and Pinshan Lai note it directly in their assessment for The Diplomat, "Hvylya" reports. But the underlying ambition is serious. Xi wants to multiply the breakthroughs - scaling the number of genuinely original innovations and startups while building strategic advantages in Chinese technology.
The shift from fast-follower to true innovator has multiple motives. Domestically, Xi is problem-solving: China's old growth model is running out of steam. Internationally, he seeks to leapfrog American technological dominance. And strategically, the goal is to create end-to-end ecosystems that minimize foreign dependence - especially in areas where Washington has used export controls as leverage.
This is not simply about building a better economy. Cronin and Lai argue that the whole system approach produces an innovative state that yields security dominance, not just growth. China's 15th Five-Year Plan, approved in March 2026, doubles down on frontier technology as "new productive forces." Civil-military fusion ensures that advances in AI, quantum computing, and supercomputing flow directly into defense applications.
The transition carries risks. Original innovation requires the kind of intellectual freedom and tolerance for failure that sits uneasily with Xi's emphasis on political centralization and party control. Whether China can genuinely achieve "zero to one" breakthroughs within a system designed primarily for security and control remains the open question.
"Hvylya" previously examined why China's failing economy limits its ability to antagonize the United States.