The Communist Party of China (CPC)'s draft 14th Five-Year Plan shows the Party is paying close attention to the country's innovations in the fields of science and technology, Wang Zhigang, minister of science and technology, said Friday. 

"It's the first time the Party has written a standalone chapter for sci-tech development in its Five-Year Plan proposal," Wang told reporters during a press conference on the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee.

The CPC discussed a proposal for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) during the meeting. If approved, the proposal will have a huge impact on the country's future.

It is also a historical first for the proposal to list sci-tech independence as a top task in the proposed plan.

"Sci-tech development in China is moving from accumulating small breakthroughs to fundamental and systematic upgrades," Wang said of the current situation.

For the future, he said China should use the opportunity of the new sci-tech revolution and raise the country to be a global sci-tech power.

Specifically, the Party wants China to build a better mechanism to make core technology breakthroughs and do basic scientific research.

It also wants to build a better reward system to encourage more innovation.

Independence also stressed

The CPC has fully realized that blindly depending on foreign technology will not work if China wants to go on developing. In the proposal, the Party talked of "sci-tech independence." 

"Core technology cannot be bought or asked for," Wang told reporters. "We have to take care of it ourselves."

But he also admitted that international cooperation is necessary.

"We would love to learn from the experiences of other countries," he said. "At the same time we would love to share our work and contribute more wisdom to global challenges, like climate change, energy and health."