PKU Scholar decodes venture capital investment signals and innovation strategy in China's 15th Five-Year Plan

Zhang Jiamin, Associate Professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, shares her views at a scholar salon on Dec. 17, 2025. (Photo provided to Guangming Online)

BEIJING - At a recent scholar salon hosted by Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, academics and policy observers gathered to discuss "Outbound strategy and innovation ecosystem under the 15th Five-Year Plan." The discussion came as Chinese enterprises expand their overseas presence and upgrade their business structure, while facing multiple challenges, including geopolitical tensions and regulatory barriers.

China's Recommendations for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development emphasize fostering emerging industries and industries of the future. The plan calls for accelerating industrial clusters in strategic fields such as new energy, new materials, aviation and aerospace, and the low-altitude economy, while promoting demonstration initiatives to apply new technologies at scale. It also calls for forward-looking plans for industries of the future, including developing venture capital, introducing new regulation methods, establishing mechanisms to increase funding and share risks, and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and unicorns, highlighting the role of capital in driving innovation and global competitiveness.

China's domestic venture capital ecosystem has expanded steadily in recent years. As of October, private equity and venture capital funds reached 14.74 trillion yuan in assets under management, representing a 27.46% increase from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Investment vehicles have diversified with the rise of corporate venture capital, M&A funds and secondary funds, while capital has increasingly flowed toward early-stage firms, small and medium-sized enterprises and technology-intensive startups—reinforcing venture capital’s role as the "first mile" of innovation financing.

Meanwhile, Chinese industry has globalized at a rapid pace. Research presented at the salon by Zhang Jiamin, Associate Professor at Guanghua School of Management, shows that by the end of 2024 nearly 69% of China's listed companies reported overseas revenue, totaling 10.7 trillion yuan. Overseas expansion has shifted from infrastructure- and resource-led projects to high-end manufacturing sectors such as automobiles, power equipment and electronics, with Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East emerging as the fastest-growing markets. By contrast, China's venture capital globalization remains at an early stage, with relatively limited scale and high geographic concentration.

Photo shows Transsion Holdings, a representative Chinese company focused on overseas markets, highlighting the new stage of Chinese industrial globalization and its strategic overseas investment. (Photo via Internet)

Zhang emphasized that venture capital plays a critical "threading-the-needle" role in global innovation. It can support Chinese startups in accessing global innovation networks, help build localized ecosystems around the overseas operations of Chinese enterprises, and enable forward-looking investment in frontier technologies abroad that complement domestic industrial chains. However, she noted that venture capital actors continue to face tensions between domestic and global priorities, short-term returns and long-term innovation, and applied technologies versus foundational research.

Against this backdrop, the 15th Five-Year Plan's explicit emphasis on developing venture capital alongside industries of the future signals a strategic shift, according to Zhang. Rather than focusing solely on exporting products or production capacity, she argued, China is moving toward "capability export" and "ecosystem export," integrating capital, technology and industry across borders. In this process, venture capital is expected to invest earlier, deeper and more globally, helping to build cross-border innovation communities and opening new avenues of collaboration within an evolving global innovation landscape.