China's new materials policy intensive landing: seven policies behind the ten-year strategic logic

1. Policy Panorama: From "Supporting Support" to "Strategic Cornerstone" Positioning Transition

In the past two years, China has intensively released policies related to new materials, covering multiple dimensions such as industrial development direction, technological research, standard construction, and foreign investment guidance. Behind the frequent policy is a clear strategic intention: China is upgrading the new materials industry from "manufacturing support" to "national strategic cornerstone", building a three-tier system of "basic materials to build the foundation, strategic materials to supplement the chain, cutting-edge materials to lead. For overseas chemical practitioners, understanding these seven policies is the core framework for judging the pace of import substitution and the evolution of the competitive landscape of China's new materials in the next five to ten years.

policy timelines at a glance:

January 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China and other seven departments issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovation and Development of Future Industries", which for the first time listed "future materials" as six key directions, focusing on high-performance carbon fiber, advanced semiconductors, superconducting materials and Humanoid robot electronic skin and other core technology breakthroughs. This is the first time that China's national level will be superconducting, semiconductor, carbon fiber and other cutting-edge materials into the "future industry" category of overall deployment, capital and resources will accelerate the concentration of these tracks, carbon fiber precursor, electronic-grade chemicals, special polymers and other upstream materials of the domestic demand will continue to expand.

November 2025, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Key New Materials Research and Development Special (2026) Declaration Notice", with special state subsidies to directly support semiconductor materials, new energy key materials, aerospace materials and other card neck areas of technological research, is the top-level policy to the key bridge of the industrial landing transformation.

December 2025, China's four departments jointly issued the "Raw Material Industry Standard Improvement Plan (2025-2027)" to systematically promote the improvement of new material standards, green low-carbon and digital transformation standards. The introduction of the three-year programme means that standard-building will be systematically advanced. For export-oriented chemical companies, the process of integrating Chinese standards with international standards will directly affect the ability of products to enter overseas markets.

of the end of December 2025, the 2026 Industrial Work Conference of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China and other departments clearly listed new materials as an emerging pillar industry, promoted the reengineering of the industrial foundation, AI manufacturing, and clarified the "rectification of internal volumes"-this is a major policy signal. It means that new materials will receive the same level of industrial policy support as steel and petrochemicals, the chaos of low-price competition will be rectified, and industry integration will be accelerated, head companies with technical barriers are the first to benefit.

January 2026, China's national development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the catalogue of industries to encourage foreign investment (2025 edition), adding high-end polyolefin, carbon fiber, electronic chemicals, biodegradable plastics, semiconductor materials and other items to encourage foreign investment. This policy has a double signal: on the one hand, the varieties clearly listed are the areas where China's technical barriers are high and there is still obvious import dependence, and the introduction of foreign investment is a pragmatic choice of opening up for technology; on the other hand, encouraging foreign investment also means that these tracks will usher in more full competition, and China's existing producers need to assess changes in the competitive landscape in advance.

February 2026, China's Ministry of Science and Technology and other institutions issued the "Science and Technology Insurance Support High-level Self-reliance and Self-reliance Opinions" to expand the first batch of new material insurance compensation and reduce the risk of innovative product promotion. "The first set dare not use" is the long-term bottleneck of new materials from the laboratory to mass production, insurance compensation mechanism is equivalent to the state for the application of domestic new materials to promote endorsement, will effectively accelerate the penetration of domestic materials in the field of high-end manufacturing, the market share of existing overseas suppliers constitute a direct pressure.

On April 10, 2026, the National Standards Committee of China issued 18 national standards (including 8 items of lithium battery and 10 new materials) for silicon carbide single crystal, carbon fiber composite materials and lithium battery materials, clarifying the technical requirements and inspection methods, which will be officially implemented in the second half of 2026. The landing of standards directly raises the industry access threshold and accelerates the clearance of low-end production capacity. For traders, products that do not meet the requirements after the implementation of the standard will face the pressure of Chinese market access, and it is urgent to assess the compliance of suppliers in advance.

2. Policy Internal Logic and Overseas Practitioners' Strategic Implications

policies are not isolated, but build a complete closed loop around the same set of underlying logic: the research and development end is targeted to invest in card neck materials with special state subsidies, and the AI material gene technology accelerates the research and development cycle; The standard end issues unified technical specifications with national standards to promote the quality of China's domestic materials to be benchmarked internationally. The application end solved the dilemma of "dare not use" with the first batch of insurance compensation; the open end introduces international capital and technology with a foreign directory, and drives the two wheels of independent innovation.

, the development logic of China's new materials policy has also changed from the past "short board" to the whole chain independent and controllable path of "strong and long board forward-looking layout". The ultimate goal is to realize the "follow-up" to "run and lead".

's core judgment for overseas practitioners: China's import substitution process for high-end polyolefins, carbon fibers, electronic chemicals, semiconductor materials, biodegradable plastics and other varieties will accelerate significantly in 2026-2030. Traders need to assess the pace of narrowing the export window to China in advance; existing technology monopolies need to strengthen high-end customer binding before local Chinese competitors mature; and supply chain practitioners should incorporate the timetable for upgrading Chinese new materials standards into the core considerations of the global procurement compliance system.