China unveils big plan to fix its ailing economy and transform into a high-tech power

China’s leaders have spent the past week unveiling their plan to steer the world’s second-largest economy through looming challenges by transforming the country into a technological powerhouse and ramping up spending to hit an ambitious growth target. The thousands of delegates who gathered in Beijing for a week-long meeting of China’s rubber-stamp legislature voted almost unanimously Tuesday to approve that plan, which was laid out across a government work report and annual budget.

The stakes are high for China’s government, and Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, to get these initiatives right. Beijing needs to fix a raft of domestic issues, including the fallout of a sprawling real estate crisis, high local government debt and weak consumer demand, while facing mounting economic pressure from the United States as President Donald Trump ramps up tariffs on Chinese imports and threatens expanded controls on American investment in China.

On Sunday, new data showed China’s consumer prices plunged to their lowest level in 13 months in February, underscoring the persistent deflationary pressures dragging on the economy.

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