China has laid out a roadmap for adopting decentralized information technologies, placing blockchain development at the center of its national strategy.

The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) body responsible for implementing cybersecurity and informatization policies, has incorporated blockchain into its "15th National Informatization Five-Year Plan." Five-year plans serve as China's top-level policy blueprints, and the 15th plan's horizon runs through 2030, giving the document's technology milestones a defined timeline. The document establishes a development path for a national blockchain network as part of the country's broader effort to modernize its information infrastructure.

According to the plan, by 2030 China's existing information structures are expected to have advanced into a three-dimensional network system, sixth-generation (6G) mobile communications are to be commercialized, and the national blockchain network is to be completed, alongside an accelerated rollout of a smart internet layout.

Blockchain features in the plan as part of a new priority industry ecosystem cultivated by Chinese authorities, alongside integrated circuits (ICs), display technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and 6G mobile communications — a grouping that places blockchain among the sectors Beijing singles out for coordinated, state-directed development.

The informatization plan also seeks to strengthen legal support for blockchain technology by developing establishing national standards, with the aim of extending these standards internationally. The effort to carry domestic standards abroad gives outside observers a concrete benchmark to track as the plan advances.

The roadmap builds on the CCP's push to establish a national blockchain network that would integrate the country's real and digital economies. The initiative is framed as part of the promotion of the "deep integration of scientific, technological and industrial innovation," in line with President Xi Jinping's "Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era."

Although China maintains its opposition to cryptocurrency, the People's Bank of China has emphasized the relevance of blockchain technologies, citing their role in helping to "achieve one-stop online processing of cross-border electronic tax payment business." The pairing reflects a policy line that separates the underlying technology from cryptocurrency, directing blockchain development toward official and industrial use cases.

The country's broader push to deploy decentralized technologies across different use cases followed an initial rollout in 2022 of 15 pilot zones and 164 entities for blockchain projects. These pilots target manufacturing, energy, government and tax services, law, education, health, trade and finance, and cross-border finance.

If completed, the achievement would make China a pioneer in relying on a national blockchain backbone to organize its informational processes, potentially encompassing smart finance, property rights, and even ID registries under a national decentralized structure. Between now and the 2030 deadline, the expansion of these pilot zones and the drafting of the national standards outlined in the plan stand as the most direct markers of progress toward that goal.