(Bloomberg) -- China must strike a better balance between development and security, the Communist Party’s official newspaper said in a commentary that repeated an earlier call by President Xi Jinping, who also criticized US efforts to contain the Asian nation.

“We must be aware that China’s development is facing both strategic opportunities and challenges while uncertainties and unpredictability have grown,” the People’s Daily said. “We must better coordinate development and security, pay equal attention to both, consider more the security factor while developing,” it said.

Xi called on the private sector during China’s National People’s Congress to help overcome “comprehensive containment and suppression by Western countries led by the US.” In his speech delivered at the NPC’s close on Monday, the president said security is the “foundation for development,” and that stability is “the precondition for prosperity.”

Xi used the annual parliamentary session to tighten the party’s grip over the government, setting up powerful committees to oversee everything from financial markets to science and technology and social stability.

China Shakes Up Technology, Data Regimes to Counter US Curbs

While China’s economy is recovering slowly from the pandemic and a historic property slump, its long-term growth prospects are weakening amid chronic headwinds such as an aging population and declining aggregate productivity. Tensions with the US are intensifying, clouding the outlook for foreign trade and innovation.

Washington is increasingly using export controls, sanctions and other punitive measures to prevent China from obtaining technology that could give it an economic and military advantage, particularly in semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

The US has blacklisted arguably all of China’s most advanced companies and research institutes in diverse fields from chips and supercomputing to the cloud and data mining. National champions including Huawei Technologies Co., Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and most recently Inspur Group are banned from accessing American technologies.

Ren Zhengfei, founder of China’s technology giant Huawei Technologies Co., said the company has found substitutes for more than 13,000 components and over 4,000 circuit boards that were targeted by US sanctions, according to the transcript of his speech at a February meeting posted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Friday. 

Secretive Chip Startup May Help Huawei Circumvent US Sanctions

The US is reviewing existing licenses for exporting items to Huawei as the Biden administration considers cutting off the company from all of its American suppliers, Bloomberg has reported.

Ramping up efforts to develop core technologies will be one of the top priorities of the government this year, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said at the first plenary meeting of the State Council, or cabinet, on Friday, according a report by the Xinhua news agency.

Li also pledged to deepen reforms of state-owned enterprises, expand private economy, stabilize foreign trade, defuse major risks, ensure food security, push for progress in carbon neutral and control Covid. 

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