China's central leadership has ordered the creation of a national blockchain network as part of a sweeping industrial policy package published by state news agency Xinhua. The directive, issued jointly by the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council, anchors distributed ledger technology to national infrastructure while keeping the country's strict ban on cryptocurrency transactions firmly in place.
Industrial rails, not digital assets
The policy document, titled 'Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Developing New Productive Forces,' makes no mention of Bitcoin or public digital tokens. Instead, Beijing frames blockchain strictly as an operational tool to digitise manufacturing and coordinate supply chains.
The push ties directly into existing state computing targets. It calls for building a national integrated computing-power network and accelerating the 'Eastern Data, Western Computing' initiative, which routes data processing and heavy computing loads to western provinces. Planners also included a direct warning against prioritising virtual activity over the real economy or creating financial bubbles. The goal is shop-floor utility, not speculative trading.
Where the state network actually runs
China isn't starting from scratch on state-approved distributed ledgers. The country already runs the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), a state-backed system that hosts government and commercial software while barring tokens like Bitcoin from operating on its infrastructure.
The new policy announcement doesn't say whether the proposed national framework will build on top of BSN or establish an entirely separate system. State media didn't clarify architecture details, leaving the technical blueprint open.
Traders jump on Conflux ties
The policy release still triggered immediate market speculation. Conflux, whose native CFX token rallied over the weekend following the announcement, caught the bulk of that attention.
Conflux is widely viewed by traders as China's only regulatory-compliant public chain. The project frequently highlights its past work with state-backed corporations, compliance with domestic rules barring public token sales, and founding ties to Tsinghua University. But Beijing didn't endorse it. The State Council document doesn't name Conflux, doesn't designate it as a network vendor, and doesn't assign any role to CFX. The token rally prices an assumed connection rather than a government contract.
What Beijing hasn't confirmed
The state directive confirms that blockchain remains an official priority within China's digital economy strategy, but it leaves key implementation steps unanswered. Regulators and ministries haven't named technical partners, defined network standards, or assigned private teams to early pilot projects.
