Using data on over 300,000 scientific articles in 40 top journals across 6 scientific fields, we show that after the adoption of China‘s National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (NMLP) in 2006, China‘s share of academic publications and citations increased gradually and significantly. The increase is most pronounced in scientific fields that were explicit focus areas of the NMLP (physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine), as opposed to fields that were largely ignored by the NMLP (mathematics and economics). Our evidence provides support for the notion that government spending can spur scientific progress, at least in a centrally planned economy.