Beijing When China’s leaders wanted to give a boost to the domestic semiconductor industry last year, a big state-owned electronics company scooped up smaller privately owned chip-design and chip-making firms. Beijing followed the same script to get control of the sprawling, polluting rare-earths industry: A big state-owned company purchased nine firms in December that mine the minerals used in such strategic industries as defense and telecommunications. Expect China’s leaders to insist on a big state role in sectors they deem strategic when the officials lay out their economic plans for the coming year at a session of the country’s largely toothless legislature. On the one hand, China has pledged to dismantle some state-owned monopolies so they operate by market principles and pay more dividends to fund social spending. But on the other, China specialists say the state may actually end up with more influence over the economy in coming […]