Qu Yongyi: Vigorously Promoting the Synergistic Interaction Between New Quality Productive Forces and New Industrialization [1]
General Secretary Xi Jinping has profoundly pointed out: "New quality productive forces are led by innovation; they break away from traditional economic growth modes and development paths for productive forces. Characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, they constitute an advanced state of productive forces that aligns with the New Development Philosophy." He further noted: "In the New Era and on the new journey, to comprehensively advance the great cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation through Chinese-path modernization, realizing new-type industrialization is a key task." The synergistic interaction between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization is an inevitable requirement for promoting high-quality development. It is the fundamental path for advancing industry by "strengthening long suits and remedying shortfalls" [1] to build a modern industrial system, and it serves as a solid guarantee for continuously achieving new breakthroughs and results in the construction of Chinese-path modernization.
Deeply Understanding the Underlying Logic and Practical Dimensions of the Synergy Between New Quality Productive Forces and New-Type Industrialization
New quality productive forces encompass the new technologies, fields, and "tracks" [2] of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation; they are the most dynamic revolutionary force for accelerating the development of new-type industrialization. The accelerated development of new quality productive forces can lead and drive profound transformations in the subjects, tools, objects, and modes of production. This promotes the fluid movement, networked sharing, systematic integration, collaborative development, and highly efficient utilization of factors such as labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, management, and data. Consequently, this effectively reduces transaction costs, enhances resource allocation efficiency, and promotes the rapid development of new-type industrialization. New-type industrialization is the fundamental support for building a strong country, and its practice requires the accelerated cultivation and development of new quality productive forces to continuously enhance industrial innovation and upgrading capabilities. Within the process of new-type industrialization, revolutionary breakthroughs in frontier technologies, the innovative and optimized configuration of new productive factors like data with laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor, as well as the deep transformation of traditional industries and the accelerated development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, constitute the fundamental path for the continuous emergence and accelerated development of new quality productive forces.
At present, our country’s development has entered a period where strategic opportunities coexist with risks and challenges, and where uncertain and unpredictable factors are increasing. Advancing the synergy between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization faces complex and severe internal and external situations. Internationally, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation will reshape the global division of labor and the map of development; the intensifying competition and hedging between major powers are accelerating the restructuring of global industrial and supply chains, increasing the risks to the safety and stability of our country’s industrial development. Domestically, our country’s industry has entered a critical period of "climbing the slope and clearing the hurdle" [3]—moving from being large to being strong and accelerating the march toward the mid-to-high end of global value chains. To achieve the synergy between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization, we must thoroughly break away from traditional economic growth modes, focus on increasing total factor productivity, and continuously shape new drivers and advantages. This will support the vision of becoming a manufacturing powerhouse under conditions of intense international competition and fundamentally resolve the security issues concerning the autonomous development of our country's modern industrial system.
On the one hand, we must persist in combining goal-orientation with problem-orientation, using new quality productive forces to remedy the development "shortfalls" of the innovation and industrial chains within new-type industrialization. We must use new quality productive forces as a "catalyst" to stimulate the endogenous momentum of traditional industry, breaking away from growth paths and development modes that rely on massive resource inputs and excessive consumption of energy, thereby empowering the digital, networked, and intelligent transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. We must use new quality productive forces as an "accelerator" to promote the coordinated transition between the technological paradigm of productive force development and the digital economy paradigm, establishing new integrated organizational models characterized by upstream-downstream integration, division of labor, cooperation, and benefit-sharing, thereby accelerating industrial chain reconstruction and value chain enhancement.
On the other hand, we must utilize the characteristics of personalized development and cross-boundary integration inherent in new quality productive forces to meet the strategic needs of new-type industrialization, breaking through temporal and spatial constraints to "forge long suits" in the innovation and industrial chains. We must strengthen the construction of new infrastructure and create a prosperous and orderly industrial ecosystem. We should focus on key areas such as advanced process chips, industrial software, high-end equipment, and industrial mother machines [4]. We must accelerate the development of clean energy such as wind, solar, and nuclear power, build integrated energy bases for "wind-solar-thermal-nuclear-storage," and cultivate a group of leading enterprises with international competitiveness and dominant firms with control over the industrial chain, led by new quality productive forces.
Leading the Synergy Between New Quality Productive Forces and New-Type Industrialization Through Technological Innovation
The "new quality" in new quality productive forces is not an incremental evolution of the elements of productive forces within a traditional framework. Rather, it is a comprehensive leap in the laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor driven by technological breakthroughs. This includes the leap in the knowledge and skills of laborers, the leap in the technological level of production tools—which serve as the most important symbol of advanced productive forces—and the vast expansion of the range and technological content of the objects of labor. In particular, technological innovation involving revolutionary and disruptive breakthroughs is not only the fundamental driving force for the development of new quality productive forces but also the key to the "qualitative" leap of productive forces. The "new" in new-type industrialization is manifested at the industrial level as "new manufacturing" characterized by new scientific discoveries, production technologies, production tools, productive factors, and product structures; "new services" represented by high-value-added producer services; and "new business formats" represented by digitalization, networking, intelligence, and integration. All of these are realized under the leadership of technological innovation, which is the key force guiding the synergistic interaction between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization.
Currently, the industrial boundaries and technological systems of our country's industrial sectors are undergoing rapid changes. Emerging technological routes and industrial sectors are surfacing quickly, opening a window of opportunity for the synergy of new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization to reshape the industrial ecosystem and strive for greater dominance and stronger competitive advantages within this new ecology. To achieve this synergy, we must lead with technological innovation, take unified action, and seize the opportunity of ecological reconstruction to drive technological breakthroughs and leadership across the entire industrial chain.
First, we must systematically arrange for "bottleneck" [5] core technology research in key areas. We should give full play to the advantages of the new-type whole-of-nation system, centering on key fields and technologies vital to the accelerated development of new-type industrialization and new quality productive forces. We must strengthen whole-chain planning and medium-to-long-term systematic layouts, advancing the core technology breakthroughs, iterative applications, and ecological cultivation of both in an integrated manner. We should formulate a technological innovation "roadmap" for promoting new quality productive forces in the industrial field, applying pressure from both the demand-pull and technology-push sides. We must improve mechanisms such as "open competition to select the best candidates" [6], concentrating superior resources to advance breakthroughs in major strategic technologies and products. We must vigorously support basic research and strengthen original and leading technological research.
Second, we should actively cultivate future industries such as generative AI, humanoid robots, 6G, the metaverse, quantum information, and deep-sea/aerospace exploration. We must grasp the opportunities of the technological revolution and industrial transformation, strengthen situational analysis, and align with the global industrial innovation frontier. By tracking development trends in "future intelligence," "future production," "future computing power," and "future commerce," we should focus on developing future industries that lead and drive strong growth in the real economy as our strategic industrial layout. We should select "tracks" with greater potential for prioritized development, gradually piloting application scenarios for AI, the metaverse, and quantum information, and strengthening content creation that matches future industries to quickly form industrial chains and clusters representing new quality productive forces.
Third, we should actively cultivate strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, advanced manufacturing, and electronic information. By improving the government support system for the synergy between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization—especially by reforming long-term mechanisms in policy support, factor input, incentives, and service regulation—we can better utilize the market's guiding role in the direction of R&D, choice of routes, and allocation of various innovation factors. This will encourage enterprises to become the main subjects of technological innovation decision-making, R&D investment, scientific research organization, and the transformation of achievements. We should cultivate a group of leading digital innovation enterprises with outstanding core technological capabilities and strong integrated innovation capabilities. In particular, we must accelerate the application of technological achievements, clear the various "bottlenecks" between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization, and achieve a "one-stop" leap in strategic emerging industries across technology, manufacturing, and market models.
Focal Points for Promoting the Synergy Between New Quality Productive Forces and New-Type Industrialization
The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC proposed basically realizing new-type industrialization by 2035. The synergistic interaction between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization must revolve around this goal, taking the series of important discourses by General Secretary Xi Jinping on developing new quality productive forces as the fundamental basis and guide for action. We must deeply recognize the significance of developing new quality productive forces for advancing new-type industrialization, and clarify the timetable and roadmap while highlighting key priorities.
Optimize the policy environment to activate the endogenous vitality of markets and enterprises. Due to the uncertainty of technology and markets, the synergy between new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization cannot proceed sequentially according to a predetermined path. This requires strengthening the pre-emptive and fundamental role of competition policy within the overall policy system to provide stable expectations for fair competition among all types of enterprises. In particular, by improving the efficiency of implementing intellectual property protection laws and regulations, we can maintain a fair competitive environment and compel strategic emerging industries and future industries to achieve innovation-driven development, forming an internal market momentum. We must further clarify the "superior policy" status of industrial security and competition policies relative to general industrial policies, defining the interfaces of power and responsibility between industrial policy departments, security management departments, and competition enforcement departments. This will ensure that development and security goals are optimized and balanced, avoiding goal conflicts, mutual obstruction, and "compositional fallacies" [7] during implementation.
Strengthen institutional "long suits," leveraging the dual advantages of the new-type whole-of-nation system and local creative vitality. The implementation of the new-type whole-of-nation system at the central level must be more focused, ensuring global coordination of the entire industrial chain in appropriate fields of new quality productive forces and specific stages of new-type industrialization, making it an important supplement to the effective market. At present, there is a particular need to strengthen communication and collaboration between government departments, enhance top-level design and overall planning, strengthen evaluation while weakening process supervision, and establish a flatter organizational mechanism for the whole-of-nation system. We must give full play to the creativity and initiative of local governments. On the basis of deepening the reform of the fiscal and tax systems, we should strengthen the assessment of local government innovation performance. This will fundamentally guide localities to focus industrial policies on original and disruptive technological innovation and its industrial transformation, constraining the space for distorted productive investment and avoiding the "vicious cycle" of "repetitive introduction" [8] and "overcapacity."
Lead the way to accelerated development, striving to promote the industrialization process in fields with high maturity and readiness. We should accelerate the synergy of new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization in the process of large-scale industrialization for emerging industries with high technical maturity, good market readiness, and strong industrial linkages. This will allow them to become the "leading wave" of development, boosting social confidence and expectations. In the short term, this will drive investment and stimulate consumption; in the long term, it will pull along breakthroughs in key core technologies of the industrial chain, serving as a catalyst to lead the synergy of new quality productive forces and new-type industrialization over a broader scope.
(The author is the Party Committee Secretary and a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Source: Study Times (Xuexi Shibao), February 14, 2025