Zhao Zhenhua: Leading the Development of New Quality Productive Forces through Scientific and Technological Innovation
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "We must lead industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation, and actively cultivate and develop new quality productive forces." The 2024 Central Economic Work Conference proposed to "lead the development of new quality productive forces through scientific and technological innovation and build a modern industrial system." "Leading the development of new quality productive forces through scientific and technological innovation" is a major measure proposed by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core after assessing the situation. [1] It at once seizes the present while looking toward the future, and is of extremely profound significance for achieving the goal of building a great modern socialist country in all respects on schedule, gaining strategic initiative in intense international competition, and meeting the people’s needs for a better life.
I. Epochal Characteristics of New Quality Productive Forces
The history of the development of human society is a history of scientific and technological innovation; it is a history of the development of productive forces, particularly new productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "New quality productive forces have already taken shape in practice and demonstrated a strong driving and supporting force for high-quality development. We need to summarize and abstract this theoretically to guide new developmental practices." Productive forces represent the capacity of human beings to transform nature, and they exhibit different characteristics in different eras.
Innovation plays the leading role. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "New quality productive forces are advanced productive forces in which innovation plays the leading role; they break away from traditional economic growth modes and development paths for productive forces, feature high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, and align with the new development philosophy." [2] Furthermore, "the salient feature of new quality productive forces is innovation, which includes innovation at the levels of technology and business models, as well as innovation in management and institutions." Forming new quality productive forces requires a variety of factors, but among these, innovation plays the dominant or pivotal role. In different eras, innovation has different forms of expression and characteristics; in the current era, innovation exhibits characteristics not possessed by any previous era.
First is multidimensionality. This includes institutional innovation, ideological innovation, management innovation, technological innovation, and cultural innovation, which interweave to jointly drive the development of new quality productive forces. Second is the simultaneous explosion across multiple fields. Since the beginning of the 21st century, global scientific and technological innovation has entered a period of unprecedented intensity and activity. Innovations in various fields such as new-generation information technology, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, energy technology, space, and maritime technology are showing an unprecedented level of vitality. Third is the explosive growth of innovation outcomes. Innovations across all industries and sectors of society are being continuously applied on a large scale to every aspect of production and life; humanity has never utilized and enjoyed the fruits of innovation as fully as in the present era. Fourth is the unprecedentedly intense competition for the 'commanding heights' of innovation on a world scale. More and more countries, especially major world powers, are introducing policies and measures to support innovation. Science and technology have become the primary battlefield for international strategic maneuvering [3], and competition surrounding the commanding heights of technology is fiercer than ever. Fifth is that innovation has reshaped the world economic map. A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reconstructing the global innovation landscape and reshaping the global economic structure. Looking at the history of world civilization, the center of the world economy is not fixed but in a state of constant flux. One of the basic laws of this change is that wherever the center of innovation is, the center of the economy will be. If our country is to become an important world economic center in the 21st century, it must seize the opportunities of innovation and accelerate the development of new quality productive forces.
Promoting development through high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. High technology is not static but is always in a state of dynamic development and change; high technology in different eras has different characteristics. High technology in the current era is built upon the foundation of modern science and technology, characterized by being knowledge-intensive, technology-intensive, and information-intensive. High technology is the prerequisite for high efficiency and high quality. High efficiency means having higher productivity and more powerful functions. High quality refers to the excellent grade of products or services, with stable and reliable performance that can better satisfy people's needs.
The speed of development is accelerating. In primitive society, the development of productive forces was extremely slow, measured in units of tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. In agrarian society, the speed of progress was generally measured by the century. After the Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 18th century, progress was measured roughly by the decade. Today's society has entered the information age, where artificial intelligence and other technologies have permeated every aspect of production and life. Technological progress iterates constantly, measured essentially by years and months. Moore's Law, from the 1960s, showed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months, while the price drops by half, revealing the rapid pace of information technology progress. Today, human society has entered the network information age; new technologies and products iterate rapidly, and the cycle of scientific and technological progress is becoming shorter and shorter, greatly driving the development of productive forces and leading to an accelerating accumulation of wealth.
The fields involved are widening. The landmark technologies of the first Industrial Revolution were the steam engine and the spinning frame; the leading industry was primarily textiles, which drove the development of coal and steel. Humanity entered not only the Age of Steam but also the Age of Steel. The landmark technologies of the second Industrial Revolution were electricity and the internal combustion engine; the leading industries were steel, automobiles, electrical appliances, and petrochemicals. The third Industrial Revolution featured computers, nuclear energy, and space technology, with electronics, nuclear energy, chemicals, aerospace, bioengineering, and computers as leading industries. Currently, human society has entered the era of the fourth Industrial Revolution. Its landmark technologies are the wide application of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing, showing a trend of multi-point explosions across all fields from macroscopic celestial movements to the microscopic world. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, new-generation information technologies represented by AI, quantum information, mobile communications, IoT, and blockchain are accelerating breakthroughs in application. Life sciences, represented by synthetic biology, gene editing, brain science, and regenerative medicine, are gestating new changes. Advanced manufacturing technologies integrating robotics, digitalization, and new materials are accelerating the transformation of manufacturing toward intelligence, service-orientation, and green growth. Energy technologies aimed at being clean, efficient, and sustainable will trigger a global energy revolution, and space and maritime technologies are expanding the new frontiers of human existence and development.
Scientific and technological progress leading new quality productive forces exhibits a trend of integrated innovation. With the progress of science and technology, the boundaries between various fields are becoming increasingly blurred. The cross-fertilization and integration of different disciplines have become the primary driver of technological progress. In terms of theoretical trends, interdisciplinary subjects have emerged, such as environmental science, energy science, marine science, and materials science. In terms of practical trends, modern scientific and technological problems require the collective application of multi-disciplinary knowledge and techniques. An increasing number of modern industries that generate new quality productive forces—particularly strategic emerging industries—can only be formed through inter-disciplinary integration, relying more heavily on multi-skilled talent and integrated technologies.
Scientific and technological progress continuously crosses national borders, leading new quality productive forces to exhibit a trend of globalized development. Previous technological revolutions and the resulting industrial transformations often occurred within a single country or a tiny handful of countries. In the current era, industrial transformations triggered by technological progress occur simultaneously in multiple countries. In particular, multinational corporations allocate innovation resources on a global scale. No single country can monopolize all technologies. The new quality productive forces among different nations exhibit a state of both competition and the division of labor and cooperation.
II. The Leading of New Quality Productive Forces by Scientific and Technological Innovation Follows Its Own Evolutionary Logic
Many factors determine the development of productive forces, but among the various elements that form them, the decisive role is played by scientific and technological progress. Marx once noted: "The productiveness of labour is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions." After the founding of the People's Republic of China, our country attached great importance to the significant role of scientific and technological innovation in leading the development of productive forces. In January 1956, the Party Central Committee issued the call to "march toward modern science." After Reform and Opening-up, the concept that "science and technology are the primary productive force" became deeply rooted in the people’s hearts. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has put forward the important thesis that "innovation is the primary driver of development," fully affirming the role of scientific and technological innovation in the formation of new quality productive forces. He emphasized that new quality productive forces are primarily engendered by revolutionary breakthroughs in technology; scientific and technological innovation can give rise to new industries, new models, and new growth drivers, and is the core element for developing new quality productive forces. We must strengthen scientific and technological innovation, especially original and disruptive innovation, accelerate the achievement of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and strength, and win the battle for key core technologies, so that original and disruptive technological achievements emerge in rapid succession, cultivating new drivers for the development of new quality productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on scientific and technological innovation have guided China's scientific and technological cause to undergo historical, holistic, and structural changes. Great achievements that have attracted worldwide attention have been made in China's scientific and technological progress, successfully realizing the transition from "following" to "running alongside" and finally to "leading." [4]
Scientific and technological innovation promotes the high-end transition of industry, thereby leading the development of new quality productive forces. New quality productive forces are a state of advanced productive forces that align with the new development philosophy. This state is ultimately reflected in a constantly upgrading industrial structure and the provision of more abundant, higher-quality material products and services. From the perspective of industrial history, the emergence and development of industries are not static but dynamic. Looking at the three strata of industry, only after agriculture was fully developed did industry emerge; only after the full development of agriculture and industry did the service industry emerge. The industrial structure constantly upgrades alongside scientific and technological progress. Within industries themselves, no industry is fixed in a specific state; they all exhibit a trend of continuous upgrading as technology progresses. Industrial chains grow longer, industrial technological levels rise, and the quantity and quality of products and services provided increase, with every link of reproduction aligning more closely with the new development philosophy.
Scientific and technological innovation promotes the leap in the constituent elements of productive forces and their combination. Marx pointed out: "The elementary factors of the labour-process are 1, the personal activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2, the subject of that work, and 3, its instruments." General Secretary Xi Jinping inherited and developed Marx's theory of productive forces, pointing out that the basic connotation of new quality productive forces is "the leap consisting of laborers, instruments of labor, and subjects of labor, and their optimized combination." It can be seen that the changes in the basic elements of new quality productive forces include two aspects: first, the qualitative leap of the three elements—laborers, instruments of labor, and subjects of labor. Laborers in the information and intelligence age are no longer the laborers of the traditional agrarian age who mastered simple skills; more and more laborers have become engineers, mechanics, designers, and even scientists. Instruments of labor are no longer the shovels, hoes, and sickles of the traditional agrarian age, nor the steam engines and spinning frames of the first Industrial Revolution, but rather various intelligent and networked modern equipment, which have become the new instruments of labor. Subjects of labor are becoming more numerous, specifically manifesting in an increase in intermediate products and a longer chain of subjects of labor. Particularly with the progress of science and technology, more and more materials that were unusable under traditional production modes can be reused; waste in the traditional sense increasingly becomes valuable subjects for processing—new subjects of labor. Second is the leap in the optimized combination of laborers, instruments of labor, and subjects of labor. There is no fixed proportional relationship among the three elements of productive forces; a change in any one will lead to a new combination among the three.
Scientific and technological innovation induces management innovation, institutional innovation, and cultural innovation. For over a hundred years, the connotation and extension of the concept of innovation have constantly changed. Innovation primarily includes technological, management, institutional, cultural, and ideological innovation. These various forms of innovation are both interdependent and mutually reinforcing; every kind of innovation can drive innovation in other aspects. Institutions, culture, and ideology can promote the development of new quality productive forces, providing the necessary conditions or safeguards. Just as air, soil, and water are not the plants themselves but provide the necessary conditions for all things to grow, the formation and development of new quality productive forces are the result of the joint push of various innovative forces. This is just as Engels pointed out when analyzing the "resultant of forces" in history: [5]
"Thus, there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant—the historic event. This may again itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole, unconsciously and without volition." [6] The formation and development of productive forces, particularly new quality productive forces, is likewise the result of a synergy of various innovations. Technological innovation and innovation in other fields serve as each other's premise and consequence; while technological innovation generates new quality productive forces, it objectively demands the formation of relations of production that are better adapted to them. Simultaneously, institutional, managerial, cultural, and ideological innovation can promote technological innovation. These various forms of innovation are not entirely synchronous; they always manifest in a chronological sequence and a hierarchical progression from the shallow to the deep, and from specific points to broader areas. Among the various innovative factors forming and developing new quality productive forces, technological innovation on the one hand requires breaking original institutional, managerial, and mental paradigms, thereby demanding the continuous deepening of structural reforms in the economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization spheres. On the other hand, innovation in other fields drives technological innovation, ultimately forming a synergy of innovation that leads the development of new quality productive forces.
III. The Path for Leading the Development of New Quality Productive Forces through Technological Innovation
Marxism holds that the productive forces determine the relations of production, while the relations of production exert a counter-effect on the productive forces. When the relations of production accommodate the requirements of the development of the productive forces, they promote such development; otherwise, they act as a hindrance. As productive forces must always advance, relations of production that originally met their developmental needs will eventually become unsuited to them. Therefore, to develop new quality productive forces, we must further comprehensively deepen reform and strive to construct institutional mechanisms for their development.
Refining relevant rules and policies to accelerate the formation of relations of production better suited to new quality productive forces. The Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed: "We must improve the relevant rules and policies to accelerate the formation of relations of production that are more compatible with new quality productive forces, facilitate the aggregation of various advanced factors of production toward the development of new quality productive forces, and significantly improve total factor productivity." We must correctly handle the relationship between the market and the government in leading the development of new quality productive forces through technological innovation, giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation while better exerting the role of the government.
On one hand, we must grant the market its decisive role in resource allocation and establish the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation. This allows enterprises to aggregate factors of production through market mechanisms, evaluate the contribution of these factors—especially innovation factors—through market mechanisms, and establish market prices for them. We must deepen the reform of state-owned capital and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), encouraging state capital to concentrate in forward-looking strategic emerging industries. We should refine the evaluation mechanisms for SOEs to fulfill their strategic missions and improve institutional arrangements for SOEs, especially Central SOEs, to promote original innovation. Furthermore, we should support capable private enterprises in taking the lead to undertake major national technical bottleneck projects and further open major national scientific research infrastructure to private firms.
On the other hand, the development of new quality productive forces requires the government to engage in forward-looking planning, formulate supportive policies, and implement timely transitions in industrial policy. This means shifting from specifically supporting particular industries to providing a fair competitive environment and guiding the direction of major technologies and industrial development. We must deepen reforms of the educational system, the science and technology system, and the personnel management system to clear "bottlenecks," "blockage points," and "difficulties" [7] restricting the development of new quality productive forces. We should firmly establish the dominant position of enterprises in innovation so that more innovation factors aggregate toward them. We must create a robust atmosphere and ecosystem for innovation across society to stimulate innovative vitality, focusing on building a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment while constructing mechanisms for regional division of labor and collaboration.
Accelerating technological innovation, particularly original and disruptive innovation. Technological innovation is the "source water" [8] for the formation and development of new quality productive forces. Breakthroughs in the principles of basic research are the fundamental premise for technical invention and application. The history of the industrial revolutions since the modern era shows that what appears on the surface as a technological revolution is, in essence, a major scientific discovery—a new breakthrough in scientific principles. During the "following" phase of technology, one can use imitation or technology transferred from developed countries to drive productivity and close the gap. However, upon reaching the "running alongside" or "leading" stage, we must achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening. We should encourage universities and research institutes to carry out free exploratory research, create a scientific ecosystem that encourages innovation and tolerates failure, and increase the proportion of research funding allocated to basic research. We must strengthen forward-looking and leading layouts in basic research, frontier cross-disciplinary fields, and key sectors, and intensify the construction of the national laboratory system.
At the same time, basic research must emphasize applicability. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Basic research should be driven by application to break through bottlenecks and master the basic theories and technical principles of 'chokepoint' technologies." In technical terms, technological innovation must remain problem-oriented, proceeding from the major strategic needs of the country. We must strengthen national strategic vertical forces in science and technology, leverage the advantages of the new-type whole-of-nation system [9], and overcome the "chokepoint" technologies [10] that currently restrict China's economic and social development and national security. To mobilize the enthusiasm and agency of researchers, we should establish categorized evaluation mechanisms and refine mechanisms where factors of production participate in distribution, thereby stimulating the vitality of labor, knowledge, technology, management, capital, and data.
Accelerating the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Scientific achievements are not themselves actual productive forces; they only become such when applied timely to industries to improve technical levels and industrial quality, promote upgrades, and continuously "extend, supplement, and strengthen the industrial chain." General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: "We must promptly apply technological innovation achievements to specific industries and industrial chains, transform and upgrade traditional industries, cultivate and expand emerging industries, arrange for the construction of future industries, and improve the modernized industrial system."
The transformation of technological achievements occurs through various methods. First, through technological innovation centered on technical problems within enterprises, where results can be directly applied to technical transformation and industrial upgrading, reducing the steps of transformation. Second, research results from universities and institutes must be traded through the technology market to move from the laboratory to the enterprise, passing through small-scale tests, pilot trials, and mass production. This requires accelerating the improvement of the technology trading market. Third, we must promote the deep integration of industry, academia, and research, establishing new types of R&D platforms centered on enterprise technical problems or market demand to drive innovation through market-oriented means. Using technological innovation to "supplement the chain" for weak industries, "extend the chain" for advantageous industries, and "build the chain" for emerging industries will enhance the resilience and security of our industrial and supply chains. We should lead the transformation of traditional industries through national standards, increase the institutional supply for new fields and "new tracks," and establish a growth mechanism for investment in future industries.
Developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions. China has a vast land area with significant differences in economic foundations, industrial levels, and research conditions. This dictates that developing new quality productive forces cannot follow a single model. Each locality should proceed from reality, "take stock of their assets," [11] and play to their strengths while avoiding weaknesses. The eastern regions, with their strong industrial bases and rich innovation resources, can play an active role in original innovation, major scientific discoveries, and disruptive technologies. Less developed western regions can play a greater role in the application of technology. National laboratories, research institutions, high-level research universities, and leading tech enterprises should take on more "0 to 1" breakthroughs, while SOEs and capable private enterprises should play a larger role in application. Developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions does not mean abandoning traditional industries; "traditional" does not equal "backward." Through technical transformation, traditional agriculture, industry, and services can become modern. As the Industrial Internet and Artificial Intelligence have become general-purpose technologies, we must accelerate the "Internet+" and "AI+" actions.
Source: Qiushi (Red Flag Manuscript), 2025, No. 3.
Web Editor: Bao Luo