Feng Kaidong & Wei Ying: Systematically Advancing the Construction of a Great Power During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period
The Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline") points out: "The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030) holds an important position in the process of basically achieving socialist modernization, serving as a bridge between the past and the future; it is a critical period for consolidating foundations and launching comprehensive efforts." Building a modern socialist country in all respects requires not only significant progress in various individual fields but also the formation of an integrated effectiveness based on mutual support. It is for this reason that the Outline has added five new objectives—becoming a power in aerospace, energy, finance, agriculture, and tourism—aiming to use these key pillar industries as cornerstones to solidify the fundamental autonomous operation of the national development system. It can be said that the 16 objectives for building a strong country [1] form an integrated blueprint for a systems engineering project. By strengthening mutual support across various fields, they will promote the "systemic autonomy" of China's economic and social development, consolidating the foundation for the comprehensive buildup of a great modern socialist country.
Systemic Autonomy: The Requirement of the Times for Building a Strong Country
Since the beginning of Reform and Opening-up, China's modernization has followed a logic of "running behind" [2], benchmarking against international advanced levels in various fields and gradually narrowing the gap. Today, the construction of a strong country in various sectors has begun to yield results, yet the capabilities of different fields inevitably experience a "mismatch in tempo" during the process of dynamic development. More importantly, the problems China faces in fields such as technology, energy, and finance are not independent of one another; rather, they are profoundly influenced by the global division of labor. This means that breakthroughs in a single field must be linked with progress in others to be transformed into an overall advantage. Meanwhile, the intricate international situation has made the transition toward systemic autonomy even more urgent. Consequently, achieving systemic autonomy has become an important goal for advancing the construction of a strong country during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
Systemic autonomy is not equivalent to self-sufficiency or self-imposed isolation; a well-coordinated internal system is precisely what possesses the capacity to participate in global cooperation with greater composure. Furthermore, systemic autonomy is not a simple summation of achieving "autonomous and controllable" [3] status in individual fields. Even if the 16 objectives are achieved individually, if they lack robust mutual support, the entire system could still fall into a passive position due to a rupture in a key link. Therefore, what systemic autonomy truly emphasizes is the organic linkage between fields, forming an integrated effectiveness that is greater than the sum of its parts. Only by grasping this logic can one understand the profound intent behind the Outline’s expansion of these objectives from 11 to 16—it is not about playing catch-up in more individual fields, but about filling in the fundamental links necessary for the system’s autonomous operation, thereby creating a complete interconnected architecture among the 16 objectives.
Systemic Layout: The Internal Logic of Building a Strong Country
Existing efforts to build a strong country have seen remarkable results, but there remains room for improvement in systemic coordination. Centered on the previously established 11 objectives, China has already developed a certain foundational capacity, such as the production and circulation capabilities of the real economy, innovation-driven kinetic mechanisms, and the channels and infrastructure connecting domestic and international markets, resulting in a preliminary synergy. However, systemic autonomy still needs strengthening. For instance, the further advancement of becoming a "manufacturing power" places higher requirements on the autonomy of the energy supply system. The construction of a "science and technology power" and a "manufacturing power" places multiple demands on the financial system: it requires the system to achieve autonomous efficiency to support long-cycle, high-intensity capital investment and global talent competition, while also requiring it to consistently serve the real economy and avoid "diverting resources from the real economy to the virtual" [4].
The Outline focuses on the overall system, filling in key links by adding five new objectives for building a strong country. These five new objectives integrate the system through dimensions such as underlying power, future space, and the foundation of resilience. First, becoming an "energy power" and a "financial power" provides support for the operation of the system. Energy is the basic condition required for production, while finance is the key means of resource allocation. Currently, the autonomy of China's energy supply and financial services still needs enhancement; further consolidating these two foundational links will provide more solid support for becoming a manufacturing power, a science and technology power, and a trade power. In this context, building an energy power upgrades the logic of energy security from "guaranteeing supply" to "technological dominance," while building a financial power strives to construct an autonomous financial system that efficiently serves the real economy.
Second, becoming an "aerospace power" opens up space for systemic upgrading. As current technological paradigms evolve toward "space-ground integration," aerospace is transforming from a frontier of exploration into the infrastructure for future information and industrial systems. Particularly important is that the rigorous reliability requirements of aerospace technology under extreme conditions naturally make it a key technology incubation platform for new materials, precision instruments, and advanced manufacturing, yielding strong spillover effects. The inclusion of the "aerospace power" objective provides a platform for extending the capacities of the science and technology, manufacturing, and cyber powers into next-generation technologies, providing strategic depth for the future development of the entire system.
Third, becoming an "agriculture power" and a "tourism power" builds a defensive line for systemic resilience. Facing "changes unseen in a century" [5], a system capable of autonomous operation must be able to withstand the test of extreme scenarios. The core of building an agriculture power lies in shifting the security logic from "yield-oriented" to "resilience-oriented," ensuring survival in extreme situations through breakthroughs in the seed industry and agricultural science and technology. Building a tourism power focuses on releasing the potential of domestic demand, shifting the consumption drive from an outward flow to inward activation. Simultaneously, it coordinates with the goal of becoming a "cultural power" to promote cultural dissemination and mutual learning between civilizations, with both collectively consolidating the developmental resilience of the system.
Systemic Advancement: New Requirements for Building a Strong Country
The developmental framework of systemic autonomy, constituted by the 16 objectives for building a strong country, places new requirements on the state’s governance capacity. The stage of systemic autonomy requires the state not only to build effectively in individual fields but also to create an effective synergistic architecture across those fields to set the overall direction of the system and coordinate the co-evolution of various sectors.
First, moving from sectoral management toward cross-sectoral synergy. The 16 objectives belong to different departments and systems, but the essence of systemic autonomy lies in the organic linkage between goals—for example, an energy power needs financial support, an aerospace power needs manufacturing clusters, and an agriculture power needs science and technology as its bedrock. The current "tiao-kuai" (vertical-horizontal) segmented management system [6] has clear advantages in concentrating resources within specific fields, but the capacity for cross-sectoral synergy still needs strengthening. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we should explore the establishment of cross-sectoral coordination mechanisms so that resource allocation, policy design, and the timing of various "strong country" initiatives can be interconnected, forming a systemic synergy rather than a simple addition of parts.
Second, moving from the assessment of individual indicators toward the evaluation of systemic effectiveness. Under the logic of "running behind," assessment standards involved setting independent quantitative indicators for each field, with "meeting the target" as the primary measure of success. However, under the logic of systemic autonomy, achieving a single indicator does not equate to an increase in systemic capacity. If a field’s indicators are impressive but it is disconnected from other areas, its contribution to overall effectiveness may be limited. Conversely, even if a field's nominal results are not prominent, its strategic value may far exceed what data reflects if it effectively supports other key links. This requires an evaluation mindset shift from focusing on whether individual targets are met to whether effective coordination has been formed between links.
Third, moving from defensive response toward proactively shaping an open landscape. Systemic autonomy by no means entails building a closed system. Currently, it is especially necessary to guard against the simple substitution of "autonomy" for "replacement" [7], which would cause developmental thinking to slide toward inward-looking isolation. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we must accelerate the construction of autonomous capabilities in weak links, while proactively expanding opening-up in advantageous fields, attracting global innovation factors through institutional opening-up and enhancing our capacity for rule-making. Our goal is not to decouple from the existing global system, but to transform from a passive adapter of the system into an active shaper, using the certainty of the "domestic big circulation" [8] to respond to the uncertainty of global volatility, and reshaping our mode of connection with the world based on autonomous capabilities.