Liu Wei: An Inevitable Requirement for Implementing the New Development Philosophy and Better Adapting to Changes in the Principal Contradiction of Our Society
Currently, our country is comprehensively advancing Chinese-path modernization through high-quality development. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "To achieve the goals and tasks of the New Era and the new journey, we must take the comprehensive deepening of reform as the fundamental driving force for advancing Chinese-path modernization." The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on April 30 proposed that continuing to push reform forward "is an inevitable requirement for implementing the New Development Concept and better adapting to the change in the principal contradiction in Chinese society." We must thoroughly study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speeches and the decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee, implement the New Development Concept [1] completely, accurately, and comprehensively, better adapt to the changes in the principal contradiction of our society, take the deepening of economic structural reform as the lead, and focus closely on advancing Chinese-path modernization to further deepen reform comprehensively.
An Inevitable Requirement for Implementing the New Development Concept
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has profoundly summarized the experiences and lessons of development at home and abroad, deeply analyzed the general trends of development, and proposed a development concept of innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing. The New Development Concept answers a series of theoretical and practical questions regarding the purpose, power, mode, and path of development. It elucidates major political issues such as our Party's political stance, value orientation, development model, and development path. It concentratedly reflects our Party's new understanding of the laws governing China's development. It is highly strategic, programmatic, and guiding, serving as a pillar that governs the overall situation, the fundamental orientation, and the long-term perspective.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "The whole Party must implement the New Development Concept completely, accurately, and comprehensively." Implementing the New Development Concept in practice is inseparable from comprehensively deepening reform. On one hand, this is because comprehensively deepening reform is closely linked with and constitutes an organic part of implementing the New Development Concept. The establishment of a new concept is always accompanied by the breaking of old ones. Adhering to the New Development Concept is a profound transformation relating to the overall development of our country, involving changes in modes of thinking, behavior, and work, as well as adjustments in work relations, social relations, and interest relations. For example, promoting innovative development is inseparable from comprehensively deepening the reform of the science and technology system. By accelerating the formation of basic systems that support holistic innovation—deepening reforms in science and technology evaluation, awards, research projects, and fund management systems, and improving the "Open Competition" [2] mechanism—we can further stimulate the potential for technological innovation and effectively enhance independent innovation capabilities.
On the other hand, only by further deepening reform comprehensively can we provide the institutional and mechanistic guarantee for the complete, accurate, and comprehensive implementation of the New Development Concept. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, China has created the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability that have attracted worldwide attention. China's share of the global economy has risen from less than 1.8% at the start of reform and opening up to about 18%, firmly establishing it as the world's second-largest economy. Its per capita GDP has generally reached the level of upper-middle-income countries. The economic structure has been continuously optimized, and both the degree of industrialization and the level of urbanization have been significantly improved. A major reason for this is that we have continuously and creatively broken through institutional and mechanistic barriers, adjusted and improved the relations of production, and optimized the allocation of factors of production, providing institutional guarantees for liberating and developing the productive forces. Since the New Era, implementing the New Development Concept and promoting high-quality development have become the consensus and conscious action of the whole Party and society. This likewise cannot be separated from the full exertion of the important role of comprehensively deepening reform. For example, building a modernized economic system is one of the strategic tasks General Secretary Xi Jinping required to be implemented post-haste. Only by continuing to deepen reform, building an economic system that gives full play to the role of the market and better play to the role of government, and achieving effective market mechanisms, dynamic micro-entities, and moderate macro-regulation, can we provide the institutional guarantee for a modernized economic system. We must adhere to a problem-oriented approach, focus on key areas and crucial links such as enhancing innovation capacity, promoting balanced development, improving the ecological environment, raising the level of openness, and promoting shared development, continue to push reform deeper, issue reform plans more precisely, and improve the institutional system more comprehensively.
At present, promoting high-quality development has become the consensus and conscious action of the whole Party and society. Developing new quality productive forces is the intrinsic requirement and an important focus for promoting high-quality development. New quality productive forces represent a state of productive forces that conforms to the New Development Concept, with a significant increase in total factor productivity as the core hallmark. Only by continuing to push reform forward, deepening reforms in the economic system, the science and technology system, and the personnel system, establishing a high-standard market system, and expanding high-level opening up, can we form relations of production compatible with new quality productive forces, clear the bottlenecks and obstructions constraining their development, create a favorable environment for their growth, and allow various advanced and high-quality productive factors to flow smoothly toward the development of new quality productive forces.
An Inevitable Requirement for Better Adapting to the Change in the Principal Contradiction in Our Society
The contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure, are the basic contradictions of human society, and their movement and development constitute the basic laws of history. To adjust the relations of production to suit the development of the productive forces and to improve the superstructure to suit the development of the economic base, and to enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of reform, the key lies in correctly recognizing and resolving the principal contradiction in society. The 19th CPC National Congress proposed that as socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a New Era, the principal contradiction in our society has evolved into the contradiction between the people's ever-growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. This change is a historic shift affecting the overall situation and has put forward many new requirements for the work of the Party and the state.
From an economic perspective, the change in the principal contradiction is mainly reflected in three aspects. First, the connotation of development has changed. With the significant improvement in the level of social productive forces, faced with the people's needs for a better life and the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development, it is necessary to vigorously improve the quality and efficiency of development to better meet the people's growing needs. Second, the principal contradiction in the movement of the economic cycle has changed. It has shifted from an overall shortage of supply to a structural imbalance between supply and demand, mainly manifested as an oversupply of low-end, low-quality products and services, and an undersupply of mid-to-high-end, high-quality products and services. Third, the constraints facing continued development have changed. Labor costs are gradually rising, and the carrying capacity of resources and the environment has reached a bottleneck. It is necessary to accelerate the cultivation and shaping of new advantages for national development and international competition. At the same time, the environmental conditions of "both ends outside, large-scale import and export" [3] have changed, requiring better use of both domestic and international markets and resources to better connect the two.
The key to resolving the principal contradiction of our society in the New Era lies in promoting high-quality development guided by the New Development Concept. High-quality development is manifested microeconomically in the more optimized allocation of production factors and the continuous improvement of total factor productivity; macroeconomically in the formation of a higher-level dynamic balance where demand pulls supply and supply creates demand, achieving a virtuous cycle of the national economy; structurally in a more balanced and coordinated development of urban-rural integration and regional coordination; in risk control in the realization of high-quality development promoting high-level security and high-level security guaranteeing high-quality development; and in the pattern of development where the domestic cycle is the mainstay and the domestic and international dual circulation promote each other. To promote high-quality development, we must rely closely on reform, continuously adjust the relations of production to adapt to the development of social productive forces, and improve the superstructure to adapt to the development of the economic base. Only by continuing to push reform forward and resolving the bottlenecks and obstructions restricting high-quality development can we continuously improve the quality and efficiency of development, add momentum and vitality to economic and social development, and better meet the people's aspirations for a better life.
Taking Economic Structural Reform as the Lead to Further Deepen Reform Comprehensively
Implementing the New Development Concept is conducive to solving the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development and meeting the people's ever-growing needs for a better life. It is the only path for China's development and growth in the New Era, and we must persist in relying on reform and opening up to enhance the internal driving force of development. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on April 30 pointed out that "the whole Party must consciously place reform in a more prominent position, and further deepen reform comprehensively around the promotion of Chinese-path modernization," and emphasized that further deepening reform comprehensively must "take economic structural reform as the lead."
Taking economic structural reform as the lead to further deepen reform comprehensively is, on one hand, because persisting in taking economic construction as the center is a requirement of the Party's Basic Line. Resolving the principal contradiction of our society ultimately depends on liberating and developing the productive forces. Only by adhering to economic construction as the center and high-quality development as the "hard truth" [4] of the New Era can we lay a solid material and technological foundation for comprehensively building a great modern socialist country. On the other hand, it is because economic structural reform has an important influence and conductive effect on reforms in other areas. The progress of major economic structural reforms determines the pace of many other institutional reforms; it is a move that affects the whole situation. Only by continuously deepening economic structural reform can we further liberate and develop social productive forces, liberate and enhance social vitality, and drive reforms in other fields, achieving the effect of "pulling the main thread to open the whole net" (gangju mujang) [5].
To take the economic structural reform as the lead, the key sits in adhering to and developing our basic economic system and constructing a high-level socialist market economy. The socialist market economy is an important part of China's basic socialist economic system and a great creation of socialism with Chinese characteristics in both theory and practice. Both theory and practice have proven that the market is the most efficient form of resource allocation. The practice of China's socialist market economy shows that socialism and the market economy can be organically combined. Implementing the New Development Concept and promoting high-quality development will inevitably put forward new requirements for improving the relations of production, necessitating the accelerated construction of a high-level socialist market economy.
Accelerating the construction of a high-level socialist market economy requires highlighting key priorities. First, accelerate the construction of a unified national market. Break down local protectionism and market fragmentation, strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition efforts, persist in the "Two Unswervinglys" [6], and clear the key bottlenecks restricting the economic cycle. Second, deepen the market-oriented reform of factors. Remove institutional obstacles hindering the autonomous and orderly flow of factors such as land, labor, capital, technology, and data; expand the scope of market-oriented allocation of factors; improve the factor market system; and promote the institutional construction of factor markets. Third, improve the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics. Form an institutional system with effective checks and balances in modern enterprise governance, flexible and efficient operating mechanisms, incentive-compatible mechanisms, and appropriate supervision mechanisms; promote entrepreneurship and give full play to the role of enterprises as the main body of technological innovation. Fourth, improve macroeconomic governance. Improve the macroeconomic governance system and further enhance macroeconomic governance capabilities, so that aggregate regulation and structural regulation, demand management and supply management, and counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments form an organic unity.
Accelerating the construction of a high-level socialist market economy requires greater emphasis on systematic integration. First, deeply study the interconnectedness of reforms in various fields of the economic system and the coupling of various reform measures; promote the systematic integration, synergy, and efficiency of reforms; and strive to achieve the integration of goals, policies, and effects. Second, adhere to the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, strengthen the assessment of consistency with macroeconomic policy orientation, and encourage all departments to strengthen policy coordination and work synergy, working in the same direction to form a joint force and prevent "compositional fallacies." Third, improve the mechanism for advancing reform. Persist in the unity of problem-orientation, goal-orientation, and results-orientation; integrate the implementation of the Party Central Committee's requirements, the needs of practice, and the expectations of the grassroots; and work hard on precise implementation and execution.