The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out, "Accelerate the upgrading and transformation of traditional industries in a high-end, intelligent and green way, cultivate and expand strategic emerging industries, actively develop the digital economy and modern service industry, and accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system with intelligent, green and integrated characteristics and meeting the requirements of integrity, advancement and safety". The first meeting of the 20th Central Committee of Finance and Economics held not long ago put forward that "the modern industrial system is the material and technical foundation of a modern country, and the focus of economic development must be on the real economy, so as to provide strong material support for achieving the goal of the second century". Accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system with integrity, advancement and security supported by the real economy is a major strategic task to promote Chinese modernization and a key measure for China to take the initiative to cope with the unprecedented changes in the world and win the initiative in competition.
From the perspective of industrial classification, the general real economy should include manufacturing, agriculture, construction, mining and other industries, of which the most core and main part is manufacturing. The main problem of the trend of "detachment from reality to virtuality" is that a large number of factors cannot effectively flow to the real economy sectors such as manufacturing, especially the repeated circulation of funds within the financial industry has significantly increased the financing cost of the real economy, thus hindering the benign development of the real economy. Building a modern industrial system supported by the real economy means forming a "science and technology — Industry — The virtuous circle of "finance" has made the contribution of scientific and technological innovation in the development of the real economy continuously improved, and the ability of modern finance to effectively serve the development of the real economy has been continuously strengthened, forming a modern industrial system in which innovation drives the development of the real economy and finance better serves the real economy, and improving the integrity, advancement and security of the modern industrial system in a targeted manner.
Consolidate the advantages of a complete manufacturing system
At present, China is the largest manufacturing country with the most complete industrial system, with 41 industrial categories, 207 industrial categories and 666 industrial subcategories. It is the only country in the world with all industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification. The scale of China’s manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 13 consecutive years, accounting for nearly 30% of the global total. The complete manufacturing system and strong supporting capacity are the great advantages of China’s industrial system, which ensures that China can effectively cope with the supply shocks brought about by changes in the external environment and demonstrates China’s economic resilience. The formation of the completeness advantage of China’s industrial system is the result of successfully promoting industrialization. After the founding of New China, our Party United and led the people to carry out the socialist revolution, established the basic socialist system, and established an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system. After more than 40 years of rapid development of reform and opening up, China’s industrialization level has been greatly improved, and an industrial system with complete system and huge production capacity has been built, making it the world’s largest manufacturing country and the world’s second largest economy, and successfully exploring an industrialization road in line with China’s national conditions.
We should also see that the world has undergone a profound change in the past century, the global industrial chain supply chain is facing restructuring, and the integrity advantage of China’s manufacturing system has been impacted. On the one hand, some enterprises have begun to move to Southeast Asia, and there is a risk that the industrial chain will move out and the supporting capacity of manufacturing industry will be damaged; On the other hand, traditional industries are facing great pressure of transformation and upgrading, and some places simply regard traditional industries as "low-end industries" through the "one size fits all" policy. To consolidate the completeness advantage of China’s manufacturing industry, firstly, we should follow the domestic version of "yan zhen Model", support and guide the central, western and northeastern regions to undertake the gradient transfer of domestic industries on the basis of fully considering the carrying capacity of resources and environment; Second, actively promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries through technological transformation, and cannot simply equate traditional industries with low-end industries and ask them to withdraw; Third, we can learn from Japan’s "mother factory" experience, encourage enterprises to build modern core factories in China and leave their core manufacturing capabilities at home; Fourth, we should pay attention to the construction of industrial clusters, strengthen the technical and economic ties among various enterprises through clusters, improve the cooperation and supporting capacity of manufacturing industry, and consolidate the advantages of the completeness of manufacturing system.
Promote the intelligent, green and integrated development of manufacturing industry
Modernization is based on the rise, spread and application of modern science and technology, and the modern industrial system should be based on advanced modern science and technology. At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating. From the perspective of technological innovation, a new generation of emerging technologies, such as information technology, new energy, new materials, bioengineering, and green low-carbon technologies, are reshaping the global technological landscape, industrial structure, and competition pattern, and the digital economy and the real economy are accelerating deep integration. From the development direction of industrial organization, manufacturing and service industries are also deeply integrated, and the development of industrial integration represents an important trend of building a modern industrial system. Generally speaking, the construction of advanced modern industrial system should reflect the development direction of intelligent, green and integrated manufacturing industry.
Manufacturing industry is the industry with the most active technological innovation activities, the richest technological innovation achievements, the most concentrated application of technological innovation and the strongest spillover effect of technological innovation. The advanced nature of manufacturing industry is the main embodiment of the advanced nature of modern industrial system. At present, China has made remarkable achievements in building a manufacturing power. For example, in 2022, 65 manufacturing enterprises in China were shortlisted in the list of the world’s top 500 enterprises, with more than 70,000 small and medium-sized enterprises specializing in special innovation. The high-tech manufacturing industry accounted for 15.5% of the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size, and the equipment manufacturing industry accounted for 31.8% of the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size. 45 national advanced manufacturing clusters have been cultivated, and the output of new energy vehicles and photovoltaics has remained the first in the world for many years. However, we should also see that there are still big but not strong problems in the development of China’s manufacturing industry. The overall technical level needs to be improved, and the basic ability of manufacturing industry is not strong. There are still shortcomings in core basic parts (components), advanced basic processes, basic materials, basic technologies and key basic software. Some core technologies are still subject to people, and the industrial chain is generally at the low end of the global value chain. Therefore, to build an advanced modern industrial system, we must speed up the construction of manufacturing power, quality power, aerospace power, transportation power, network power and digital China, promote the development of China’s manufacturing industry along the direction of intelligence, greening and integration, and realize the transformation from large to strong. To further build an advanced modern industrial system in the future, it is necessary to strengthen relevant measures and comprehensively promote the construction of a manufacturing power.It is necessary to thoroughly implement the industrial base reconstruction project and major technical equipment research projects, improve the national quality infrastructure, speed up the construction of a modern infrastructure system, actively promote the development of strategic emerging industries, focus on building internationally competitive digital industrial clusters, implement green manufacturing promotion projects, promote clean and low-carbon transformation in various fields of industry and transportation, promote the deep integration of modern service industries with advanced manufacturing industries and modern agriculture, realize the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, accelerate the construction of world-class enterprises and specialized and new enterprises, and further optimize the development environment of industrial chain supply chain.
In the new stage of development, industrial policy should be both developed and safe.
For a long time, the basic orientation of industrial policies in various countries is to promote the development of their own industries. However, today’s world has entered a new period of turbulence and change, with the rise of anti-globalization, unilateralism and protectionism, weak world economic recovery, intensified global problems, and increasingly prominent industrial security issues. Some countries have made clear the basic position of industrial security in the economic policy system.
On the new journey of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way, it is necessary to speed up the construction of a new development pattern and enhance the security initiative of development. The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader clearly pointed out that it is necessary to effectively improve the resilience and safety level of the industrial chain supply chain and build a modern industrial system that is self-controllable, safe, reliable and competitive. Industrial policy should be developed and safe at the same time. It is necessary to maintain a moderate growth rate by improving the total factor productivity, improve the quality of industrial development, and focus on ensuring industrial safety. Therefore, the functional orientation of industrial management system and policy system should be expanded and adjusted to guarantee and improve the safety of industrial chain while encouraging and serving the development of industry, so as to effectively deal with the safety risks that may be caused by the superposition of multiple factors such as insufficient technology supply capacity, excessive outward transfer of labor-intensive industries, and the impact of industrial basic raw materials and energy supply. To build a safe modern industrial system, we should take the maintenance of industrial safety as the top priority, speed up the improvement of China’s industrial safety-related laws and regulations, and make it clear that industrial safety management is the pre-basic work of China’s various industrial policies, science and technology policies, competition policies and trade policies; It is necessary to speed up the establishment of an industrial safety management system with clear rights and responsibilities and close cooperation among multiple departments, improve the strategic decision-making and departmental coordination mechanism of industrial safety, and promote development and safety coordination through departmental coordination; Improve the industrial development assessment and industrial safety early warning system, build professional industrial chain safety assessment teams and institutions, and develop China’s industrial safety assessment theory and method system. of course，Emphasizing the safety of modern industrial system does not mean to build a car behind closed doors, but to actively explore ways to effectively improve the national industrial safety level and improve the resilience of industrial chain supply chain under the open economic system.
What needs to be clear is that the integrity, progressiveness and safety of modern industrial system are closely related. Integrity and progressiveness can promote and enhance the safety of industrial system, and safety is the premise and guarantee of building an integrated and advanced industrial system. To build a modern industrial system supported by the real economy, it is necessary to unify the three, promote them together, continuously improve the integrity of the industrial system, focus on building a number of new growth engines, enhance the resilience and safety level of the industrial chain supply chain, and consolidate the material foundation of modernization.
(This article Source: Economic Daily author Huang Qunhui is the director of the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a researcher at the New Era Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Center, the supreme leader of the China Academy of Social Sciences)