National institutions and major breakthroughs
-- The historical experience and enlightenment of using special institutions to carry out and accomplish major tasks
Lu Feng He Pengyu
Original Editor's Note:
By summarizing the important role played by the State Special Commission in organizing and implementing the "two bombs, one boat, one satellite" project, the author of this article points out: The national system is a task system used to accomplish major national strategic tasks; in order to surpass the limitations of the existing system (planned economic system or market economic system), it is necessary to set up special institutions that are responsible to the highest decision-making level of the state and have the ability to mobilize and coordinate forces from all sides; and the United States also implements a similar system in organizing major national defense scientific research projects. Thus it is demonstrated that the national system can not only overcome the shortcomings of the planned economic system, but also make up for the shortcomings of the market economic mechanism, and is a sharp weapon that both China and the United States can use. These insights of the author are an in-depth exploration of the theory and practice of the national system, which is worth thinking about.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, under the planned economic system, China concentrated its efforts on doing great things, quickly laid the foundation for modern industry, and achieved major scientific and technological achievements represented by "two bombs, one boat and one satellite", which embodied the role of the 1.0 version of the national system. After the reform and opening up, under the conditions of market-oriented diversification, we have realized a series of major scientific and technological achievements such as manned spaceflight and Beidou networking, which can be said to be the 2.0 version of the national system.
Under the new international and domestic situation, the central authorities demand: Improve the new national system under the socialist market economic system, and fight a key core technology battle. We have experienced that the "new" of the new national system is not only the new task itself that needs to be achieved, but also the new system that combines the government with the effective market formed by the practice of reform and opening up for many years. It is necessary not only to give full play to the role of decision-making, command and coordination of state authoritative institutions, but also to fully mobilize the initiative and creativity of scientific research institutions, enterprises and all aspects of society through reasonable mechanisms, respect the labor of scientific research personnel, continuously improve systems and policies, and improve the overall efficiency of the national innovation system. This can also be seen as version 3.0 of the national system. Therefore, it is very necessary to sum up our own historical experience in implementing the national system and draw on the experience of other countries, and we should pay due attention to it.
--Kong Dan*
Introduction
The intensification of the contradiction between the trend of China's rise and the external pressure to contain it marks that China's development has entered a stage of great challenges and arduous tasks, but at the same time it is also a very promising stage for realizing the great rejuvenation of the nation. Under such circumstances, leading China to "make major breakthroughs and achieve major development" has become the key mission of the Communist Party of China at this historical stage. To this end, the Party Central Committee put forward the idea of implementing a "new national system". Here, "accomplishing major tasks" is the goal, and adopting a "new national system" is the means.
However, the concept of a "new national system" has not been clearly discussed so far, and has also caused some misunderstanding and controversy. Many people simply describe it as "concentrating on big things"; those who hold negative attitudes toward it suspect that this is a return to the planning system; others equate the planning system with the "old national system" and therefore concentrate on speculating on the meaning of "new type". In fact, whether old or new (intended for implementation in the future), clarifying the connotation of the "national system" is the key to understanding the "new national system". Therefore, the primary purpose of this article is to discuss the meaning of the "national system" and to review the historical experience of China and the United States in adopting similar systems as evidence.
The position of this article is that the national system is a system of tasks, it has nothing to do with the socialist system or the capitalist system, the planned economic system or the market economic system, but only the need to accomplish major tasks. In the history of New China, there is no typical example of accomplishing major tasks with the "national system" than "two bombs, one boat and one satellite." Why were these major breakthroughs made then under much more difficult conditions than they are today? The reasons usually mentioned include the will of the leaders, the dedication of scientific and technological personnel, etc., but if we return to the specific historical process, we will find that those factors are only necessary conditions, and the primary condition for the successful development of "two bombs, one boat and one satellite" is the existence of a special body specializing in leading major tasks - the Central Special Commission. Independent of the existing system, authorized by the Party Central Committee and under the direct leadership of the highest decision-making level, the Central Special Commission has the power to mobilize any department of the organization in the course of accomplishing major tasks and is responsible for the results of the tasks.
History proves that the Central Specialized Commission was not a product of the planned economic system at that time; on the contrary, it was established to overcome the shortcomings of the planned economic system in accomplishing major tasks.
Technically speaking, the development of "two bombs, one boat and one satellite" is a large-scale complex system, including the development of many sub-systems and technologies, which belong to different industrial systems; from a management point of view, the planned economic system implements the division of labor in different industries, each department has its own decision-making preferences, and the problems often encountered in the implementation of major projects or projects are caused by the division of departments, which leads to the de facto "dispersion" of decision-making, so that the system integration necessary for the completion of these projects is blocked. The Central Commission was established to overcome this drawback: technically, the Commission became the leader in system integration; organizationally, the Commission became a cross-departmental decision-making and coordination body; and politically, the Commission became the main body responsible for the Party Central Committee in leading major tasks. Therefore, the Central Special Commission is the embodiment of China's implementation of the national system in the era of planned economy.
The national system of setting up special institutions to accomplish major tasks appeared not only in China during the planned economy period, but also in the United States, which had a market economy, and reversed the "destiny" of the United States many times. When it entered World War II, in order to quickly shift the huge civilian industry to military production, the United States established a wartime production bureau responsible only to the president through emergency legislation, which completed the war mobilization of American industry in a "carrot and stick" manner. In order to develop the atomic bomb in a limited time, the United States established the Manhattan Engineering District, which is directly responsible for the "Supreme Policy Group" led by the President, and the Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for its implementation in accordance with engineering principles. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial earth satellite, in the face of the "crisis" behind its Cold War opponents, the United States established DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and once again adopted a mission-oriented research and development model to regain technological superiority.
The historical experience of Both China and the United States shows that the national system is a system of tasks, and this concept cannot be generalized into a general system of social operation. Major tasks are tasks of great strategic significance to the country, and neither the planned economic system nor the market economic system can spontaneously identify, propose and complete major tasks; the proposal and implementation of major tasks can only be through the political process, depending on the vision of the political leadership, the strategic will and the determination to achieve the country's lofty goals. To accomplish major tasks, it is necessary to go beyond the limitations of the existing operating system, whether planned or market, which requires the establishment of special institutions directly under the direct leadership of the highest decision-making level of the state and directly responsible for the results of the tasks. Whether there is open mobilization or any conscious other arrangement, the way in which special institutions lead the way to accomplish major tasks is a national system.
Today, both in terms of the characteristics of the task and the way in which it is completed, the major tasks that China needs to complete are more complex than ever. No matter how the objective conditions have changed, the historical task of "making major breakthroughs and achieving major development" requires us to continue to use the mechanism of the national system to accomplish major tasks.
The history of the activities of the Central Special Commission
The "two bombs, one boat, one satellite" is of great significance in the history of New China, and the sufficient condition for the success of these projects is the existence of a special body specializing in leading major tasks, the Central Special Commission of the Communist Party of China (hereinafter referred to as the Central Special Commission). This body is authorized by the Party Central Committee to directly implement projects and is responsible for results. For the only time in the history of our country that such a high-level institution directly grasps projects, it is a decisive force for success.
In 1955, the central government decided to develop the nuclear industry, first for military purposes. According to several agreements between China and the Soviet Union in August 1956, October 1957 and September 1958, the Soviet Union assisted China in the construction of a number of nuclear industry projects and technical laboratories, and would provide China with teaching models and drawings of atomic bombs (Editorial Department of the Contemporary China Series, 1987). But as relations between the two countries cracked, the Soviet Union announced in June 1960 that it was suspending the shipment of atomic bomb models and related technical materials to China, while withdrawing all experts.
The sudden "supply cut" has put the construction of the nuclear industry in a difficult situation, and the development of sophisticated weapons for national defense urgently needs centralized coordination. In January 1961, Nie Rongzhen proposed in the "Outline of the Report on the Arrangement of Science and Technology Work in 1961 and 1962": "We must work hard to be strong, concentrate our strength, organize all the forces of all sides, and work together to complete the national tasks... The State Science and Technology Commission, the Science and Technology Commission for National Defense, the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education, and other relevant departments must be twisted together from the central to the local levels, jointly discuss, and make unified arrangements. ”
In January 1961, the Party Central Committee decided to adjust the national economy facing difficulties, which triggered a debate over whether the atomic bomb project should continue to be carried out or "disembarked". In November 1961, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Decision on the Establishment of the Office of National Defense Industry", and the National Defense Industry Office was headed by Luo Ruiqing, as an outlet of the State Council (National Defense Industry Port), responsible to the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission within the Party, and was responsible for the "work within the scope of the Second Machine Department, the Third Machine Department and the National Defense Science and Technology Commission" within the national defense industrial system.
In order to judge whether China can continue to develop the atomic bomb, General Zhang Aiping, deputy chief of the general staff of the Central Committee, took the lead in investigating the situation of the atomic energy industry. Zhang Aiping only asked four questions per unit: First, what was your original plan? Second, what are you doing now, how far is it as planned? 3. What are the difficulties in completing the original schedule? Be specific. Fourth, if I solve the difficulties for you, how long will it take you to complete?
On November 14, 1961, Zhang Aiping submitted a report to the Central Committee, believing that great progress had been made in the scientific research of the atomic bomb, and the current difficulties were more engineering problems, which could be solved through organizational cooperation. Although the atomic bomb project may seem like a big plate, in fact many things are embedded in various sectors of the national economy. The report concludes that it is entirely possible for the Central Committee and the State Council to take the initiative and coordinate a nationwide cooperation and conference war, and to carry out a nuclear explosion in 1964 (Zhang Aiping, 1994).
In June 1962, when listening to a report on the situation along the southeast coast, Mao Zedong made it clear that the research and trial production of sophisticated weapons should still be carried out with great speed and should not be relaxed or dismounted. However, the centralized mobilization and coordination of various economic sectors of the country has exceeded the competence of the National Defense Industry Office. On October 19 of the same year, Liu Shaoqi presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to listen to a report, pointing out that "missiles and atomic bombs need to be grasped by a special organ of the central authorities, doing organizational work, coordinated work, and ordering work" (CPC Central Documentation Research Office, 1996). On October 30, Luo Ruiqing submitted to the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong the "Report on Proposing the Establishment of a Special Committee of the Central Committee", proposing that "under the direct leadership of the Central Committee, a special committee should be established to strengthen the leadership of the atomic energy industry, to inspect and supervise the implementation of the plan at any time, and to carry out specific dispatch of necessary manpower and material resources to solve problems encountered in research, design and production construction in a timely manner" (Luo Ruiqing, 2006). On November 3, Mao Zedong issued a directive in his report: "Very good, do it." It is necessary to vigorously coordinate and do a good job in this work. ”
On November 17, 1962, Zhou Enlai presided over the first meeting of the Central Special Commission, announcing the formal establishment of the Central Special Commission, headed by Zhou Enlai, with seven vice premiers including He Long, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo, Lu Dingyi, Nie Rongzhen, and Luo Ruiqing, and seven ministerial-level cadres zhao Erlu, Zhang Aiping, Wang Heshou, Liu Jie, Sun Zhiyuan, Duan Junyi, and Gao Yang (Literature Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, 1997). On December 14, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Decision on the Establishment of a Special Committee of Fifteen Members", which pointed out: "The committee is an administrative power organ, and its main tasks are: to organize relevant parties to vigorously coordinate and cooperate closely; to supervise and inspect the formulation and implementation of the development plan for the atomic energy industry; and to mobilize in a timely manner in terms of human, material and financial resources as needed." The Committee's decisions are firmly guaranteed by the parties concerned and implemented. (Song Binghuan, 2018) At the second meeting of the Central Special Commission, Zhou Enlai told the members of the Special Commission: "You are all leaders transferred from senior posts, and now you have to use your hands and feet, you are also the chief and the 'foot length', and the power is the smallest and the largest." You personally do not have any rights, but once the problem is decided by the Special Committee, you check and implement it, and you have the greatest power. (Xi Qixin, 2011)
According to the above information, we can briefly summarize the organizational nature of the Central Special Commission: the Central Special Commission is the "plenipotentiary representative" of the Party Central Committee on the "two bombs." It is independent of the existing sectoral system and is established according to the needs of the mandate. On the one hand, it is under the direct leadership and authorization of the Party Central Committee and has the power to make strategic decisions; on the other hand, it is also more important; the special committee undertakes the heavy responsibility of being responsible for the success or failure of the project, and must take the success or failure of the task as the test criterion for all work, take the organization and coordination of all aspects of the force as the core responsibility, and mobilize all forces throughout the country to complete the major tasks needed by the country.
Under the coordination of the Central Special Commission, 26 ministries and commissions, 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and more than 900 factories, scientific research institutions, and colleges and universities participated in the battle (Nie Li, 2006). The Central Special Commission directly contacted relevant departments and localities to solve the problems that could not be solved in the Second Machine Department and the national defense industry system. For example, the separation of highly concentrated uranium requires the use of a gas separation membrane ("A separation membrane"), and scientific research encounters many difficulties. The Special Commission mobilized the relevant units of the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Shenyang Institute of Metal Research, the Institute of Atomic Energy and the Ministry of Metallurgy to carry out concentrated research, and issued a "dead order" requiring Shanghai to complete the task, and finally developed components that met the technical requirements in 1964 (Nie Li, 2006). Later, Qian Xuesen recalled: "At that time, the Central Special Commission decided which unit to do something. The decision is also very simple: which meeting of the Central Special Commission, decide what you want your unit to do, and what time is required to complete... Don't say why, that's the command! The comrades of the Central Special Commission took it, brought the leader in it, and read the order, then they had to do it! A lot of collaboration is done like this, sometimes the railway transport requires vehicles, a command, the car is sent out. (He Libo, 2012)
After the successful test detonation of China's first atomic bomb in 1964, in February 1965, Zhou Enlai presided over the tenth meeting of the Central Special Commission and proposed to increase the number of relevant personnel in the Departments of the Seventh Machine Department, the Fourth Machine Department, and the Fifth Machine Department (Literature Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, 1997). On March 2, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a decision to include missiles in the scope of work of the Central Special Commission, and accordingly added Yu Qiuli, Wang Yi, Qiu Chuangcheng, Fang Qiang, Wang Bingzhang, Yuan Baohua, and Lü Dong (replacing Wang Heshou) to the Central Special Commission, and officially renamed the "Central Special Committee of the Communist Party of China" (Song Binghuan, 2018).
Since then, many major decisions have been made by the Central Special Commission or by consulting the Party Central Committee through the development and testing of a series of cutting-edge scientific and technological engineering projects, such as nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines, missiles, artificial satellites, and nuclear power plants.
After Zhou Enlai's death, the Central Special Commission gradually stopped its activities. In 1979, the activities of the Central Special Commission were publicly reported for the last time. At the end of the 1980s, the "Special Committee of the State Council and the Central Military Commission" established by the central government to accelerate the development of weapons and equipment was headed by Premier Li Peng (Huai Guomo, 2014). This body is limited to the national defense industrial system, and in 1993 it was "downgraded" to a deliberative coordination body and a provisional body, and the actual functions were assumed by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
The specific process of the Central Specialized Commission leading major tasks
Why the CITT can play a decisive role in the outcome of major tasks, this paper analyzes the case of the CITT leading China's nuclear submarine project.
The shortcomings of the leadership system at the beginning of the nuclear submarine project
The nuclear submarine project began almost at the same time as the atomic bomb project. As soon as China's first nuclear reactor (a Soviet-aided heavy water test reactor) was put into operation, Marshal Nie Rongyao convened a symposium on the development of missile atomic submarines on June 18, 1958; on the 27th, he submitted to the Central Committee a report on China's own design and trial production of missile atomic submarines. Within two days, the report was approved by Mao Zedong (Nie Li, 2006). After that, the Soviet Union refused to provide Technical Assistance to China for nuclear submarines, and Mao Zedong decided that "nuclear submarines will be built in ten thousand years." From the very beginning, the nuclear submarine project has embarked on an independent and self-reliant development path.
At the beginning of the nuclear submarine project, the management method of coordination of leading groups and division of labor and responsibility of various departments was adopted. The leading group was initially headed by Luo Shun, deputy commander of the Navy, including the heads of the main cooperation departments. The division of labor is as follows: the Navy is responsible for the overall design of the layout of the whole ship, the first part of the machine is responsible for the design and manufacture of the hull, the main auxiliary machine, the motor, the instrument and the process, the second machine department (the Ministry of Nuclear Industry) is responsible for the development of nuclear power reactors, and the Fifth Academy of the Ministry of National Defense is responsible for the research and development of missiles.
When the nuclear submarine project was launched, it only had a little foundation in hull construction and nuclear reactors, and the accumulation of technology was far from enough. Nuclear submarine is a technically extremely complex system, mainly composed of hull system, nuclear power system and combat system (torpedo or missile), etc., the relevant industrial departments basically have not mastered their own responsible subsystem technology, can only first promote the development of their own systems, and then consider the system integration of nuclear submarines.
However, the nuclear submarine project has fallen into a "wobbly" state from the beginning of the design stage, and the problem lies in the organizational system: the leading group is a coordinating body, lacking the authority to plan and direct the nuclear submarine project in an all-round way, and the progress of the project is deeply affected by the internal decision-making of the various cooperating departments. For example, nuclear power reactors are the "heart" of nuclear submarines, but from 1958 to 1962, the organizational relationship of the nuclear power development team has been in a state of frequent adjustment.
After the nuclear submarine project was launched, in February 1959, the nuclear power research and design group was formally established in the twelfth room of the Institute of Atomic Energy, and a team of 200 people was formed at the end of the year. From the end of 1959, the research and design team carried out "design training" in accordance with the actual requirements of nuclear submarines, and completed the "Submarine Nuclear Power Scheme Design (Draft)" in June 1960 and submitted it. The design "did not have any major iterations in later practice, which proved that it was generally feasible." This laid a good foundation for future research and development work" (Editorial Department of The Contemporary China Series, 1987).
In December 1960, the Second Machine Department decided to: (1) transfer most of the technical backbone (more than 60 people) out of the Atomic Energy Institute and merge it into the Second Machine Department Design Institute; (2) retain a small number of developers in the Atomic Energy Institute, and later establish a new independent design group.
Under the central government's policy of adjusting the economy, the nuclear submarine project was discontinued in July 1962. At the same time, the central government requires the retention of research and design institutions for power reactors and the retention of a small number of necessary research projects (Zhou Junlun, 1999). But in fact, the Second Machine Department has planned to disband the submarine nuclear power research and development team before this, so as to concentrate it all on the production reactor project. In May 1962, the team leader directly reported the situation to Su Zhenhua, the political commissar of the Navy. A few days later, the Second Aircraft Department received an official notice from the National Defense Science and Technology Commission to assign the submarine nuclear power designers and structure to the Seventh Research Institute of the Ministry of National Defense (Meng Gefei, 2002) to preserve this technical team. As a result, the nuclear power research and development team was dispersed to two different departments, the Second Machine Department (Room 47-1) and the Seventh Academy.
It can be seen that at that time, the research and design of nuclear submarine power reactors has been influenced by the departmental system. Under the planned economic system, in the face of a complex joint development project, it is difficult for the various divisions of labor to spontaneously make efforts that exceed the scope of their own authority and cooperate in coordination; tasks within their responsibilities may also be "temporarily shelved" for various reasons. Therefore, the confusion in the development of nuclear power reactors stems from the decentralization of decision-making in the departmental system, which is a problem that the planned economic system cannot automatically solve.
How the Central Special Commission leads major tasks
After the Central Special Commission took over the nuclear submarine project, in August 1963 it was decided to merge the nuclear power teams in the Second Machine Department and the Seventh Academy, and formally established the Ship Power Research Institute (715 Institute) (Yang Xinying, 2016) in the Seventh Academy, under the dual leadership of the Seventh Academy and the Second Machine Department, with the Seventh Academy as the mainstay, and the task was to carry out the demonstration and design of the overall plan of the submarine nuclear power unit.
Since then, the engineering design of the submarine's nuclear power has accelerated. In May 1964, the Seventh Academy held a demonstration meeting on the main scheme and main parameters of the 09-1 reactor power unit. In October, the main scheme was determined and the preliminary and technical design (i.e. system design and detailed design) of the nuclear power unit began.
In the second half of 1964, the national defense science and technology industrial system underwent a change of "merger of ministries and institutes", and the affiliation of 715 institutes was transferred back to the Second Machine Department and renamed Beijing 15 (Meng Gefei, 2002). However, this adjustment of organizational relations did not affect the stability of the technical team.
In October 1964, China's first atomic bomb was successfully tested. In the context of an overall improvement in the economy, the nuclear submarine project is once again on the agenda. Mao Zedong instructed that the cutting-edge technology of national defense "must be, fast, and surpassed" (Liu Huaqing, 2004). In March 1965, the Central Special Commission decided to approve the relaunching of the Nuclear Submarine Project (Project 09), and assigned the Second Machine Department to be responsible for proposing the specific plan of the nuclear power reactor in the second half of 1965 and reporting it to the Central Special Commission; the specific operation of the project was directly led by Nie Rongzhen, and a new Joint Office of the 09 Project was established, which was responsible for Liu Huaqing, then deputy director of the Sixth Machine Department, and reported directly to Nie Rongzhen (Liu Huaqing, 2004).
On August 25, 1965, the meeting of the Central Special Commission decided to agree to the plan of the Party Group of the Second Machine Ministry to build a land-based model reactor for nuclear submarines in Jiajiang County, Sichuan Province, and to build an onshore model reactor in 1970.
After the nuclear submarine is re-launched, the first thing is to demonstrate the overall plan of the submarine, first of all, it is clear what kind of nuclear submarine is needed, and then the technology is selected according to the target. At its meeting in August 1965, the Central Special Commission clarified the principles for the development of nuclear submarines: (1) conscientiously implement the principle of vigorous coordination; (2) Based on the domestic situation, proceeding from reality, in two steps, first develop anti-submarine torpedo nuclear submarines, and then engage in missile nuclear submarines; (3) the first nuclear submarine is not only a test boat, but also strives to match the main tactical and technical performance, and can be delivered and used as a combat boat.
Although Marshal Nie Rongzhen, who is in charge of the lead, has no technical background, he can judge the problem from a strategic point of view. Under the premise of grasping the direction and goal, he let scientists and engineers fully discuss specific technical problems, express their own opinions, and then he decided to choose a technical solution that is most likely to achieve the overall goal of nuclear submarines. Once identified, action must be carried out in a unified manner.
Many specific decision-making details fully demonstrate the decision-making principle of the Central Special Commission: the criteria for selecting technology are not advanced or backward, but based on the achievement of goals. For example:
(1) Discussion on the hull configuration scheme, at that time, two schemes of "conventional boat type plus nuclear power" and "teardrop line plus nuclear power" were proposed. The "conventional" theory holds that the national technology and industrial base is weak, and should first be modeled on the more mature configuration of Soviet submarines, and gradually develop in accordance with the route of "ordinary linear nuclear power → conventional water drop type → nuclear power water drop type"; and the "water drop" theory believes that nuclear submarines and conventional submarines are of different nature, and nuclear power should not be added to the structure of conventional submarines. Make a full-fledged nuclear submarine model. Nie Rongzhen specially summoned the responsible persons concerned to a meeting, and after fully inquiring about the situation and discussing and discussing, he came to a conclusion: "In general, do not use the type of conventional submarine, we must redesign, otherwise we will make the two different... It should be 'good horse with good saddle', engage in 'nuclear power water drop line type'! (Nie Li, 2006)
(2) Regarding the discussion of the establishment of a land-based model reactor, opponents believe that the reactor can be tested first on the ship, which can save money and shorten the test cycle. The view of supporting the land reactor is that in the absence of a on-board model reactor, the risk of directly boarding the ship is too large, and it is extremely inconvenient to adjust the reactor on the ship, and the purpose of building the land reactor is to ensure that the nuclear submarine can be directly built successfully. Ultimately, Nie Rongzhen believed that nuclear-powered submarines should be built successfully and operate safely, so it was necessary to build a land-based mode reactor for full experimentation (Peng Ziqiang, 2005).
After finalizing the technical plan, the Central Special Commission began to take measures to promote the specific implementation of the project. First, clear work tasks and completion deadlines have been set up, and the research and development tasks of each part have been distributed and coordinated nationwide by scientific research institutions, colleges and universities and enterprises. Among them, the second machine department is responsible for the design and construction of nuclear power units, and the land mode reactor will be built in 1970; the seventh academy is responsible for the overall research and design of torpedo nuclear submarines. Second, cross-system and cross-departmental overall planning and coordination, instruct the relevant military regions to send troops to help with the construction, to meet the funds and materials required for the development of nuclear submarines, and at the same time start the deployment of missile nuclear submarine development work (Dong Xuebin, Jia Junming, 2009).
The Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, had an impact on nuclear submarine engineering. The land-based mode reactor is a complex device integrating more than 29,000 pieces of equipment, instruments, meters, pipelines and valves, which is developed and produced by more than 1,200 factories, research institutes and colleges in 26 provinces and cities across the country. During the Cultural Revolution, many leading cadres and technical experts in factories and research institutes were criticized, and the system coordinating the 09 project faced the threat of paralysis. To this end, Nie Rongzhen suggested, and with the approval of Mao Zedong, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission in March 1967 to take over the various scientific research institutes involved in national defense. When these adjustments still could not stop the political movement from impacting the nuclear submarine project, Nie Rongzhen, who was caught in the political whirlpool, decided to hold a meeting on the coordination of nuclear submarine engineering in Beijing, and the notice specifically stated: No one who has received the notice of the factory director and secretary is allowed to block it for any reason. However, the coordination meeting was still unable to fundamentally reverse the situation, and the leading cadres attending the meeting were once again affected when they returned to their respective units.
Faced with the urgent situation across the country, Nie Rongzhen braved great political pressure to issue a "special official letter" issued in the name of the Central Military Commission on August 30, 1967, clearly instructing that "the nuclear submarine project is a cutting-edge national defense project personally approved by Chairman Mao." No unit or person may shock the workshop under any pretext or reason, let alone stop production and work under any pretext" (Nie Li, 2006). This document has extremely high effectiveness, so that all relevant units in the country have restored the order of production and scientific research. More than 40 years later, the old man still remembers that it was because of this "special official letter" that a telegram from the 909 base could transfer the equipment that was being transported to other users to Jiajiang.
The leadership of the Central Commission enabled the nuclear submarine project to continue to advance in difficult situations. In 1968, Nie Rongzhen was implicated in the "February countercurrent", and the work thereafter was directly organized by Zhou Enlai. On July 15, 1970, Zhou Enlai presided over a meeting of the Central Special Commission, listened to the report of the on-site leaders on the onshore model reactor, approved the opening of the reactor, and decided to send experts from Tsinghua University, the Second Academy of the Second Machine Department and leaders of relevant departments to the scene to follow the shift. The land-based mode reactor began testing on July 16 and reached full power on August 30, validating the success of China's first nuclear submarine power reactor.
On December 26, 1970, the installation of a nuclear power plant on board was completed, and China's first nuclear submarine was launched. After sea trials and adjustments, on August 1, 1974, China's first nuclear submarine was listed and named "Long March 1". Since then, based on the "Long March 1", China's first ballistic missile nuclear submarine was started in 1978, launched in April 1981, and successfully launched submarine-launched ballistic missiles in September 1988. This marks the People's Republic of China as the fifth country in the world to have a sea-based nuclear deterrent. The success of the nuclear submarine project proves the key role of the Central Specialized Commission in accomplishing the major task of the fate of the country.
The historical experience of the United States adopting a special system
As a capitalist market economy, whenever the United States encounters a crisis, it will also set up special authorities to complete major tasks of strategic significance.
The Wartime Production Bureau led the production of synthetic rubber
America's strong industrial production capacity was one of the main reasons for the Allies' victory over the Fascist Axis in World War II. In the second year of the war alone (1942), the United States produced 47,000 aircraft, six times that of Japan. But until the moment it announced its entry into the war, the industrial mobilization ability of the United States was still a huge "short board." In 1940, when the Axis threat was rapidly expanding, the United States established consultative "Emergency Office", "National Defense Advisory Committee", and "Production Management Office" with decentralized powers to strengthen arms production (Morgan, 1994); but the production of aircraft that year was only more than 2,000, less than half of Japan's annual aircraft production (more than 5,000 aircraft).
At the moment when the outcome of the war was decided, the United States established an "unprecedented" mobilization agency, the Wartime Production Bureau, through emergency legislation, with full responsibility for coordinating the country's economic production activities, including the formulation of national industrial production plans, the allocation of strategic materials, and the coordination of the production activities of various large private enterprises (Levine, 1944). On the one hand, a large number of national defense production orders were issued to encourage private enterprises to convert to war materials; on the other hand, they formulated the priority order of strategic material distribution and financial loans, giving high priority to enterprises that actively cooperated with the government's production plan, and enterprises that did not cooperate with the government's plan could not be supported. In this way, the Wartime Production Bureau quickly mobilized the scattered private enterprises to a unified war production plan, so that the industrial technology and production capacity of the United States could be brought into full play, and the production capacity of the military industry was increased in a very short period of time. The Wartime Production Bureau was a key to America's war winning.
One of the major achievements of the Wartime Production Bureau was to solve the crisis of rubber supply shortages. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they quickly seized the South Pacific region, the main producer of natural rubber, cutting off 97% of the source of rubber imports from the United States (Tuttle, 1981). Natural rubber is an important strategic material, the United States was extremely dependent on imports at that time, and the rubber supply cut meant that the Industrial Production of the United States would be completely paralyzed within a year. Producing synthetic rubber will be the only way out. At that time, the United States mastered two processes for making the key raw materials for synthetic rubber: one was extracted from oil, which Standard Oil held patents through a pre-war agreement with German law company, and the other possible path was extracted from alcohol converted from grains or potatoes (Wendt, 1947). However, due to the long-term ridicule and prevarication of government agencies and enterprises, this has not progressed for more than half a year after the rubber supply in the United States.
The intervention of the Wartime Production Bureau turned the tide. After taking over the authority to allocate rubber resources, it listed the production of synthetic rubber as the "first plan", and in September 1942, it set up the post of "Rubber Director", which was uniformly responsible for mobilizing and coordinating relevant enterprises to carry out synthetic rubber research, requiring manufacturers to produce synthetic rubber that could meet the needs of industrial production at the fastest speed, and whoever could produce it would give orders, otherwise there would be no money (Wendt, 1947). By the end of the war, the production capacity of synthetic rubber in the United States had increased from 4500 tons in 1940 to more than 1 million tons, ensuring the wartime demand of the United States and forming a new synthetic rubber industry after the war.
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project, in which the United States developed the atomic bomb during World War II, is seen as a model of "big science." But when the United States first handed over nuclear weapons research to the scientific community, there was not even a clear task of developing an atomic bomb. It was not until after the United States entered the war that policymakers realized that the laboratory research method with no application goals could be followed, and that the military must be placed in charge of the development and production of the atomic bomb. In 1942, the "Supreme Policy Group" (the highest decision-making body in the United States in wartime), directly led by the President, decided to assign the Army Corps of Engineers to be responsible for the development of the atomic bomb, and directly reported and was responsible to the Supreme Policy Group, and clarified the mission goal of developing the atomic bomb: to build an atomic bomb that could be used in actual combat before any enemy country.
At the time, the Defense Advisory Committee, made up mainly of scientists, believed that the production of the atomic bomb was a simple engineering problem that required less than $100 million; it was suggested that a functioning plutonium factory could be quickly built by sending them 50-100 junior engineers and draftsmen. As a result, the decision-making level initially sent only one colonel-level officer, Groves, to take the lead. But Groves took over and found that the so-called mature technology was still in the laboratory stage, and it was impossible to meet the mass production required to develop the atomic bomb. For example, the nuclear material needed for an atomic bomb that could be used in actual combat was measured in kilograms, but the plutonium produced in the laboratory using a cyclotron at that time could only produce 2 milligrams a month. At that time, no institution had designed or built reactors and separation devices that could be used for the large-scale production of nuclear materials. Crucially, the principle of nuclear fission (chain reaction) is only theoretically valid and has not yet been verified, and even the principle of atomic bomb explosion is theoretically blank.
Therefore, despite the full participation and support of scientists, the implementation of the atomic bomb project must mobilize the strength of various government departments, industrial enterprises and scientists to work together. These efforts have covered areas far beyond the responsibilities of the Army Corps of Engineers. For example, no one knew in advance how to build the reactor and design the production process, and Groves had to contract the construction with the most experienced in electrical and chemical fields, Stone-Webster Engineering and DuPont;
In this context, in June 1942, the President of the United States approved the report on the nuclear weapons program, agreed to establish the "Manhattan" project area to carry out the atomic bomb program, and explicitly gave the supreme authority over any other program.
Groves decided to move the project forward with clear engineering principles – whether technologically advanced or backward, choosing only processes and equipment that would meet yield and time requirements. For example, uranium-235 needed for atomic bombs is to be separated from uranium-238, and gas separation is the process that is most likely to support mass production. It has been proposed that the gas separation method can only use pure nickel parts to resist the corrosive effect of gases during processing. But if this requirement is followed, the world's annual nickel metal production is not enough. At this time, Chrysler Automotive engineers proposed that the automobile factory also needs to use nickel to resist corrosion in the production process, but it is plated with a layer of nickel on the equipment, and its effect is no different from pure nickel parts. This is the solution to the problem with results-oriented engineering thinking (Groves, 1991).
In the end, the Manhattan Project, which was implemented with national efforts, took more than 3 years and cost billions of dollars. As the Manhattan Project unfolded, breakthroughs were made in many scientific studies that were pending in free exploration. For example, in order to verify the feasibility of nuclear fission and calculate the amount of nuclear material used, at the request of the military, the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago assembled the first nuclear reactor in human history for testing, and only for the first time confirmed the existence of a large-scale controllable chain reaction. Even the advent of computers is closely linked to this project, and in order to carry out a large number of engineering calculations, the military mobilized scientists to design new computers, laying the infrastructure of computers and the "binary" of the basic operation methods.
Create technology-leading DARPA
World War II contributed to the direct support of the U.S. government for science and technology. In 1940, when war was looming, MIT's Van Neva Bush became President Roosevelt's scientific adviser, where he helped establish the National Defense Research Council (NDRC), where the highest leadership and the scientific community could have direct access, and set up a radiation laboratory for radar research at MIT with colleagues. To accomplish its pressing tasks, the laboratory created a "linked model of scientific and technological challenges" – in which technological breakthroughs are closely linked from the basic science stage to subsequent phases of technological development, prototyping and production , and serve as models for other laboratories , such as the Los Alamos Laboratory , which developed nuclear weapons .
Before the end of the war, At the request of President Roosevelt, Van Neva Bush organized a group of scientists to draft postwar American science policy. In July 1945, he submitted to President Truman his famous report, Science: The Endless Frontier, which recommended that the state should strongly support scientists' research, but should not constrain the right of scientists to explore freely. Under the influence of the Bush Report, for some time after the war, the federal government adopted a system of highly decentralized and centralized funding for basic research in the cause of science (Bonvillian, 2006).
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial earth satellite, Sputnik, which had a huge impact on American society. The "Sputnik Crisis" made the highest levels of U.S. policymaking realize that to accelerate technological breakthroughs and regain leadership, it is impossible to rely on a decentralized, free-exploration system. As a result, President Eisenhower initiated the establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (later added "Defense," or Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA), followed by the Establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The U.S. government allocates funds to these two agencies not through conventional channels, but through "exceptional allocations", so that their activities and budgets do not need to be made public as required by law, giving them autonomy in selecting and implementing projects. The task entrusted to DARPA by the US decision-making level is to establish a leading edge in the field of cutting-edge technology over the Soviet Union and develop "blue sky" technology that is out of people's sight.
DARPA has fully inherited the "linked scientific and technological challenge model", and there are many more creations in the system. Its initial mission was to oversee space research and development activities and avoid competition among the various services in the field. After 1960, it focused on ballistic missile defense, nuclear test detection, and the development of propellants and materials (Fuchs, 2009). As a result of the serious command and control problems encountered during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 (the government obtained real-time data and interacted with field commands), DARPA's research and development focus shifted to information technology. DARPA leverages the information technology research power of universities and enterprises to recruit the best scientific and technological personnel across the country, and quickly establishes a research and development support network by means of contracts. This in turn laid the foundation for technological breakthroughs in computers and the Internet.
DARPA keeps its organization to a minimum, while building working relationships with Defense department research institutes and the military uses DARPA's investments to participate in solving common problems; DARPA provides a flexible, interdisciplinary role model for R&D. The "new military revolution" created by the U.S. military in the late 1980s was built on many of darpa-backed information technology breakthroughs, and the innovation of information technology originally used in the military contributed to the wave of innovation in the U.S. economy in the 1990s (Bonvillian, 2006).
Over the course of a few decades, DARPA typically had only about 100 scientists and engineers "borrowed" from academia and industry as project managers, and about 120 support staff. Although the annual budget is only $3 billion, it operates about 200 cutting-edge technology projects every year.
DARPA does not do research itself, but authorizes project managers to propose specific research projects, establish "temporary project teams" that are oriented to the results of the task, and the implementation of the projects is entrusted to the scientific and technological personnel of universities, enterprises, and laboratories. The term of office of each project and project manager only lasts 3-5 years. Darpa projects have no review committee because there is no consensus on breakthrough technology projects (Dugan and Gabriel, 2013); project managers only need to convince the director of their office and the director of DARPA to receive funding for the project (Fuchs, 2009). These projects are not free to explore, but clearly state the mission objectives; the project manager is directly responsible for the project, determining the direction of the project and all relevant major decisions. The assessment method is based on whether the set task objectives have been achieved within the project period.
DARPA holds two annual project manager debriefing meetings to review the progress of the project. During the project term, as long as the results of the research can achieve the expected goals, the project will continue; if the results are not achieved, or the probability of success is proved to be small, the project will be terminated, but the researcher will not be held accountable. This is also a "unveiling the commander" mechanism, which has a strong stimulating effect on project leaders, enterprises and scientists. Project managers must fully organize and mobilize all parties to work with R&D personnel in different fields and industries, rather than behind closed doors.
DARPA builds research activities across the national economy, attracting companies and research institutions to participate in potentially dual-use technology research projects. DARPA provides funding and project operation support for preliminary research, enabling enterprises to explore new products and new technologies with market application prospects with small upfront investment, but must meet DARPA's technical requirements. In this way, DARPA can make full use of corporate capital and technical capabilities and avoid spending too much money on high-risk basic research and development. If the project is successful, the new product and technology are accepted by the market, the enterprise gains economic benefits and has the incentive to upgrade further iteratively, and the military gets the required product from the market. Even if the project is not successful, the relevant technological achievements can find a wide range of commercial uses, making cutting-edge technology research in the United States high-investment but sustainable.
Through this mode of operation, DARPA, as a powerful organization leading the development of cutting-edge technology in the United States, has become the source of many breakthrough technological innovations, and has created a huge technological advantage for the United States, from military stealth fighters, ballistic missile defense systems, digital command systems, high-energy lasers, global positioning systems (GPS), etc., to the spillover of military technological achievements to civilian Internet, robot and computer hardware and software and chip manufacturing, etc. All are direct results of DARPA or the research and development projects it pioneered.
DARPA is a major symbol of america's national power to promote innovation. Some scholars call this model a "developmental network state", while others call it an "entrepreneurial state". Although these designations are different, they all refer directly to the national nature of this model. So why doesn't the United States rely on a "one-size-fits-all" market mechanism and need a state-run DARPA to lead innovation? Dugan and Gabriel, former DARPA leaders, interpret the nature of DARPA's work as the "Pasteur Quadrant"—basic, application-oriented research. They argue that it is rare for private companies to conduct research and development in the Pasteur Quadrant. Generally speaking, due to the high risk of basic research, enterprises will require R&D departments to follow the requirements of the company's business units, but it is almost impossible for the company's business units to choose research projects that pose a threat to the company's existing products, but instead invest in innovations that are useful for maintaining existing competitiveness. As a result, R&D departments and business units often compromise with each other, and the result is that the worst choice is made. In a word, market mechanisms do not spontaneously produce breakthrough innovations.
Therefore, the significance of the establishment of DARPA is to overcome the shortcomings of the market mechanism, mobilize the resources and scientific and technological power of the market with the power of the state, and make it consciously and organized to carry out (application-oriented) innovation in the Pasteur Quadrant, thus producing a major breakthrough that brings technological advantages.
Discussion: Lessons from historical experience for future major tasks and special institutions
Judging from the historical experience of China and the United States, the establishment of special institutions to accomplish tasks of great strategic significance to the country is a rare but recurring phenomenon. Such action therefore falls under a special category of national governance activities and generally occurs when countries encounter major challenges. Carrying out major tasks in this way necessarily has the attribute of mobilizing, utilizing and coordinating resources and capacities throughout the country to accomplish them. Thus, there is an inevitable causal relationship between major tasks, special institutions, national institutions and major developments.
First, the major task is to define and propose at the political level.
Major tasks originate from crises or challenges encountered by a country, which may come from technical, economic, social or ecological aspects, and when they form a challenge to national security, an objective need arises to propose major tasks. However, the major tasks are defined at the political level. Because of this, the definition of major tasks cannot exclude the influence of ideological, political traditions and other factors, nor can it exclude the possibility of "misjudgment". Defining and proposing major tasks requires consensus from the political leadership and may also be influenced by the leadership system and the political process.
From the history of New China, it can be seen that some major projects may originate from the special concerns of individual leaders, such as Marshal Nie Rongzhen's concerns and suggestions for nuclear submarines, and then go through a process to transform into the consensus of the leadership. The fact that Nie Rongzhen's proposal to develop nuclear submarines could be approved within two days reflected not so much the importance of nuclear submarines as the characteristics of China's political leadership at the time. Only those countries that have done so, and whose political leadership have the capacity to respond to crises or challenges by carrying out major tasks.
The reason why the national system for accomplishing major tasks is different from the task system of the planning system or the market system is that the purpose of major tasks is not to allocate existing resources, but to create resources and capabilities that did not exist before, to achieve breakthroughs and major innovations, and to create resources and capabilities that did not exist before.
Second, special institutions for the implementation of major tasks should be established to mobilize the forces of the whole society through the national system.
When the political leadership of a country proposes a major task, it is often necessary to set up special institutions. The essential feature of such a body is that it is empowered by the highest decision-making level of the state, while being directly responsible for the implementation and completion of tasks in the form of projects and for the results of the tasks. Special bodies are therefore established because the fulfilment of major tasks is beyond the capabilities of the current operating system. First, major tasks are often large, complex systems that transcend the boundaries of existing organizations, making it necessary to establish a body dedicated to systems integration functions. Secondly, the major task of creating a "means" (whether technical, engineering or organizational) that the country did not previously have requires an executive body capable of mobilizing and coordinating resources on a larger scale beyond the existing organizational division of labour. Third, major tasks affect the fate of the country, and the political leadership ultimately holds the political leadership accountable for its success or failure. Therefore, the chain of responsibility for carrying out major tasks must be direct and single, and cannot be obscured by the organizational division of labor in the current operating system.
An understanding of special institutions can help clarify the constraints of the concept of a "national system": the mere need for "concentrating on great things" or mobilization and cooperation in all aspects is not enough to define a national system, because these statements do not explain how the "national" forces are concentrated, mobilized and coordinated. In fact, market mechanisms can also perform the function of large-scale coordination under certain conditions, but this cannot be said to be the result of the national system. This paper argues that, whether or not there is open mobilization or any conscious other arrangement, the way in which special agencies carry out and accomplish major tasks is a national system. It is also in this sense that the "national system" also reflects the nature of similar actions in the United States.
Third, accomplishing major tasks with the national system is the engine for "making major breakthroughs and achieving major development."
The characteristic of a major task is to make a useful product or system, and the success or failure of the project can be judged. The historical experience of Both China and the United States proves that the major tasks accomplished by the national system will bring about major technological breakthroughs and will also promote major scientific, technological, and economic development as a whole. Understanding this mechanism is especially important today when China is desperately needing to achieve breakthroughs in important technological areas.
For example, a popular opinion at present is to take the strengthening of basic research as the policy of China's scientific and technological development, on the grounds that: first, the reason why China is "stuck in the neck" in some fields is because the basic work is not done enough; second, "basic research is the source of the entire scientific system and the general organ of all technical problems." However, the real reason why China is currently "stuck in the neck" is that it has implemented a policy of replacing independent research and development with technology introduction. Most of China's "short boards" today are not technologies that have not been done, but are abandoned in the process of relying on imports (such as integrated circuits and large aircraft).
There is an interactive relationship between scientific research and technological development, as well as between scientific and technological development and social needs. Technical knowledge includes a large number of skills and competencies from problem solving and experimentation, improving processes. Technological progress provides problem direction, demand, means and verification for basic research, while basic research provides principle knowledge and expansion possibilities for applied technology research, which is the basic law of scientific and technological development. If independent research and development is abandoned in technology, basic research will become follow-up.
The basic research and technological development required for major tasks is task-oriented, and its goal is to make something that was not available before, and it is a major creation driven by the strength of the whole country. It needs the existing knowledge and experience base, and at the same time to go beyond the existing knowledge boundaries, so the major task is also the driving force for the overall promotion of basic research and technology development. Basic research itself cannot be defined as a major task, because from the knowledge base to useful strategic products or systems, a large number of technical and engineering activities are required, as well as the strategy and organization that mobilize these activities.
In fact, technology and science can solve an infinite number of problems, but in reality, technology research and development and scientific research always focus on some application directions and ignore other directions; the choice of research and development direction is determined by technical bottlenecks, economic and social factors. If basic research is divorced from the "context" of China's technological development and economic development, how much money is invested will feel inadequate, because most of these studies may be useless.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the major task of "aiming to make a useful product or system" is defined and proposed from the requirement of victory - "major breakthroughs, major developments", rather than from the status of existing resources/capabilities. This application orientation is strategic, aggressive and creative. Less than 10 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the leaders of the New China were determined to develop "two bombs and one boat", not because China had mastered how many corresponding resources and capabilities, but because they were determined to let new China develop independently and autonomously; the United States established DARPA to "create technological accidents", not because it already knew which "accidental" technologies were, but to create technological superiority over Cold War opponents (and then DARPA would think: Can aircraft not be detected by the radar of the other side?). Can computers of different standards be connected to communicate with each other? ）。
Thus, major tasks, special institutions and national institutions represent a way to mobilize existing resources/capacities with the goal of creating new instruments. Whatever scientific and technological and industrial resources a country has, if those resources are not mobilized to achieve some goal that exceeds the existing level of resource utilization, it can only change slowly with the marginal price of the market, but it will never automatically bring about a major breakthrough. The reason why a major task can lead to major development is that it mobilizes the resources/capacities already accumulated by the national economic system with higher ambitions and higher goals underpinned by the national system, thus creating major breakthroughs that would not have been achieved without this.
conclusion
The historical experience of Both China and the United States proves that the national system is a task system, which can be compatible with both the planning system and the market system, but has its own unique nature and role. Today's state put forward the idea of adopting a "new type of national system" under the conditions of the new era, with the aim of accomplishing the historical task of "making major breakthroughs and achieving major development." The connotation and extension of this concept will be defined by the major tasks accomplished in the new era and the methods adopted. We pointed out two reasons why it is necessary for China to adopt a new national system at this stage.
First, the direction of China's economic development must be determined at the political level, not by the market. Under increasing pressure from outside forces to try to hinder China's achievement of these goals, the vision, ambition, and leadership of the political leadership are critical to China's economic development.
Secondly, to achieve major development, other mechanisms must be used alongside market mechanisms. Market mechanisms can compete for the survival of the fittest, guide short-term resource allocation, and encourage spontaneous creativity, but market mechanisms cannot automatically achieve the major structural changes required by economic development. Therefore, China still needs to adopt a mechanism that uses a national system to accomplish major tasks.
As far as general principles are concerned, the new national system should be a "system" in which the state takes the lead in taking some kind of cooperative action, which enables the government, enterprises and other social agents to take coordinated cooperative actions to achieve some goal of overall value, and its fundamental feature is to mobilize the actors of different social divisions and different natures within a country to complete tasks that cannot be completed by any certain type of action subject alone. In participating in this process, each economic actor maintains an independent economic interest, so the market mechanism is also an integral part of the new national system.
If today's China still needs to accomplish major tasks, it will still need to set up special institutions, and the requirements for special institutions will change accordingly. Special institutions must face the market more directly and mobilize the strength of society as a whole in a more open way ( such as "unveiling the commander"). The United States has a rich history of setting up special agencies, and there are many places worth learning from China, such as DARPA, although IT is a special institution established by the state, its main staff is not professional officials. This way of organizing does not see a "gap" between the government and the market.
Historical experience proves that the stage of the greatest and most arduous challenge to national development is also the stage most likely to produce major innovations - such as technology, so is the organization, and so is the system. Therefore, the historical task of adopting a new national system under the leadership of the Party Central Committee is to creatively "make major breakthroughs and achieve major developments" at the critical stage of China's rise.
This article is reproduced from Management World, No. 1, 2021, and this article is excerpted when reprinted with the author's authorization, with the addition of editor's note.
* Lu Feng, Professor, School of Government and Management, Peking University; Pengyu He, School of Government and Management, Peking University.
* Kong Dan, Chairman of CITIC Reform and Development Research Foundation, former Chairman of CITIC Group.