Xiao Yu: Vigorously promote new industrialization

Source: Economic Daily

Manufacturing is an important part of the national economy. Accelerating the construction of a manufacturing power is inseparable from the construction of a modern industrial system, and is the source of power to build a solid material foundation for Chinese-style modernization. The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized that it is necessary to vigorously promote new industrialization, develop the digital economy, and accelerate the development of artificial intelligence. This is not only based on a deep understanding of the law of global industrialization development, but also reflects an accurate grasp of the mainland's national conditions and development stage. To fully understand the new industrialization, we must scientifically grasp the connotation of the times and the historical position of the new industrialization under the new development pattern from the perspective of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, grasp the key elements of promoting new industrialization, lead the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and continuously cultivate and develop new quality productive forces.

To fully understand the new industrialization, we should start from the main direction and internal laws of global industrial evolution. With the deepening of the degree and scope of data into the factors of production, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation represented by digital technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, which is having a significant impact on the traditional organization of the manufacturing industry. In this wave of industrial transformation, new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the Internet of Things are increasingly widely used in the manufacturing industry, which not only blurs the industrial boundary, but also profoundly affects the input-output efficiency of the manufacturing industry and greatly improves the productivity level of human society. It is precisely because of the subversive change of the paradigm of modern industrial organization that major countries in the world regard new industrialization as the strategic commanding heights of future great power competition, and have introduced support measures to promote it.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of instructions on promoting new industrialization and the construction of a manufacturing power, which provides a fundamental basis for the development of new industrialization in the mainland. Overall, we are now emphasizing that the new industrialization is a top-level design that embodies the new development concept, and its focus is on solving the major problems of what kind of development and how to develop the manufacturing industry, which is the only way to seize the opportunity of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation to reconstruct the new competitive advantages, and is an important innovation practice for the mainland to achieve industrial integration and development, and it is also an important starting point for overall development and security.

The core of new industrialization is high-end upgrading, the key is digital empowerment, and the foundation is green transformation. To promote new industrialization, we must adhere to systematic planning, overall arrangement and overall promotion, organically combine the construction of a manufacturing power with the development of digital economy and industrial informatization, make innovation an endogenous driving force, make coordination a fundamental requirement, make green a bright background color, make openness a key starting point, and make sharing a typical feature. On the one hand, with the surging of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, new technologies, new formats and new models are emerging, technological advantages between countries are changing at an accelerated pace, and the global industrial division of labor and competition pattern has undergone in-depth adjustments. We must seize the window of technological innovation such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and biomanufacturing, accelerate the improvement of industrial innovation capabilities, enhance the independent and controllable ability in key links and key areas, and expand the leading edge in future frontier fields. On the other hand, the digital wave is widely spread and penetrated into various industries and fields, which is profoundly changing the economic and social operation mode, and it is necessary to rely on digital technology to empower the manufacturing industry, better integrate data elements into the whole process of manufacturing production, promote the digital transformation and intelligent development of the economy and society, and make the achievements of intelligent manufacturing, flexible manufacturing and green manufacturing better benefit the people.

New industrialization is an industrialization guided by the new development concept and the requirements of high-quality development throughout, which means that the development of the manufacturing industry with better quality, higher efficiency and stronger power needs to be created in an innovative way to create an ecosystem conducive to the development of new industrialization. We should not only aim at the long-term goals, but also base ourselves on the existing problems and make more efforts to implement concrete measures.

The first is to take innovation as the driving force. To achieve new industrialization, innovation is the core driving force. The experience of the world's science and technology powers in the construction of innovation ecosystems such as R&D investment, talent teams and supporting policies shows that promoting the formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation is a complex system involving competent authorities, business entities, industry associations, scientific research institutes, financial institutions, etc. To form an innovation system conducive to the development of new industrialization, it is necessary to comprehensively deepen the reform of the scientific research system, implement comprehensive policies from the aspects of scientific research evaluation system, scientific research resource allocation, talent team construction and transformation of innovation achievements, and form a benign development pattern guided by national development needs, with enterprises as the main body, and with the full mobilization of the enthusiasm and creativity of scientific research personnel as the starting point, and mastering key core technologies.

The second is to take the integration of data and reality as the main line. The use of digital technology to tap their own potential and carry out process reengineering throughout the life cycle is the key for enterprises to continuously gain new competitive advantages. Data, as a factor of production, enters the production function, which is an important source of power for new industrialization. However, it is not easy to make data run out of "acceleration", which requires us to make great efforts to do a good job in data governance, improve public services, and make the "sleeping" data elements truly "live". The focus of data governance is to accelerate the work of confirming data rights, formulate and improve the rules for the protection of the rights and interests of relevant entities in different links such as content collection, processing, circulation, and application, and smooth the channels for data elements to enter the entire production process.

The third is to focus on industrial safety. At present, the trend of vertical compression and horizontal integration of the global industrial chain and supply chain is becoming more and more obvious. To promote new industrialization, it is necessary to aim at the mainland's "neck" technology in the global industrial chain and supply chain, focus on the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, fundamentally master key core technologies such as semiconductor chips, biomedicine, aero engines, CNC machine tools, industrial software, etc., improve the resilience of the supply chain in the fields of basic components and key basic materials, and finally establish a safe and reliable industrial chain and supply chain system.

Fourth, it is supported by reform and opening up. The development of new industrialization is a long-term dynamic process, which requires continuous deepening of reform, and efforts should be made to open up the channels for the smooth flow of various advanced and high-quality production factors to the development of new quality productive forces. It is necessary to take the opportunity of building a new system of a higher-level open economy to accelerate the improvement of the level of institutional openness such as rules, regulations, management and standards. We will continue to relax market access, create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized, build a platform for international cooperation in the manufacturing industry with diverse forms and rich contents, encourage foreign investment in advanced manufacturing and high-tech fields, and attract global innovation elements to gather in China.

(Source of this article: Economic Daily The author Xiao Yu is a researcher at the Xi Jinping Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and an associate researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy)