【Science and Technology Perspective】Promote high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed: "accelerate the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy" and "accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance." The Central Economic Work Conference held in February 2023 regarded science and technology policy and fiscal policy, monetary policy, industrial policy, and social policy as the "five major policies" to support high-quality development, and the position and role of scientific and technological innovation in high-quality development have become more prominent, and the importance and urgency of scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement have become more prominent. At the second and third collective study sessions of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping made a series of important expositions on how to accelerate the pace of self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology and consolidate the foundation for self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, standing at the height of the overall development of the cause of the party and the country, accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, and comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernization.

From the perspective of the meaning of the word, "high level" is a concept corresponding to "low level" or "average level", innovation can be divided into high-level scientific and technological innovation and general level scientific and technological innovation, and development also has high-level development and general level development. In the existing policy context, high-quality development belongs to high-level development, and the so-called extensive development belongs to general horizontal development, which is reflected in large-scale and quantitative growth. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that "scientific and technological innovation is a strategic support for improving social productivity and comprehensive national strength, and must be placed at the core of the overall national development", emphasizing that we should adhere to the path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics and implement the innovation-driven development strategy. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "accelerate the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy." Adhere to the world's frontier of science and technology, the main battlefield of the economy, the major needs of the country, and the life and health of the people, and accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance." From scientific and technological innovation to high-level scientific and technological innovation, from development to high-quality development, from innovation-driven development in a general sense to high-level scientific and technological innovation to high-quality development, it shows the continuous deepening of the mainland's innovation-driven development strategy in the new era, and also puts forward a new era topic for theoretical research. "High-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance" emphasizes the independence, initiative and independence of scientific and technological development, and emphasizes a higher level of scientific and technological innovation that can support the requirements of high-quality development. As a key word in the category of high-level scientific and technological innovation in mainland China, "self-reliance and self-reliance" is an important perspective for understanding the new changes of innovation-driven development and constructing the theory of the relationship between innovation and development from a deeper level, and has important theoretical and practical significance for scientifically answering the question of promoting high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological innovation.

1. Literature review

High-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement is a concept that has received special attention in recent years, and related research in academia is also increasing, especially the promotion of high-quality development with high-level science and technology has increasingly become a research hotspot.

(1) On high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance

1. Macro perspective. Mainly from the perspective of national macro science and technology policy, how to promote high-level science and technology self-reliance and self-reliance. For example, Wang Zhigang believes that multiple measures need to be taken at the same time, one is to improve the new national system, strengthen the research of key core technologies, lay out and implement a number of major national science and technology projects, and improve the resilience and safety of the industrial chain and supply chain; The second is to strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological strength, accelerate the construction of national laboratories, reorganize the national key laboratories, establish a national laboratory system with Chinese characteristics, and strengthen the scientific research of universities and research institutes; The third is to improve the capacity of basic research and originality, implement the ten-year plan for basic research, coordinate the deployment of demand-oriented and free exploration basic research, and strengthen the construction of basic discipline research centers; Fourth, promote the virtuous cycle of finance in the science and technology industry, and improve the support mechanism of financial markets and financial instruments for scientific and technological innovation; Fifth, we should grasp the relationship between self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology and international exchanges and cooperation in science and technology, actively integrate into the global innovation network, and actively participate in global science and technology governance. As the world's second largest economy, China needs to improve the supply capacity of original achievements, the ability to solve major propositions, the ability to dominate scientific and technological resources, the ability to penetrate science and technology, and the inclusive ability of innovation ecology. The path is to strengthen the layout of basic research, build a major scientific and technological innovation platform, expand high-tech industrial clusters, promote the deep integration of industry and research, encourage multi-party collaborative innovation, optimize the innovation regional system, and embed the global R&D network as the goal. With the focus of scientific and technological innovation management system, financial support for scientific and technological strength, high-quality intellectual property rights, common technology research platforms, enterprise independent innovation activities, classified management of scientific research institutes, talent innovation incentive policies, and innovation and entrepreneurship enterprising spirit, we will comprehensively enhance the independence and autonomy of scientific and technological development, and always grasp the initiative of building a scientific and technological power in our own hands. Wang Guoqiang believes that high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement is the strategic support of the world's scientific and technological powers. The use and training of talents, the innovation of scientific and technological research, the optimal allocation of scientific and technological resources, and the construction of academic environment are the key driving factors for achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance.

2. Microscopic perspective. Mainly from the perspective of industry and enterprises, we study how to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance. For example, Han Fengqin and others believe that it is necessary to strengthen the construction of innovation platforms, and promote the establishment of a national innovation platform overall coordination mechanism and platform management system in view of the lack of overall planning of top-level design, the lack of clarity in management relationships, the government's emphasis on construction and light management, and the low level of coordination and cooperation among the main body, so as to improve the level of industry-university-research cooperation on the platform and create a platform development ecology. Guan Kaixuan and others believe that the connotation of professional talents should include three levels: basic talents, innovative talents and leading talents. Basic talents refer to talents who master basic skills and invisible experience in the industry and engage in basic processes; Innovative talents refer to professional or compound talents who have mastered a large amount of tacit knowledge and industry know-how, and can promote the gradual innovation of the industry; Leading talents refer to the key talents who can achieve breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies from "0 to 1" and lead the leapfrog development of the industry, including major source innovation, original theoretical innovation, and major process path innovation. The pain of China's "lack of core" begins with the pain of talent. Ke Ping defined four types of new intelligence talents, among which cutting-edge intelligence talents should have high-tech professional background, cutting-edge innovative thinking, cutting-edge scientific and technological identification ability and cutting-edge intelligence acquisition ability; Technical competitive intelligence talents should have a sense of national interests and security responsibility, the ability of cross-border coordination of competitive intelligence, the ability to identify key core technologies and "stuck neck" technologies, and the ability to evaluate the technological competitive situation; Basic information talents should have the ability to popularize basic science, the ability to provide basic research services in all disciplines, and the ability to evaluate basic research; Strategic intelligence talents should have a broad international vision, forward-looking research and judgment ability, and a collaborative decision-making subject perspective. Li Zheng believes that as an important material and political foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics, state-owned enterprises should not only be the vanguard of innovation-driven development, but also play a key role in promoting high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance.

(2) On promoting high-quality development with high-level science and technology

The main actors of development include regional subjects and enterprise subjects, so the research on promoting high-quality development with high-level science and technology mainly involves these two types of subjects. First, it is based on the perspective of regional development. Gao Yan believes that it is necessary to coordinate and solve the problems of insufficient R&D investment and unreasonable structure, promote the "three types of innovation" as a whole, smooth the innovation and entrepreneurship industrial chain, and promote the innovation and development and close integration of science and technology and economy. It is necessary to strengthen basic research, gather forces to carry out leading scientific and technological research, and enhance the ability of independent innovation; Carry out the cultivation and upgrading of the whole industrial chain of key industries, improve the technological innovation system, and improve the overall quality of the industrial innovation system; Clarify the leading position of enterprise innovation, promote the organic integration of production, education and research, and consolidate the ability to transform scientific and technological achievements; Focus on the cultivation of high-level innovative talents, deepen the reform of the development system of scientific and technological talents, stimulate the innovation vitality of talents, and empower high-quality development. The second is based on the perspective of enterprise development. Feng Yancheng believes that efforts should be made to build a multi-level achievement cultivation system of basic frontier reserves, key core technology research, field tests, and promotion and application, and establish and improve the management mechanism of the whole life cycle of scientific research, innovation-driven transformation of achievements, talent introduction, cultivation and use of talents, and precise incentive salary distribution, so as to form a modern scientific and technological research and development system that supports and leads the development of engineering technology; Create a diversified achievement transformation model of "independent transformation, integration of R&D and manufacturing, outsourcing cooperation, and technology licensing", establish a platform for effective connection between technology R&D and market development, and accelerate the growth of the value of scientific and technological achievements and industrial upgrading.

Judging from the existing research results, there have been a large number of literatures on innovation-driven development, and the number of papers on "high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance" has also increased in recent years, but most of them are discussed from the policy and application level, and most of them follow the existing research framework of innovation-driven development, with more phenomenological descriptions and less mechanistic exploration, and the logical relationship between high-level scientific and technological innovation and high-quality development has not been fully revealed. Therefore, it is necessary to reveal the inevitable connection between high-level science and technology and high-quality development from the perspective of self-reliance and self-reliance, apply theory to practice, and put forward corresponding countermeasures.

Second, the internal logic of promoting high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance

There is a close intrinsic relationship between high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and high-quality development, which contains several pairs of dialectical relationships. The analysis of it is helpful to deeply understand the logical path of promoting high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance.

(1) The dialectical relationship between self-reliance and self-improvement

This is a proposition about the order of the two objects. Self-reliance can only be achieved in order to achieve self-reliance, and this is true for high-level scientific and technological development, as well as high-quality development. It has two aspects. On the one hand, scientific and technological innovation follows the law of self-reliance first and then self-improvement. As far as scientific and technological innovation is concerned, through imitation, introduction and market transactions, it is indeed possible to obtain new technologies in the short term and produce better technical benefits, but in the long run, it is difficult to achieve scientific and technological self-reliance, and it is even more difficult to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, and may even bring technical security and industrial security problems. China has a huge market advantage and a national institutional advantage in concentrating its efforts on major tasks, and not only has the ability to support scientific and technological self-reliance, but can also achieve more scientific and technological self-reliance and play a greater role in the adjustment of the world's scientific and technological pattern and order. On the other hand, development follows the law of self-reliance first and then self-reliance. For national development, in order to be self-reliant, we must first be self-reliant. The same is true for industrial development. In order to develop a country's industry, especially long-term and safe development, it must have the ability to develop self-reliance with scientific and technological self-reliance as the core; And only when key industrial technologies and links get rid of dependence on the outside world can we achieve development and self-improvement in the true sense. The third is to be self-reliant and self-reliant in science and technology first, and then to develop self-reliance and self-reliance. The premise of national independence is to be able to safeguard its own security, that is, to have the ability to guard against and resist aggression, stop armed subversion, and defend national sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and security. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a very important reason why many countries and regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America lost their independence and became colonies was that these countries and regions were defeated in the confrontation with the West's powerful military science and technology and were unable to resist foreign aggression. In other words, a country, especially a big country, cannot achieve self-reliance and self-reliance without its military and national defense strength, and the strength of military and national defense strength fundamentally depends on the strength of scientific and technological strength. In the same way, economic development must first require capital independence, and the reason why many countries cannot further develop their economies is because they are subject to foreign capital or private capital power groups. The premise of a country's capital independence is scientific and technological self-reliance, especially in the era of knowledge economy, and a country's high-quality development must be based on a country's high-level science and technology.

(2) The dialectical relationship between self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology and independent development

Science and technology are the support of development, and self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology are the basis for promoting independent development. Only when a country has its own independent industrial technology can it achieve real industrial development. Because any form of technological cooperation and technology trading can only guarantee technological stability for a period of time, changes in the balance of political power, military confrontation, economic conflicts, natural disasters and other factors may cause such cooperation and transactions to be interrupted, thus affecting the development process of a country. Taking the trade dispute between Japan and the Republic of Korea in recent years as an example, due to the deterioration of trade relations between the two countries, the mutual imposition of export controls and import restrictions has seriously affected the security of the industrial chain and supply chain on which the two countries are closely dependent. For example, Japan is a major producer of three semiconductor raw materials, such as "photoresist", "high-purity hydrogen fluoride" and "fluoropolyimide", which are indispensable raw materials for Korean semiconductor companies, and the trade conflict has had a serious impact on their production and business activities. Even if it is a molded product or equipment, if a country does not master the key core technology, it may also be controlled by others everywhere.

Science and technology are the driving force for development, and the degree of development depends on the height of scientific and technological innovation. To draw a blueprint for development, we must first draw a blueprint for science and technology. For example, the layout of national strategic emerging industries must be synchronized with the layout of national strategic scientific and technological forces. Latin America, for example, had high poverty rates for the 25 years since, despite its relatively high economic development until the 80s. Due to the lack of attention to R&D investment in science and technology, coupled with the continuous decline in total factor productivity, it is difficult for Latin American countries to transform from an export-oriented economy of primary products in the early stage of development to an economy driven by scientific and technological innovation. At the end of the day, the inability of science and technology to be self-reliant is an important reason why Latin American countries are trapped in the "middle-income trap".

(3) The dialectical relationship between high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and high-quality development

Technological self-reliance and self-reliance are different in degree, level, environmental advantages and strategies, and will lead to different development effects. A lower level of scientific and technological self-reliance can only support a general level of development. For example, in the early stage of reform and opening up, the science and technology mastered by the mainland could support the development of labor-intensive industries that required relatively low technical skills. At present, the mainland has entered a stage of high-quality development, and the original technological accumulation can no longer fully meet the needs of the new situation of development. While strengthening basic research, we should focus on key core technologies, "optimize the layout of basic disciplines, support the development of key disciplines, emerging disciplines, unpopular disciplines and weak disciplines", and focus on overcoming a series of "bottleneck" technical problems, including key, frontier, platform and common technologies.

Science and technology are the primary productive forces, and treating science and technology as productive forces is an important viewpoint of Marxist political economy. According to Marx, "only the capitalist mode of production put natural science at the service of the direct process of production for the first time, and at the same time, the development of production, in turn, provided the means for the theoretical subjugation of nature." The mission of science acquisition is to be a means of producing wealth, to be a means of enrichment". In the era of knowledge economy, science and technology have become the most important force to promote development, and high-level science and technology are inevitably needed to support high-quality development. Only by deeply understanding the intrinsic relationship between high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and high-quality development can we completely abandon the dependence of scientific and technological development on the outside.

High-level science and technology and high-quality development are intrinsically consistent. "High-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way", and high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement are the focus of the current mainland's scientific and technological innovation and development and the only way for high-quality development. Self-reliance can be individual development, while self-improvement must be coordinated development. To achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, it is necessary to properly handle the relationship between the development of our own country and the development of other countries and the development of the world, and promote win-win cooperation among all countries in the world.

3. Practical problems faced by promoting high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance

Development can be divided into active and passive development, connotative development and extensive development. The high-quality development and transformation of the mainland has put forward new requirements for scientific and technological innovation capabilities, and it is urgent to establish a benign mechanism to promote high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and promote the coordinated development of the two. It is necessary to further stimulate the development initiative through high-level scientific and technological independent research and development; It is necessary to further respond to the new requirements of high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological innovation; It is necessary to further promote the realization of development and self-improvement with the support of self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology.

Fourth, the mainland chooses the path to promote high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance

Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony of the special seminar for major leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels to study and implement the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, stressing that "the most essential feature of building a new development pattern is to achieve a high level of self-reliance and self-reliance". It is necessary to further promote high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and independent innovation, and comprehensively strengthen and upgrade the strategic deployment of scientific and technological innovation. In particular, we should take the construction of a new national system of scientific and technological innovation in the new era as a breakthrough, based on scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and accelerate the research of key core technologies. self-reliance in science and technology to effectively support development and self-reliance; high-quality development to drive high-level scientific and technological innovation; plan an independent development strategy according to the requirements of high-quality development; Empower high-quality development in specialized fields with professional and high-level science and technology; Promote high-level scientific and technological innovation and high-quality development based on the goal of self-reliance and self-reliance.

5. Summary

In recent years, the mainland's high-level science and technology have developed rapidly, and the pace of self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology has been constantly moving forward. For example, the innovation level of the mainland's international science and technology innovation center and comprehensive national science center has continued to improve, and Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are among the top 10 global science and technology clusters. Self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology is an inevitable requirement for a big country to become a strong country, and its connotations include: constantly improving the national scientific and technological innovation system with the help of institutional advantages; formulate a scientific and rational science and technology development strategy; use national strategic scientific and technological forces to support the implementation of national development strategies; Make good use of the permeability and diffusion of science and technology to support and serve the overall situation of national development and security; Continuously enhance its important position in the global scientific and technological innovation system. High-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement to promote high-quality development has rich connotations, that is, to achieve independent development, we must first achieve scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance; High-level science and technology and high-quality development are intrinsically consistent; Accelerating the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement is the only way to promote high-quality development. To promote high-quality development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, we should innovate systems and mechanisms to effectively support development and self-reliance with scientific and technological self-reliance; Combine high-level science and technology to plan high-level development; Based on the goal of self-reliance and self-reliance, we should grasp the intrinsic connection between high-level science and technology and high-quality development, and implement the national innovation-driven development strategy at a higher level and at a higher level.

(Author: Zhou Yong, Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Source: Quest Issue 1, 2024