By Zheng Changzhong
Director, Center for Party Building and National Development, Fudan University, a Shanghai University Think Tank
Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University
China has just issued a policy document on developing new quality productive forces. Put simply, new quality productive forces are new forms of productive forces driven primarily by scientific and technological innovation. Behind this document lies a logic worth noting: China is moving from breakthroughs in isolated areas toward systemic integration.
What Has Changed?
Over the past few years, China has undertaken extensive exploration in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, biomanufacturing and new energy. Breakthroughs have been made in various fields, and regions across the country have been making their own plans. This resembles the early stage of a campaign, when forces are concentrated at several key points to break through critical barriers.
This approach has its rationale. It enables resources to be concentrated quickly to achieve landmark results in frontier fields. However, problems have also emerged. When technological breakthroughs are not matched by the capacity of industries to take them up, achievements can easily remain at the stage of prototypes and exhibition pieces. Meanwhile, separate development initiatives across regions can lead to homogeneous competition and redundant investment.
China’s development of new quality productive forces has moved beyond the initial stage of going from zero to one and entered a phase of integrated advancement—from one to many, and from many to a system. This is the broader context in which the policy document was issued.
Why Now?
Some may ask: Systemic integration is important, but why now? Why not two years ago, or three years from now?
The answer is that four key variables have reached a critical threshold at almost the same time.
Technological accumulation has reached a critical threshold. In fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology and biomanufacturing, breakthroughs are shifting from isolated advances to clusters of breakthroughs. Cross-fertilization among technologies has become a major source of new breakthroughs, making it increasingly difficult to make progress by relying on individual technologies alone.
Industrial scale has reached a critical threshold. Emerging industries have already attained considerable scale, but homogeneous development across regions is beginning to undermine the quality of development, while the marginal benefits of expanding scale are diminishing.
Institutional conditions have reached a critical threshold. Earlier pilot programs have accumulated extensive experience, creating an urgent need to move from fragmented policies toward a systemic institutional framework that provides enterprises with stable and predictable expectations.
The international environment has reached a critical threshold. External technological restrictions and supply chain restructuring continue to exert pressure, requiring China’s domestic innovation system to shift from fragmented exploration toward coordinated efforts across the entire system.
With all four variables reaching a critical threshold simultaneously, systemic integration has shifted from an optional course of action to a necessity.
What Does Systemic Integration Mean?
Systemic integration is neither a simple addition of policies nor merely coordination among government departments. It means that the five dimensions of technology, industry, institutions, talent and governance no longer operate independently, but instead form an organic whole in which they support and drive one another.
The measures set out in the policy document can be understood from three dimensions.
Integration at the level of productive forces. The document promotes the upgrading of productive forces at three levels: technological breakthroughs provide the source; the reconfiguration of production factors enables the transition from individual technological advances to integrated systems; and industrial upgrading drives the overall advancement of traditional industries, emerging industries and industries of the future. These three levels do not follow a linear progression. Rather, they empower one another and form a closed loop of iterative improvement.
Integration at the level of production relations. The institutional environment and talent mechanisms are the two pillars for adapting to new quality productive forces. Institutions address whether production factors can flow smoothly, while talent determines who activates these factors. The document seeks to partially decouple the evaluation of researchers from the excessive emphasis on academic titles and papers, while facilitating the movement of talent among universities, research institutes and enterprises. This enables institutional reform and talent development to advance in step with each other.
Integration at the level of implementation. The document calls for balancing a coordinated national approach with adaptation to local conditions, establishing the new before abolishing the old while pursuing steady progress, and coordinating efforts among departments with risk prevention and control. The core objective is orderly development: encouraging bold exploration without disorderly expansion; providing policy support without abusing policy measures; and unleashing local initiative without allowing regions to act independently of one another.
What Does This Mean for the World?
The significance of this document extends beyond China itself.
Humanity is at a critical juncture in the transition from industrial civilization to digital and intelligent civilization. Industrial civilization is characterized by standardization, large-scale production and concentration, while digital and intelligent civilization is characterized by networking, intelligence and green development. The transition between these two forms of civilization cannot be achieved through advances in individual technologies alone. It requires an overall restructuring of technological, industrial, institutional and value systems.
New quality productive forces provide the material foundation for this civilizational transformation, while systemic integration serves as the methodological bridge for translating this material foundation into a new form of civilization. Without systemic integration, individual technological breakthroughs may become isolated islands; the development of emerging industries may become trapped in involution-style competition; and institutional innovation may lag behind practical developments. The civilizational transition would then remain confined to individual areas, unable to achieve an overall leap forward.
At the current stage, Chinese modernization and the rise of intelligent civilization have converged at a historically significant juncture. This convergence gives the systemic integration of new quality productive forces a distinctive civilizational mission: domestically, to forge the soul of a Chinese modern civilization moving toward consolidation; internationally, to establish the guiding spirit of a new form of intelligent civilization—ensuring that intelligent civilization has not only speed, but also warmth and direction.
A Methodological Approach Worth Sharing
If one central conclusion is to be drawn, it is this: systemic integration does not mean rushing into large-scale development. Rather, it represents a model of modernization that proceeds at a measured pace, in an orderly manner, with due regard for local conditions and clear bottom lines.
A measured pace ensures sustainability; order ensures predictability; adaptation ensures implementation; and clear bottom lines make long-term progress possible.
The significance of this document lies not only in the measures it sets out, but also in the methodology it establishes: replacing isolated breakthroughs with systemic integration, and fragmented efforts with ecosystem building. This is both an inevitable requirement for China’s development of new quality productive forces and an important sign that Chinese modernization is moving toward maturity.
From breakthroughs in isolated areas to systemic integration, from industrial upgrading to civilizational transformation—this is a path from breaking through initial challenges to establishing an overall framework, and from catching up to leading.
*The views and opinions expressed in the articles are solely those of the individual authors and do not reflect the position of the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Journalist Network.