High-Quality Development Requires the Guidance of New Theories on Productive Forces

The forces of production form the material prerequisite for all social existence. They are the most dynamic and revolutionary factors promoting social progress and serve as the key yardstick of social development. As such, a fundamental goal of all CPC's endeavors has been to promote the development of productive forces and, on this basis, to continuously improve people's living standards.

The fundamental task of socialism is to release and develop productive forces. The strength of socialism lies in its ability to enable faster and better development of productive forces than capitalism.

After the founding of the PRC, the CPC led the Chinese people in completing in mere decades a process of industrialization that took developed countries several centuries, turning China into the world's second-largest economy and creating a miracle of rapid economic development rarely seen in history. One pivotal reason for this achievement is the great importance we have attached to the productive forces as the key yardstick of development. From the start, we have worked to release and develop productive forces and steadily enhanced the composite strength of our socialist country.

On entering the new era in 2012, China moved into a new stage of economic development. With a commitment to high-quality development as the paramount principle, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core has worked consistently to release and develop the productive forces, issuing a host of decisions and plans that have helped steer China's economy onto a path of higher quality, marked by more efficient, fairer, and more sustainable and secure development. These efforts have led to significant improvements and groundbreaking developments in China's productive forces, thus paving the way for a new type of productive force to emerge.

At the same time, however, it must be noted that there are still numerous bottlenecks impeding China's high-quality development. For example, we are still reliant on others for some core technologies in key fields; our industry is still not strong enough in spite of its size and falls short of excellence despite having a complete range of capabilities; and we face significant pressure in making the transition to green and low-carbon production modes and ways of life.

To further promote high-quality development, therefore, we must foster new industries, models, and growth drivers and ensure that core technologies in key fields rest firmly in our hands. This will enable us to establish a modern industrial system that is self-supporting, controllable, secure, reliable, and highly competitive, as well as a green, low-carbon, and circular economy that delivers qualitative and innovation-driven growth.

Ultimately, all this requires bigger breakthroughs and developments in terms of productive forces, which in turn, poses a new task from a theoretical standpoint, namely, deepening our understanding of new quality productive forces.

General Secretary Xi Jinping's conclusions on this subject have defined the focus for high-quality development. They reflect a thorough understanding of the laws governing the development of productive forces, as well as the prominent development issues facing China, constitute an in-depth summary of the laws underlying our economic development, and represent a further innovation in Marxist theory on productive forces. As an important component of Xi Jinping's thinking on the economy, they hold major theoretical and practical significance.

Editor: Yi Xiaowei