Build China into a Sci-Tech Powerhouse

Build China into a Sci-Tech Powerhouse*

June 24, 2024

In developing science and technology in the new era, we have continued to expand our understanding of the contributing factors and accumulated a wealth of important experience. This experience has taught us the need to:
• uphold overall CPC leadership, strengthen the Central Committee’s centralized, unified leadership over work related to science and technology, observe general trends, assess the overall situation, and address fundamental issues, to ensure that our undertakings in science and technology always move in the right direction;
• follow an independent innovation path with Chinese characteristics by being self-reliant and hardworking, leveraging the strength of China’s socialist system in concentrating resources on major projects, increasing our country’s strength and self-reliance in science and technology, and keeping us well-positioned in vital areas of science, technology and development;
• drive development through innovation by heightening the awareness that innovation is development and innovation is the future, and relying on sci-tech innovation to lead high-quality development and ensure a high level of security;
• follow the strategic guidelines of targeting global sci-tech frontiers, serving the economy, meeting major national needs, and improving people’s lives and health, to strengthen planning for sci-tech innovation at all stages and in all fields, and increase our overall sci-tech strength and innovation capacity;
• drive deeper reform to stimulate vitality in innovation by resolutely casting aside outdated mindsets and institutional obstacles that hinder sci-tech innovation, and utilizing our institutional strengths to develop cutting-edge science and technology;
• form a positive interplay between education, talent development, and science and technology by implementing and coordinating the strategies for invigorating China through science and education, for building a talent powerhouse, and for pursuing innovation-driven development, and by promoting simultaneous progress in education, talent training, and sci-tech innovation;
• nurture a culture of innovation by carrying on the legacy of innovation from the best of traditional Chinese culture, by creating a favorable environment that is tolerant of failure and encourages exploration, and by fostering a social climate of respecting science and pursuing innovation;
• extend the benefits of science and technology to all humanity by engaging in international cooperation, pursuing a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, and contributing Chinese insights and strengths to addressing global challenges and promoting human development and progress.

All this is valuable experience and must be supported, enriched and developed in the long term.

At present, a new revolution in science, technology and industry is well under way. Scientific research is extending its frontiers to the most macroscopic and the most microscopic worlds, challenging extreme conditions, and making forays into the depth of interdisciplinary fields. As a result, it is steadily pushing the boundaries of human understanding. The world has entered an unprecedented period of intensive and active technological innovation. Cutting-edge technologies are emerging, including artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and biotechnology, resulting in a stream of transformations. Change on a scale unseen in a century is accelerating. Scientific and technological revolution is interwoven with contention between major countries, and high technologies have become the front line and main battlefield of international competition, profoundly reshaping the global order and development dynamic. Although our country has made considerable progress in science and technology, it is still relatively weak in its capacity for original innovation. It depends on other countries for some core technologies in key fields, and is short of world-leading scientists and technological professionals. Therefore, we must foster a stronger sense of urgency, further intensify our efforts in sci-tech innovation, and gain an edge in competition and future development.

The 20th CPC National Congress established the central task of building China into a great modern socialist country and advancing national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization. Chinese modernization will not be achieved without modernizing science and technology. To foster new drivers of high-quality development, we must rely on innovation. We must fully understand the role of science and technology as a strategic prerequisite and fundamental support. We must focus on our strategic goal of building China into a sci-tech powerhouse by 2035, strengthen top-level design and holistic planning, and speed up efforts to achieve greater strength and self-reliance in science and technology.

The sci-tech powerhouse that China strives to become requires world-leading scientific and technological strength and innovation capacity in order to drive significant overall progress in economic strength, defense capability, and overall national strength, improve human wellbeing, and promote global development. To achieve this goal, China must have great capacity for basic research and original innovation to produce major original and disruptive research results on a continuing basis. It must possess the power to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, in order to provide strong support for high-quality development and a high level of security. It must demonstrate great international influence, take a leading role, and become a global center for research and innovation. It must be strong in gathering and training capable talent to build up the ranks of world-leading scientists and technological professionals as well as its strengths in strategic science and technology. Finally, it must have a potent governance system and capacity for science and technology, and form a world-class innovation ecosystem and research environment.

There remains only 11 years to achieve the goal we have set — building our country into a sci-tech powerhouse by 2035. We must work hard, seize the day, demonstrate perseverance, resolve, and tenacity, and take solid steps to realize this strategic goal.

First, we should fully leverage the strengths of the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide and step up efforts to increase our country’s strength and self-reliance in science and technology. To create a powerful synergy for advancing innovation, we must improve the system through which the CPC Central Committee exercises centralized, unified leadership over the work related to science and technology. We must strengthen coordination in strategic planning, policies and measures, major tasks, research personnel, resources and platforms, regional innovation and other areas, and build collaborative and efficient decision-making and command systems, and organizing and executing systems. To collectively facilitate breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, we must enable the market to play the decisive role in allocating resources, ensure that the government better fulfills its functions, and mobilize the initiative of industries, universities, and research institutes. To increase the collaborative capability of our national innovation system, we must make greater efforts to develop our country’s strengths in strategic science and technology, optimize the roles of different innovators, make maximal use of our resources, and improve the system of national laboratories. To develop a competitive edge and seize the strategic initiative, we must maintain resolve, make informed choices as to what areas we should prioritize, give particular attention to our strategic needs, devise plans in a number of key fields, and identify and implement a series of major projects. To lay a solid foundation for sci-tech innovation, we must strengthen the organization of basic research, improve the investment mechanism which combines competition-based support with stable funding, and intensify collaborative research on major scientific issues. Concurrently, we should encourage free experimentation and work hard to come up with original foundational theories and master underlying technological principles.

Second, we should make solid efforts to promote the deep integration of sci-tech innovation and industrial innovation, and boost new quality productive forces. This integration is based on the increase of high-quality services in science and technology. To buttress independent, secure industrial and supply chains that we can fully control in critical sectors, we must focus on key fields and weak links in industrial modernization, and intensify research on technology bottlenecks such as integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, basic software, advanced materials, scientific instruments, and core seed resources. We must target critical areas of future scientific, technological and industrial development, accelerate innovation in fields like information technology, artificial intelligence, quantum science and technology, biotechnology, new energy, and new materials, and nurture and develop emerging industries and future industries. We must actively apply new technologies in order to transform and upgrade traditional industries and promote high-end, intelligent and green development.

The key to integration lies in boosting the status of enterprises as the main players in innovation. We must give full play to leading sci-tech enterprises, encourage small and medium-sized enterprises and private enterprises to innovate, and help enterprises lead or participate in major national projects. In order to promote integrated innovation led by enterprises between industries, universities, and research institutes, we must encourage enterprises to engage in close cooperation with universities and research institutes. To meet industry needs, they should identify research topics together, conduct joint research in key bottlenecks, and collaborate to train high-tech talent.

The pathway to integration is better application of advances in science and technology. To effectuate the transformation of more research results from prototypes to products and to industrial applications, we must fully leverage China’s strengths in its solid industrial base and in its huge domestic market, make greater efforts to build our national technology transfer system, provide better policy support and market services, and facilitate the promotion, application, iteration and upgrading of independently developed products. We must ramp up financial support for technology companies, and direct financial capital to startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, long-term programs, and core technologies in key fields.

Third, we should drive deeper all-round reform of systems and mechanisms underpinning sci-tech development in order to spur innovation and creativity. This reform must be goal-driven and problem-oriented. To address the challenges hindering our country’s sci-tech innovation, such as insufficient organization and collaboration and the scattered or duplicated allocation of resources, we must drive deeper reform in our management systems. This includes coordinating the development of various types of innovation platforms, and improving resource coordination and organization of innovative forces. We must optimize the distribution of regional sci-tech innovation centers, strengthen coordination and interplay between central and local governments, and build innovation centers with global influence. To raise the effectiveness of investment in sci-tech innovation, we must improve the management of related programs, expand reform of the mechanisms for the allocation, management and use of research funds, and give more decision-making power to research institutes and personnel.

Despite recent progress in reducing the burdens on researchers, many still express concerns over their substantial non-academic workload. We should discard the Four Overemphases, establish new standards, and improve the category-specific appraisal system and evaluation mechanism to bring them into line with research norms. To ensure proper rewards for researchers, and to release innovation vitality, we must improve our systems of incentives, including awards, income distribution, and the right to share in the benefits of their research results. We must put an end to the practice of conferring excessive honorary titles and institutional labels, so that researchers can focus on research, rather than be distracted and overwhelmed by the pressure of bidding for projects, publishing papers, applying for awards, and vying for resources.

Fourth, we should promote educational development, sci-tech innovation, and talent training in unison, and create a competitive edge in talent. Innovation relies on talent, and the training of talent relies on education. Therefore, these three undertakings are inherently consistent and reinforce each other. We need to apply systems thinking, adopt a holistic approach to the reform of the systems and mechanisms of educational development, sci-tech innovation, and talent training, and enable research institutes and higher education institutions to work together in talent training. Our goal is to accelerate the formation of a large, well-structured corps of high-quality innovators.

Currently, China faces a significant structural imbalance, where talent cultivation fails to meet the requirements of sci-tech innovation. To effectively increase our capacity and strengthen our performance in nurturing talent, we must optimize the program structures of institutions of higher learning, and apply new approaches to talent training. Top priority should be given to speeding up efforts to build a corps of talent with expertise of strategic importance. We must focus on training science strategists, first-class scientists and innovation teams, outstanding engineers, master technicians, and highly skilled workers. To give more young scientists the opportunity to demonstrate their outstanding capabilities, we must give priority to their training. We should fully trust them, make the best use of their talents, carefully guide them, and look after their needs.

We must introduce talent policies that are more robust, open and effective. We should move faster to develop an internationally competitive institutional framework, and build China into a global innovation center that pools intellectual resources from across the world.

Talented people need the nourishment of a culture of innovation to allow them to grow and develop. We should steadily foster a social climate of respecting work, knowledge, talent and creativity, promote the ethos of scientists, and encourage researchers to aim high, be dedicated to the country, and remain committed to innovation. We must improve academic integrity and conduct, and foster a clean and honest research ecosystem.

Fifth, we should act on the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity and promote international cooperation in science and technology. Scientific and technological progress is a central theme of the world today. The right path forward is to maintain opening up and continue to engage in international cooperation. The more complex the international environment, the more we should be open-minded and engage with the world. We should determine the right balance between opening up and security, and achieve greater strength and self-reliance in science and technology through international cooperation.

We should follow through on the International Science and Technology Cooperation Initiative, expand intergovernmental and non-governmental channels of exchange and cooperation, and bring into play the role of platforms including the Belt and Road Initiative. We should take a leading role in carrying out international Big Science plans and projects, and support research conducted jointly by scientists from different countries. We should take active measures to become an integral part of the global innovation network and a full participant in global science and technology governance. We should work with other countries to create an open, fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory environment for scientific and technological progress, and to jointly address global challenges including climate change, food security, and energy security, so that science and technology can bring greater benefits to humanity.

In our effort to build China into a sci-tech powerhouse, our science and technology community shoulders a heavy responsibility and a great mission. I hope that members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as outstanding representatives of the science and technology community, will lead the charge and take on your responsibilities. I hope you will serve as pioneers in science and technology, become leaders in major programs, act as guides for young researchers and role models of the ethos of scientists, and make a greater contribution to China’s progress in this domain. I hope that you scientists and engineers can integrate your academic aspirations into the great cause of building China into a sci-tech powerhouse. I hope that you will forge ahead with determination, strive for excellence, and achieve new triumphs that answer the call of our times and meet the expectations of our people.

Building China into a sci-tech powerhouse is the shared responsibility of the entire Party and the whole country. Party committees and governments at all levels must earnestly implement the decisions and plans of the Central Committee, strengthen their organizational, management and leadership role in science and technology work, and do their best to provide services and support. Leading officials at all levels must attach importance to the acquisition of new knowledge, and increase their capabilities in leading and advancing science and technology work.

Building China into a sci-tech powerhouse has been one of our consistent goals since the mid-19th century, and generation after generation of Chinese have striven to achieve it. Now, our generation has taken on this historic task. We should set soaring aspirations, be determined and united, redouble our efforts, strive for progress, and forge ahead towards our great goal of building China into a sci-tech powerhouse.

* Part of the speech at a joint session of the National Science and Technology Conference, the National Science and Technology Award Conference, the 21st General Assembly of the Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the 17th General Assembly of the Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)