Reinforce Strategic Capabilities in Emerging Fields

Reinforce Strategic Capabilities in Emerging Fields*

March 7, 2024

As an important component of China’s national strategies and strategic capabilities, our strategic capabilities in emerging fields are essential to high-quality economic and social development, to national security, and to the ability to seize the initiative in military struggles. They are therefore of major significance in building a great country and advancing national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernization. In order to strengthen strategic capabilities in emerging fields, we must forge a greater sense of mission and expand reform and innovation.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, we have made coordinated efforts to build up strategic emerging industries and new combat forces, and achieved a series of significant advances. After the 20th CPC National Congress in 2022, the Party Central Committee proposed to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces in pursuit of high-quality development. This has provided a prime opportunity for building strategic capabilities in emerging fields. We must maintain our momentum, acquire a better understanding of the development dynamics in these emerging fields, and enable new quality productive forces and new quality combat capabilities to effectively integrate with and boost each other.

We must focus on our priorities and ensure the effective implementation of strategies and plans related to building strategic capabilities in emerging fields. In order to strengthen our maritime governance capabilities, we must take a coordinated approach to ensuring maritime military readiness, protecting maritime rights and interests, and developing the marine economy. We must also optimize our aerospace configuration to build China’s aerospace system. We must build a cyberspace defense system to strengthen our capacity to safeguard national cybersecurity. We must reinforce the coordinated implementation of major intelligent technology projects and step up the application of advanced outcomes.

The development of emerging fields essentially stems from innovation and application of advanced science and technology. We must boost our confidence in innovation, rely on our own strength, proceed from realities, and step up independent and original innovation. In doing so, we will foster drivers of growth for new quality productive forces and new quality combat capabilities. We must have an accurate understanding of the characteristics of integrated development in emerging fields, strengthen integrated innovation and comprehensive application, and achieve multiple breakthroughs in different fields.

In order to increase our strategic capabilities in emerging fields, we must highlight these fields as a priority in deeper all-round reform and create an innovation ecosystem characterized by self-reliance, openness, inclusiveness and vitality. We must improve systems and mechanisms for aligning supply with demand, coordinating planning, and sharing resources, and advance standards generalization, if we are to increase the overall efficiency of emerging fields. Targeting increases in new quality combat capabilities, we must expand structural reform and optimize the configuration of science, technology and industry for national defense. We must strengthen mechanisms for quick response to and rapid conversion of advanced technologies, and build innovation chains, industrial chains, and value chains tailored to the development of emerging fields. We must update our thinking, be bold in innovating, and explore the development and deployment of new combat forces to fully unleash and boost new quality combat capabilities.

* Main points of the speech at a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force during the Second Session of the 14th National People’s Congress.

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