The Shanghai Financial Work Party Committee has recently held a Theoretical Study Central Group Study (Enlarged) Meeting online and offline, in which, Shi Jianxun, a member of the Shanghai Expert Group for Publicizing the Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress and a professor from the Department of Economics and Finance, Tongji SEM, was invited to give a guidance lecture, and participants discussed and exchanged opinions regarding the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress and Xi Jinping’s economic thinking, thinking on ecological civilization and thinking on the rule of law. Xin Yadong, Secretary of the Shanghai Financial Work Party Committee, presided over and spoke at the meeting.

At the study meeting, Professor Shi gave a study guidance lecture entitled “Building a Modern Financial System to Contribute to the Building a Great Modern Country” according to the strategic need for building a great modern country and the reality of China’s financial development and Shanghai’s international financial center development, and the lecture focused on learning experience and thinking in four aspects: firstly, it’s important to fully comprehend and grasp the significant implications of Chinese modernization as well as the pressing need to build a modern financial system; secondly, it’s important to deepen financial reform and opening up to provide strong support for high-quality development; thirdly, it’s important to vigorously develop inclusive finance to effectively advance common prosperity; fourthly, it’s important to energetically develop green finance to promote the green transformation of development.

A great modern country cannot be built without a modern financial system since it is not only an essential component of a great modern country but also a necessary precondition and support for achieving this goal. The Shanghai International Financial Center (IFC) is a crucial component of the modern financial system, and as a long-term national strategy, Shanghai IFC development should support China’s process of becoming a superpower. Shanghai IFC development is faced with a new situation and new challenges, especially in recent years with substantial changes in the domestic and international situations, development patterns and settings. It’s critical to strengthen political stances as well as Shanghai IFC development’s objectives and benchmarks. Shanghai IFC development should be repositioned and resumed to create brilliance, with a focus on the building of a great modern country and the development of a modern financial system, in line with the 14th Five-Year Plan and the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress.

According to Professor Shi, high-quality financing is a prerequisite for high-quality development, which is the historical responsibility and inevitable requirement for China’s financial sector based on the reality and future of China’s economic development. For high-quality development, China’s financial sector should concentrate on the supply-side structural reform, and its financial system should increase longer-term capital supply to enhance the resilience and security of the industrial chain and supply chain.

A modern financial system, in Professor Shi’s opinion, is a prerequisite for achieving common prosperity. The modern financial market is not only a way to allocate resources across time and space but also an important mechanism for distributing social wealth. The modern financial market is a significant contributor to an unequal or deteriorating social wealth distribution because of its function and its inherent flaws. The reference of keeping the means of accumulating wealth well-regulated for the first time in the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China affirms the importance of wealth accumulation in China’s modern development process. Accordingly, the financial market and financial regulation must focus more on the compliance and legality of the wealth acquisition and accumulation process, support the gradual development of a mechanism for regulating wealth accumulation, and promote the equity and sustainability of the country’s wealth accumulation.