Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the CPC Central Committee has attached great importance to innovation and has comprehensively promoted innovation. How to understand the profound philosophical connotations of the “Innovative Development Concept “? How to do a good job in the great article of innovation and promote the accelerated development of new quality productive forces? Recently, Professor Chen Qiang from the Department of Management Science and Engineering of Tongji-SEM, Professor Du Debin from East China Normal University, and Deputy Director Tang Yunyi from the Institute of Applied Economics of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, accepted an interview with Wenhui Daily on topics related to innovation. The following is the original text published.

When presiding over a symposium on economic and social development in some provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in Shanghai, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that it is necessary to place the development of new quality productivity in accordance with local conditions in a more prominent strategic position. We must improve the national innovation system and stimulate the vitality of various innovation entities. We must coordinate the promotion of the integrated development of education, science and technology talents, and lay a solid foundation and strategic support for the development of new quality productivity.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee has attached great importance to innovation and comprehensively promoted innovation. How to understand the profound philosophical connotation of the “Innovative Development Concept “? How to do a good job in innovation and promote the accelerated development of new quality productivity? This newspaper invites three experts to discuss and communicate.

Q:Innovation is the first driving force.  “Innovative Development Concept ” occupies the top priority in the new development concept. Implementing the innovation-driven development strategy is a major strategy proposed by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core based on the overall situation and facing the future. How to understand the philosophical connotation of the “Innovative Development Concept “?

Chen Qiang: The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed the new development concept of “innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing”, which is a systematic construction of the core concept of high-quality development. “To adhere to innovative development, we must place innovation at the core of the overall national development”; and “let innovation run through all work of the Party and the country”, highlighting the primacy of the  “Innovative Development Concept “. Innovation is an inherent meaning in the issue of development. It is not only the primary driving force for development, but also the model change and path choice of development. Understanding the  “innovative development concept ” requires dialectical thinking. We must not only focus on stimulating new production relations through technological revolutionary breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and deep transformation and upgrading of industries, but also plan to build new production relations from factory layout, manufacturing processes, production organization and management system at the micro level, to corporate governance, regional coordination and industrial ecology at the meso-level, and then to development concepts, institutional supply and resource allocation at the macro level.

Du Debin: The  “Innovative Development Concept ” deeply integrates philosophical wisdom and provides scientific guidance for development practice. Innovative development is based on respect for objective laws. As a creative activity of human progress, innovation must follow the laws of its own development and the laws of mutual change in quality. The “Innovative Development Concept” not only respects the laws, but also emphasizes the use of subjective initiative and places innovation in social and historical conditions to comprehensively consider it, reflecting the dialectical application of the laws of practice. Innovation and development are closely linked to the pulse of changes in the times. The domestic economy has entered a new normal of high-quality development, facing the challenge of “three phases of superposition”, and the traditional model is unsustainable; internationally, the global scientific and technological revolution has reshaped the economic pattern, “Made in China” needs to break through cost dependence, and scientific and technological innovation has become the key to breaking the deadlock. The “Innovative Development Concept” accurately grasps the laws of contradiction transformation, uses scientific and technological breakthroughs as a fulcrum to leverage the transformation of development momentum, and meets the needs of internal and external situation changes. Innovation and development focus on leaping productivity. As the decisive factor of productivity, scientific and technological innovation is not only the key to solving the main contradictions in society in the new era, but also the engine to achieve high-quality development.

Tang Yunyi: Innovation has become the core key to decoding the miracle of China’s development. Placing innovation at the top of the new development concepts is a profound understanding of the laws of human innovation and the development of human society, and it is the key to enhancing national competitiveness. Marx believed that technological progress is not only a core element of economic modernization and industrial rise, capable of constantly destroying old economic cycles, establishing new ones, and creating more profits, but also plays a crucial role in economic structural adjustment and social relationship transformation. At present, the world is in a period of technological fusion, and technological innovation has become the most crucial variable in reshaping the global competitive landscape and enhancing the comparative advantages of various countries.

Placing innovation at the top of the new development concepts embodies China’s original development philosophy of “people-centeredness”, providing a brand-new option for the path of human modernization. Since the Industrial Revolution, especially since World War II, the Western technological paradigm has formed a linear chain of “basic research – commercial transformation – market monopoly”. Developed countries maintain technological hegemony through patent barriers and standard monopolies, while developing countries are trapped in a “technology introduction – backwardness – re-introduction” cycle system, and the global innovation gap has become entrenched. In the era of digital economy, China’s innovation concept injects the value core of “people-centeredness”, which is a transcendence of the development model and a new paradigm revolution in human innovation and development, opening up new paths for humanity to break through the technical philosophical predicament of “Western centrism”.

Q:From emerging business models to new ecosystems, from fresh tracks to novel opportunities, and from productivity to new quality productive forces, it is through embracing the “new” that we can lead trends and seize the initiative. Looking ahead, how can we anchor development in meeting domestic demand, accelerate the establishment of a robust internal demand system, vigorously advance technological innovation and other forms of innovation, and cultivate more new growth drivers and pivotal points?

Chen Qiang: The strategy of fostering a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other is a strategic decision made by the CPC Central Committee in response to changes in domestic and international circumstances. To accelerate the establishment of a robust domestic demand system, it is essential to advance technological innovation and other forms of innovation across various sectors.

First, it is crucial to understand the demand characteristics of the domestic consumer market. In 2024, China’s total retail sales of consumer goods reached nearly 48.8 trillion yuan. Notably, retail sales of new energy vehicles surged to 10.899 million units, marking a 40.7% increase, with an annual penetration rate of 47.6%. Clearly, the domestic consumer market is not only vast and multi-tiered but also experiences rapid demand iteration. For instance, with people aged 60 and above accounting for over 22% of the population, China should accelerate the deployment of aging-friendly technological innovations and develop the “silver economy.” Similarly, after years of intensive urban construction, urban renewal—which enhances cityscapes and living standards—has become a key driver for expanding domestic demand. To this end, it is necessary not only to promote digital, intelligent, and green technological innovations in this field but also to drive institutional innovations in related workflows.

Second, China should leverage its world-leading infrastructure, efficient logistics, seamless information flow, and convenient payment systems to accelerate the innovation of consumption scenarios.

Third, efforts should be made to integrate culture with technology. From the breakout success of Black Myth: Wukong to the soaring popularity of Ne Zha 2, the convergence of cultural and technological innovation has won strong market acclaim. China boasts abundant cultural resources, including 44 UNESCO World Heritage sites and four mixed natural and cultural heritage sites. Greater emphasis should be placed on empowering cultural production and dissemination with digital and intelligent technologies to elevate the consumption potential of the cultural market.

Du Debin:Against the backdrop of global industrial chain restructuring and intensifying technological competition, China’s economy is reshaping its growth logic with a focus on “domestic circulation as the mainstay.” Moving toward the “new” is not only a short-term strategy to break through “bottleneck” constraints but also a long-term approach to drive supply-side upgrades through demand-side transformation and redefine industrial landscapes through technological innovation.

Domestic demand serves as both the “ballast” for high-quality development and the “compass” for industrial upgrading. Consumption upgrades are spurring new demands in sectors like health and elderly care, digital culture, and smart home technologies, compelling manufacturing to shift from “scale expansion” to “value deepening.” Meanwhile, rural revitalization and the rise of county-level economies are unlocking the consumption potential of rural areas, while the expansion of the middle-income group will bolster high-end market growth. Investments in new urbanization and urban renewal, coupled with industrial synergy, are equally crucial. New infrastructure projects, such as smart transportation, not only enhance public service efficiency but also provide real-world applications for the digital economy and smart cities, creating a virtuous cycle of “investment-consumption-industry.”

Innovation is the core driver for breaking technological barriers and reshaping supply quality. In the face of technological blockades, China must transition from passive defense to active innovation—exploring new technological pathways through architectural innovation and building symbiotic global tech networks via international collaboration. By redefining product standards through technological breakthroughs, improving manufacturing efficiency via process innovation, and upgrading value chains through evolving service models, China can strengthen its competitive edge.

Coordinated regional development is key to fostering new growth poles. Leveraging urban clusters like the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China aims to establish innovation corridors and industrial hubs. Supporting central and western regions in undertaking industrial transfers will help create a multi-node domestic demand network. At the same time, accelerating the development of open platforms such as pilot free trade zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port will attract global resources through institutional openness, fueling domestic innovation.

Domestic demand is the starting point, and innovation is the leverage. By building a robust internal demand system where “demand pulls supply and supply creates demand,” China can propel “new quality productive forces” from technological breakthroughs to industrial ecosystems, transforming “new opportunities” into sustainable growth momentum.

Tang Yunyi:Leveraging China’s unique advantages of “massive demand scale, complex application scenarios, and abundant data resources” to activate the enormous market potential of its 1.4 billion population serves not only as a stabilizing anchor to mitigate external risks amidst the current profound restructuring of global industrial chains, but also as a strategic foundation for cultivating new quality productive forces.

First, building a comprehensive “data” infrastructure to accurately identify consumer demand. This involves integrating data resources across production, distribution, and consumption chains, establishing cross-departmental data-sharing mechanisms, and jointly developing a national-level consumption big data platform. Breaking down data barriers between urban-rural and interregional systems enables tracking demand variations across different regions and demographics, identifying potential consumption growth points, and providing targeted guidance for supply-side reforms.

Second, reshaping an intelligent supply system to overcome resource misallocation bottlenecks. The manufacturing sector should establish an agile “demand-driven, intelligent design, flexible production” response system to drive full-chain digital transformation and meet customized product needs. The service sector should employ algorithmic optimization to build intelligent matching platforms, addressing simultaneous supply shortages and structural surpluses in fields like elderly care and healthcare.

Third, reconstructing smart logistics hubs to eliminate market circulation blockages.

Fourth, creating intelligent living scenarios to cultivate emerging demand drivers. Developing age-friendly digital interfaces will unlock the potential of the silver economy and Generation Z consumption.

Fifth, pioneering green consumption trends to expand future strategic depth. This entails fostering new growth engines such as new energy services, carbon asset management, and circular recycling industries, developing digital certification systems for green consumption, establishing open innovation platforms, and channeling consumer demand toward the front end of innovation chains.

Q:”When others calculate tariff accounts, we must calculate innovative accounts.” In the face of the tariff war launched by the United States, how can we firmly grasp the “bull’s nose” of innovation and effectively enhance the international competitiveness of Chinese companies?

Chen Qiang: Some scholars believe that China has an “open national innovation system.” This system has two drivers, government and market, and uses two types of resources and knowledge reserves in the domestic and international markets, two types of resources and knowledge reserves, forming a system characteristics of “dual drive, dual market, and dual resources” with Chinese characteristics. Under the impact of the trade war, the difficulty of this system to obtain innovative energy supplies from the outside continues to increase, and the interaction with high-level demand in the international market has weakened. Under the new situation, enhancing the international competitiveness of Chinese enterprises can be made in the following aspects: First, through policy guidance and financial support, enterprises can become the main body of investment and undertaking in basic research and “root technology” research and development; second, explore the compilation of strategic scientific and technological forces and innovation in scientific research organization forms, and accelerate the breakthrough of key core technology bottlenecks in important industries; third, provide more institutional guarantees for Chinese enterprises to “go overseas” and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of “go overseas” enterprises. Encourage “going overseas” enterprises to explore the product and service demand structure of the “Belt and Road” and the global southern markets, and exchange technology for markets.

Du Debin: In the face of tariff war, it is difficult to maintain competitive advantages with simple cost advantages. Only through technological breakthroughs, value chain upgrades and ecological reconstruction can external blockades be broken and irreplaceable international competitiveness can be forged. Core technologies are the core support for the lifeblood of the industry and international competitiveness. Enterprises need to focus on the “bottleneck” field to carry out material, process and system-level innovation, and strive to forge independent “hard core” strength; strengthen the coordinated research of “production, education, research and application” to form an independent and controllable technical system. At the same time, digital transformation has accelerated the leap in manufacturing paradigm, reshape the production process through industrial Internet, intelligent testing and other technologies, realize the extension of precise manufacturing and services, and promote the industry to evolve towards high-end and intelligent. In the reconstruction of the global value chain, Chinese companies need to extend to both R&D design and brand marketing, and break through the value lock in traditional division of labor by building technical patent barriers and digital marketing capabilities. At the same time, it is necessary to build a flexible supply chain system, improve risk resistance through globalization of research and release, regionalization of production networks, and digitalization of inventory management, and respond to geopolitical fluctuations.

Tang Yunyi: In the context of accelerating reconstruction of the global industrial chain, we must consolidate and accelerate the “three transformations” of innovation in Chinese enterprises: First, the innovation subjects transform from single-point breakthrough to ecological coordination. The innovation cycle of Chinese enterprises is accelerating to get rid of the traditional linear progressive model and turning to an exponential iteration path with cross-integration and disruption and breakthrough as the core. In the future, we must further accelerate the construction of forward-looking innovation infrastructure, establish an independent intellectual property system, concentrate resources to break through the “bottleneck” technology, and at the same time establish a cross-industry technical standards mutual recognition mechanism, an innovative cooperation value distribution mechanism, and strengthen innovation ecosystem coordination. Second, innovative achievements have transformed from technical patents to standard-led leadership. Enterprises patent core technologies, promote the deep integration of patents and standards, build a global technology ecosystem with the “technology + standard” dual-wheel drive model, and promote the establishment of new global trade rules. Third, innovative applications have shifted from localized development to globalized layout. Relying on the “Belt and Road” initiative and regional innovation community, Chinese enterprises have accelerated their active globalization layout, shifted from capacity output to value chain integration, and through the “manufacturing + service” model, they have embedded technical solutions into localized scenarios in overseas markets and established a local production service ecosystem.

Q:The only way to innovation is to gain people. “Talent growth and development are inseparable from the nourishment of the soil for innovative culture.” Today, how should we better solve the “Qian Xuesen’s question” and create new era talents with innovative capabilities? How to vigorously cultivate an innovative culture and create a good environment for innovative talents to stand out and display their talents?

Chen Qiang: After raising the “Qian Xuesen’s Question”, Mr. Qian was also thinking about the solution, constructing a systematic general education concept, and proposing training models such as leading scientific and technological talents, leading scientific and technological talents, and general talents in the 21st century. Top innovative talents need to experience in cross-combination scenarios. Their growth and development are inseparable from the leadership of high-level teachers, support from excellent teams and advanced platforms, tempering of major scientific research activities, and collision of high-level ideas. This process needs to be controlled within a certain time and space range. According to statistics, the average age for Nobel Prize winners to achieve representative results is about 44 years old, which shows that the “innovation active period” of talents is actually very short. In addition, limited space leads to necessary factor concentrations. Historically, 30 Nobel Prize winners have emerged from the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. There, excellent seniors and colleagues can be encountered everywhere, cutting-edge ideas and theories are spread rapidly, and advanced technologies and equipment are at the top of each other. Under the new situation where the paradigm of knowledge production, dissemination and transformation is constantly iterated and upgraded, and the paths are constantly changing, we should continue to deepen our understanding of the new laws of talent growth and create appropriate conditions and environments for top innovative talents to stand out. First, we must cultivate confidence, explore the secrets of their growth from outstanding talents born in the 1990s such as Yushu Technology Wang Xingxing, and at the same time learn innovative measures for talent training in other countries, and pick other mountains to polish jade; second, we must start from the perspective of the integrated development of education and science and technology talents, strengthen the mechanism design and scenario planning of the integration of science and education and the integration of industry and education; third, we must cultivate the innovative culture of “thousands of sails compete and hundreds of boats compete for the current”. Culture is a kind of social identity and the foundation for inspiring the spirit of scientists and entrepreneurs. On the one hand, strengthen talent evaluation and incentives oriented towards innovation capabilities, quality, effectiveness and contribution, and promote the formation of a social trend of identifying, loving, respecting talents. On the other hand, strengthen policy guidance and publicity and education to create a social atmosphere that encourages innovation and tolerate failure.

Du Debin: “Qian Xuesen’s Question” hits the soul of Chinese education. To solve the dilemma, we need to systematically reconstruct the education paradigm, innovate the evaluation system, and cultivate cultural soil, so that innovative culture becomes the national gene. Basic education should ignite critical thinking, such as implementing the “no standard answer exam”, replacing mechanical recitation with open questions, and allowing students to cultivate independent thinking ability through field surveys, etc. Higher education must break the barriers of disciplines, deepen long-term research, and break through the impetuous trap of “short, flat and fast” scientific research. Academic evaluation should guide scientific researchers to anchor national strategic needs and discipline frontier fields and carry out original and leading research. At the same time, we must tolerate non-consensus innovation, escort disruptive technologies, establish scientific research funds without assessments, and regard phased failures as the necessary path to innovation. To cultivate a fertile ground for innovative culture, social value recognition is necessary. We must vigorously advocate the spirit of scientists who pursue truth, be rigorous and realistic, and respect laws. Actively create a cultural atmosphere and value concept that advocates science and respects science. To solve the “Qian Xuesen‘s question”, we need to show the determination to “cultivate people for a hundred years”. When classrooms allow “difficult thoughts”, laboratories tolerate “thinking” and society respects “independence”, a large number of Qian Xuesen from the new era will emerge in China.

Tang Yunyi: Breaking the dependence of traditional paths, building value-leading, integrating and cultivating, encouraging trial and error, openness and inclusiveness, and continuous evolution is becoming increasingly important. First, we must guide entrepreneurs to start from national strategic needs and integrate their innovative mission into the process of national rejuvenation. Advocate the innovative concept of “adventurous spirit and grasping laws”, cultivate entrepreneurs’ deep understanding of technology, cross-border vision of the industry, and high agility of strategy, and seek the coordinated resonance of entrepreneurial spirit and scientist spirit. Second, we must cultivate compound entrepreneurial talents with both technical insight and cross-cultural management capabilities. In the process of globalization of Chinese enterprises, we must pay more attention to cross-cultural integration and build an inclusive organizational ecology. Third, we must improve the institutional guarantee and incentive mechanism. The just-promulgated “Private Economy Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China” systematically breaks the barriers to innovation and development of private enterprises through the coordinated design of fault tolerance mechanisms, incentive mechanisms and legal guarantees, providing an institutional cornerstone for stimulating market vitality. In the future, it is necessary to further improve the central-local linkage coordination mechanism, establish a dynamic update mechanism of “policy toolbox” based on the needs of private enterprises throughout the life cycle, match differentiated policy support, and form a benign interaction of “institutional rigidity-practical elasticity”.