Summary: The article discusses General Secretary Xi Jinping's May 2026 instructions on advancing philosophy and social sciences, emphasizing the need to accelerate an independent knowledge system and answer China's and the world's questions. It argues that artificial intelligence expands research breadth and depth while bringing challenges related to value positions, conclusion reliability, academic ethics, and research subjectivity. The piece advocates for two-way empowerment and deep integration of AI with philosophy and social sciences, proposing measures such as building human-machine collaborative models, constructing national-level AI infrastructure, and cultivating composite talent. It also calls for improving management and supervision mechanisms, accelerating an independent knowledge system for AI governance, and deepening international exchange and cooperation. The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Summary: The article argues that improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is the core task of advancing the modernization of China's emergency management system and capacity, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's directive to enhance rescue capabilities under extreme conditions. It outlines measures to enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and local-level headquarters, emphasizing the balance between "unified command" and "divided responsibilities." The piece calls for improving the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams, standardizing relationships between on-site command bodies and rescue forces, and optimizing information sharing and classified training mechanisms. It also stresses the need to standardize the relationship between emergency command bodies and social rescue forces, improving on-site coordination and professional training. The author, identified as Dean of the Institute of Emergency Management Research of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, concludes that this systematic reshaping is fundamental to safeguarding people's lives and property.
Summary: The article reflects on the "Jiashen Dialogue" between Mao Zedong and historian Guo Moruo in 1944, when Mao praised Guo's essay on the Ming Dynasty's fall as a rectification document warning against pride and corruption. It argues that this historical lesson remains vital for the Chinese Communist Party, which has governed for 77 years and faces the "four major tests" and "four dangers." Citing Xi Jinping, the piece stresses that economic growth does not necessarily bring the Party and people closer, urging cadres to remain modest and prudent. It calls for maintaining vigilance during peace, using bottom-line and extreme-scenario thinking to manage risks and turn crises into opportunities. Finally, it emphasizes serving the people, following the Party's mass line, and safeguarding livelihoods to ensure steady progress toward national rejuvenation.
Summary: The article highlights the strategic priority placed on people's health since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, with the Party Central Committee establishing guidelines for health and wellness work in the new era. It emphasizes major decisions to build a Healthy China and the creation of the world's largest medical service, traditional medicine, disease prevention, and medical security systems. The piece concludes that the health and wellness undertaking has achieved historic accomplishments and all-round progress.
Summary: The article discusses the rise of "mass academia," a new ecosystem where ordinary people, alongside professional scholars, participate in the production and dissemination of academic knowledge through digital platforms. It highlights the positive effects, such as the universal benefit of knowledge, and the risks, including quality loss of control and the distortion of knowledge dissemination by commercial interests. The piece argues that governance should seek a dynamic balance between regulation and activation, with professional academia continuing to dominate knowledge certification while mass academia leads in dissemination. It frames mass academia as a digital-era continuation of the Communist Party of China's tradition of combining knowledge production with the practice of the people, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on a people-centered research orientation. The author is a researcher at the Beijing Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Dean of the School of Information and Communication at Communication University of China.
Summary: The article argues that "Role Models of the Era" embody a spirit of dedication that should be promoted and inherited, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's instruction on Zhang Fuqing's deeds as fundamental guidance. It illustrates this spirit through examples such as Huang Wenxiu, who died in the line of duty fighting poverty in Baise, Qian Haijun, a State Grid employee providing volunteer electrical services for over 20 years, and Huang Shiyan, who led Yanling County out of poverty. The piece emphasizes that dedication is tested in daily perseverance, not just critical moments, and calls for deepening the interpretation of model narratives to reveal their underlying value choices. It advocates for normalizing the spirit through grassroots Party organizations, outlining "six hearts" to forge excellent, service-oriented, problem-solving, pioneering, combat-effective, and voluntary organizations. Finally, it stresses creating a social ecology that encourages emulation, while clarifying that promoting dedication does not deny reasonable personal interests but guides people to realize life's value in serving the people.
Summary: The article emphasizes Xi Jinping's guidance on cadre selection, stressing the integration of studying people with studying affairs to evaluate cadres objectively through practice and mass opinion. It advocates examining cadres through concrete achievements, multi-angle observation, and long-term tracking to avoid subjective judgments. The piece highlights the importance of grassroots and public feedback as key yardsticks for assessing cadre performance and integrity. It calls for regular, institutionalized assessment methods that capture cadres' conduct in ordinary duties and during urgent, difficult tasks. The overall goal is to forge a high-quality cadre contingent through pragmatic, evidence-based personnel evaluation.
Summary: The article explains General Secretary Xi Jinping's thesis that the market is the world's scarcest resource, arguing that China's economic focus has shifted from supply shortages to insufficient effective demand. Liu Zhibiao, Executive Dean of the Yangtze River Industrial Development Research Institute at Nanjing University, interprets this as a call to treat market resources as a strategic national advantage. The piece highlights China's super-large-scale market—over 1.4 billion people, a middle-income group exceeding 400 million, and 2025 retail sales of 50.12 trillion yuan—as its most certain endowment. It advocates for a unified national market, proactive fiscal and moderately loose monetary policies, and primary distribution reforms to strengthen this advantage. The goal is to consolidate market strength to support the new development pattern, where domestic circulation dominates and leads the international cycle.
Summary: The article, authored by the Secretary of the Dongying Municipal Party Committee of Shandong Province, outlines Dongying's efforts to lead ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin, following General Secretary Xi Jinping's instructions from his 2021 visit. It emphasizes building a demonstration zone for ecological protection and green transformation, including the creation of the Yellow River Estuary National Park and wetland restoration. The piece also details progress in comprehensive saline-alkali land utilization to ensure food security, and the development of a new energy economy through wind, solar, and storage projects. Additionally, it highlights measures to improve people's livelihoods, such as employment platforms and rural revitalization, aiming to make the Yellow River a "happy river" for the people.
Summary: The article argues that improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is the core task of advancing the modernization of China's emergency management system and capacity, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's directive to enhance rescue capabilities under extreme conditions. It outlines measures to enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and local-level headquarters, emphasizing the balance between "unified command" and "divided responsibilities." The piece calls for improving the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams, standardizing relationships between on-site command bodies and rescue forces, and optimizing information sharing and classified training mechanisms. It also stresses the need to standardize the relationship between emergency command bodies and social rescue forces, improving on-site coordination and professional training. The author, identified as Dean of the Institute of Emergency Management Research of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, concludes that this systematic reshaping is fundamental to safeguarding people's lives and property.
Summary: The article marks the 90th anniversary of the Long March's victory, framing the Long March spirit as a guide for China Reform Holdings Corporation Ltd. in advancing high-quality development of state-owned capital operations. It traces the history of the Central Printing House from its 1931 founding in Ruijin through the Long March and Yan'an period, drawing lessons on ideals, sacrifice, pragmatism, execution, and mass reliance. The piece calls for upholding Party leadership, serving national strategies, and deepening reforms, citing over 380 billion yuan in strategic emerging industry investments. It emphasizes the company's mission to strengthen state-owned enterprises and capital in the new era.
Summary: The Party Committee of the Tibet Branch of China Huadian Corporation Ltd. has implemented Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and China Huadian's "Four Strengths, Four Promotions" project to strengthen grassroots Party organizations and support Tibet's stability, development, ecology, and border consolidation. The committee enhances political leadership, scientific decision-making, and corporate governance, becoming Tibet's largest power generation enterprise by installed capacity and contributing to energy supply and aid-Tibet support. It builds "Huadian Snowy Plateau Vanguard Party Branch" units, including project-construction branches at sites like the Qiongjie wind power project and the DG hydropower station, and village-resident branches in Jomda County that have driven income growth and earned recognition as a central enterprise demonstration. The committee also strengthens Party member development, daily management, and vanguard roles, with members advancing into disaster relief and earning national honors. The article is authored by the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Tibet Branch.
Summary: The article reports on Anhui Province's "one integrated inspection" reform, which integrates administrative inspection matters across departments to reduce burdens on enterprises. As of end of August 2026, the province's inspection matter integration rate reached 71.59%, with enterprise inspections reduced by 28,200 visits and total inspection volume down 44.66% year-on-year. The reform includes a "one code" system for filing and tracking inspections, joint inspections requiring only "one visit," and efforts to strengthen grassroots administrative law enforcement. Next steps include promoting provincial-level legislation, unifying inspection standards, connecting system data, and improving grassroots law enforcement capabilities. The article is authored by the Department of Justice of Anhui Province.
Summary: At a symposium on strengthening basic research held in April, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to strengthen basic research with greater intensity and more concrete measures, enhance the country's capacity for original innovation, and further consolidate the foundation for building a strong science and technology nation. The high-end think tank edition of Study Times has launched an in-depth discussion on how to conduct basic research well, centering on this directive.
Summary: The article argues that strengthening basic research and original innovation is essential for China's goal of scientific and technological self-reliance, noting the country's progress in funding, talent, and infrastructure since the 18th Party Congress. It highlights achievements such as increased basic research funding, a top global talent pool, and landmark scientific results, while acknowledging structural shortcomings including imbalanced investment, scarce top-tier talent, and insufficient international discourse power. The authors propose measures to enhance original innovation, including strengthening original-innovation orientation, promoting coordination of strategic scientific and technological forces, and focusing support on young scientific and technological talent. They also recommend establishing a funding mechanism combining stability and competition, deepening reform of project and funding management, and fostering a sound research ecosystem. The piece references the United States and Japan in comparing enterprise basic research investment shares, noting the U.S. at about 35 percent and Japan at about 45 percent.
Summary: The article argues that talent titles in China's research system have drifted from their original academic and honorary purpose into hierarchical labels tied to resource allocation, which harms basic research. It calls for decoupling titles from salary, funding, and promotion, and for dynamic adjustment of titles so researchers focus on science rather than protecting "hats." The piece cites policy reforms since the 18th National Congress, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China's 2025 renaming of "Outstanding Young Scholars" and "Excellent Young Scholars" projects, and Xi'an's market-oriented talent evaluation measures. It emphasizes supporting young and "hatless" talent with long-term stable funding, reduced administrative burdens, and tolerance for failure. The author, affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, stresses that only by restoring titles' academic nature can basic research thrive.
Summary: The article examines the mechanisms of UAV swarm operations, drawing on historical patterns of clustered weapon employment across land, sea, and air domains to argue that such employment must comply with the principle of concentrating superior forces. It notes that land operations favored large-cluster thrusts, sea operations used small-cluster distributed attacks like submarine wolf-packs, and air operations require dispersed coordinated strikes to resolve the contradiction between concentration and dispersion. The author stresses that concentration is a means to improve combat effectiveness, must adapt to the enemy's strength with moderation, and should evolve dynamically between quantitative expansion and structural optimization. For UAVs, the piece recommends flexibly adopting swarm models, emphasizing "small groups, multiple routes" distributed integrated strikes, and dynamically adjusting employment patterns alongside technological development. The article concludes that UAV swarm operations must innovate continuously to maximize combat effectiveness in modern warfare.
Summary: The article explains cognitive radar as an "electromagnetic sentinel" that mimics human cognition through a closed loop of perception, learning, decision, and action, contrasting it with traditional radar's fixed parameters and limited adaptability. It highlights four advantages: enhanced anti-jamming, countering stealth targets, flexible power allocation, and tighter system-of-systems coordination. The piece also outlines four technical challenges: real-time performance, anti-deception, knowledge base construction, and reliability in human-machine collaboration. It concludes that with AI and MIMO maturation, future electromagnetic confrontation will hinge on whose "brain" turns faster and adapts more broadly, rather than raw power or bandwidth.
Summary: The article marks the 90th anniversary of the Long March victory, highlighting a display in Ruijin featuring He Shuheng and Lin Boqu's farewell, with Lin's poem "Parting at Meikeng" on the wall. It recounts their long comradeship, reunion in the Soviet Area, and the 1934 military pressure from the Kuomintang that forced the Central Red Army's strategic withdrawal. On the eve of departure, He Shuheng, ordered to stay behind, gave Lin Boqu a woolen sweater knitted by his daughter, prompting Lin's poem. He Shuheng died heroically in 1935, and the sweater was later donated to the National Museum of China. The narrative frames the sweater and poem as symbols of revolutionary comradeship and sacrifice for the country.
Summary: The article explores the ancient Chinese philosophical concept from the *Xunzi* that all things obtain harmony to live and nourishment to grow, emphasizing humanity's unity with nature and the moral virtue of Heaven's benevolence. It cites classical texts such as the *Doctrine of the Mean*, *Huangdi Neijing*, and Wang Yangming's writings to argue that humanity, as the heart of Heaven and Earth, must act in accordance with natural order. The piece details historical ecological regulations, including seasonal prohibitions on felling and fishing from the *Yi Zhou Shu*, *Li Ji*, and successive dynastic codes, alongside examples of officials like Meng Chang and Zuo Zongtang protecting forests and resources. It highlights traditional agricultural practices such as the mulberry-dike fish-pond model and grass carp in paddy fields as examples of mutually beneficial coexistence among species. The article concludes that sustainable development requires following Heaven's seasons, adapting to land suitability, and complying with the objective laws of growth.
Summary: The Harvard-Yenching Library, a major overseas center for Chinese document collection at Harvard University, traces its origins to 1928 when Harvard and Yenching University jointly founded the Harvard-Yenching Institute, with Chinese-American scholar Qiu Kaiming serving as its first director. Its collection of approximately 1.5 million volumes includes over 800,000 Chinese documents, featuring rare ancient books, local gazetteers, and modern manuscripts, alongside original wartime materials such as the Papers of George A. and Geraldine Fitch and Edgar Snow's Red Army documents. The library has long cooperated with Chinese institutions, donating digital ancient book resources to the National Library of China, with the first batch released on its platform in early 2026. Its digital strategy focuses on large-scale digitization, open access, and digital humanities research, including a completed 10-year project digitizing 4,200 rare book titles. The library has hosted renowned Sinologists from John King Fairbank to Peter K. Bol, serving as an academic bridge connecting overseas Chinese studies with the domestic academic community.
Summary: The article discusses General Secretary Xi Jinping's May 2026 instructions on advancing philosophy and social sciences, emphasizing the need to accelerate an independent knowledge system and answer China's and the world's questions. It argues that artificial intelligence expands research breadth and depth while bringing challenges related to value positions, conclusion reliability, academic ethics, and research subjectivity. The piece advocates for two-way empowerment and deep integration of AI with philosophy and social sciences, proposing measures such as building human-machine collaborative models, constructing national-level AI infrastructure, and cultivating composite talent. It also calls for improving management and supervision mechanisms, accelerating an independent knowledge system for AI governance, and deepening international exchange and cooperation. The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Summary: Weihai Guangtai Airport Equipment Co., Ltd. is marking its 35th anniversary, having grown from a single power supply vehicle developed in 1991 into a manufacturer of over 500 airport ground support equipment models, including a tractor for the C919, with more than 1,000 patents. The company has pursued intelligent manufacturing through its "Five Major Transformations," raising monthly platform vehicle output from 8 to 35 units, and has expanded overseas to over 100 countries and regions. Since 2009, it has also developed an emergency rescue and support business, building an "air-ground integrated" solution and delivering mobile hospitals to Burkina Faso and Tanzania. The article highlights the company's innovation, craftsmanship, and global service network, including maintenance stations in Singapore and Japan.
By: 邱勇
In May 2026, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued important instructions on promoting the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences, emphasizing the need to "accelerate the construction of an independent knowledge system for China's philosophy and social sciences, and better answer the questions of China, the questions of the world, the questions of the people, and the questions of the times." At present, artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape of economic and social development, profoundly affecting humanity's modes of production, ways of life, and ways of thinking. A series of major theoretical and practical problems arising from this require in-depth research and answers from philosophy and social sciences. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology also provides new methods and means for studying these new problems and deepening understanding of existing ones. Driven by the wave of artificial intelligence, China's philosophy and social sciences are undergoing profound changes in disciplinary perspectives, research paradigms, tools and methods, and organizational forms, while also facing multiple challenges in value positions, reliability of conclusions, academic ethics, and research subjectivity. In this regard, it is necessary to deeply grasp the internal logic and external impact of artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences, actively respond to the new problems brought by intelligent transformation, and through comprehensive measures, steadily and prudently promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and philosophy and social sciences, so as to promote the high-quality development of China's philosophy and social sciences.
Artificial intelligence expands the breadth, depth, and validity of philosophy and social sciences research
The rapid development of artificial intelligence has driven a qualitative leap in philosophy and social sciences research. Basic research and knowledge creation increasingly show a trend of interdisciplinary intersection, giving rise to emerging disciplinary growth points such as computational social science, machine behavior science, artificial intelligence psychology, and digital humanities. This brings about all-round changes in the disciplinary system, academic system, and discourse system of philosophy and social sciences, and has a revolutionary impact on the research horizons, observational perspectives, and knowledge production and dissemination of philosophy and social sciences.
Artificial intelligence promotes the closer integration of theory-driven and data-driven approaches, opening new paths for philosophy and social sciences to discover problems and construct theories. Traditional theory-driven research usually first proposes hypotheses based on theoretical deduction and observation of reality, then collects data, builds models, and conducts empirical testing. With the help of artificial intelligence's powerful data processing, pattern recognition, and simulation capabilities, researchers can reduce their reliance on preset theoretical models and variable relationships, identify complex correlations, group differences, and anomalous patterns from large-scale, high-dimensional, multimodal data that are not easily discovered through conventional analysis, providing clues for discovering problems that existing theories have not yet fully explained, and providing support for subsequent theory construction, data exploration, and empirical testing. Data analysis driven by artificial intelligence not only serves hypothesis testing but is also expected to participate more deeply in problem discovery and theory construction, deepening understanding of individual behavior and social operation mechanisms.
Artificial intelligence provides full-process support for scientific research activities, reducing the burden of routine work and enabling researchers to devote more energy to original research. Artificial intelligence is being integrated into research links such as literature research, data analysis, and presentation of results, providing more efficient and convenient technical assistance for philosophy and social sciences research. In literature research, artificial intelligence can assist in the retrieval, classification, and synthesis of massive academic resources, helping researchers sort out relevant achievements. In data analysis, artificial intelligence can assist in coding interview materials, theme identification, and cross-case comparison in qualitative research, as well as support data cleaning, complex relationship modeling, and visualization of results in quantitative research. In terms of presentation of results, artificial intelligence can assist in manuscript writing and multilingual translation, and can also enrich the presentation forms of cultural heritage through new technical means. These applications help reduce repetitive labor, enabling researchers to focus more on more complex, more innovative research activities that are difficult for artificial intelligence to replace, such as posing questions and constructing theories, promoting the formation of a research model in which "artificial intelligence processes data, and humans focus on innovation."
Through synthetic data generation and scenario simulation, artificial intelligence expands the space of scenarios beyond observation of reality, providing new means for understanding complex social processes. Traditional philosophy and social sciences research usually collects data through questionnaire surveys, behavioral experiments, interviews, and participatory observation to understand individuals and groups and their dynamic evolutionary characteristics. While assisting traditional research, artificial intelligence can generate synthetic sample data through agent simulation, providing new means for examining and understanding research problems beyond observation of reality. By setting appropriate scenarios and conditions, agents can simulate individual responses and group interactions, examine possible behavioral outcomes under different conditions, and provide assistance for forming research hypotheses, deducing possible mechanisms, and improving research design. In particular, for research that is difficult to conduct experiments on directly, such as natural disasters and cyber violence, agent simulation can provide scenario deduction and auxiliary analysis, helping to expand researchers' understanding of complex social processes.
China's rich practice in the development and governance of artificial intelligence provides new historical opportunities for building an independent knowledge system and leading the international academic frontier. Artificial intelligence not only changes the research means of philosophy and social sciences but also becomes an important research object of philosophy and social sciences. The widespread application of artificial intelligence in economic production, organizational management, and social life has led to the emergence of a series of new problems, giving rise to governance issues such as algorithmic discrimination, data sovereignty, and computing power monopoly. China is at the forefront of global artificial intelligence development and has carried out extensive innovative practice and exploration in artificial intelligence technological innovation, industrial development, enabling applications, and regulatory governance, providing fertile soil for theoretical innovation. In the process of new problems being continuously raised and new explanatory frameworks gradually taking shape, China's philosophy and social sciences have the opportunity to actively shape new academic agendas, propose new concepts and propositions in the field of artificial intelligence development and governance, and form original theoretical achievements rooted in Chinese practice and of universal significance to the world.
Artificial intelligence brings multi-dimensional and systematic challenges to philosophy and social sciences
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "artificial intelligence brings unprecedented development opportunities, and also brings unprecedented risks and challenges." Artificial intelligence drives the transformation of research paradigms in philosophy and social sciences, expands research horizons and observational perspectives, and improves the efficiency of knowledge production and dissemination, but it also brings challenges at the levels of value positions, knowledge production, academic ethics, and research subjectivity.
The implicit biases in artificial intelligence training data and limitations in contextual understanding may lead to deviations in value positions in research conclusions. Large models rely on real-world corpora for training and may inherit value biases entrenched in the training data. If the training data is imbalanced on key attributes such as gender and race, or if researchers select features improperly or assign unreasonable weights to data, artificial intelligence may replicate or even amplify existing social biases in the research process. Philosophy and social sciences research is highly dependent on specific, dynamic social contexts, whose connotations constantly change with social development. However, artificial intelligence mainly analyzes based on past data and finds it difficult to fully grasp specific and dynamic social situations. Research conclusions generated in this way cannot fully reflect value judgments in real society, thereby producing deviations in value positions.
The "hallucination" phenomenon and "black box" characteristics of artificial intelligence models may affect the accuracy and explainability of research conclusions. Large language models may exhibit "hallucination" phenomena in the content generation process, outputting content that appears semantically coherent and logically self-consistent but is in fact false, often manifesting as fabricated historical data, fictitious expert opinions, and forged cited references. If researchers directly cite such content without sufficient ability to discern it, it may induce false conclusions. If "hallucinated" content is allowed to spread widely, it may erode professional authority, interfere with subsequent research, and even mislead the direction of disciplinary development. The internal computational mechanisms of large artificial intelligence models are highly complex, and the basis for output is not sufficiently transparent, resulting in unclear processes of conclusion formation and unclear conditions for the applicability of conclusions.
The deep participation of artificial intelligence in knowledge production increases the difficulty of maintaining academic norms and academic integrity. The deep participation of artificial intelligence in research changes the division of labor in knowledge production, making the identification of research contributions, attribution of achievements, and determination of responsibility more complex. Current academic authorship norms and ethical guidelines are mainly designed for human researchers and are difficult to apply directly to human-machine collaborative achievements. Relevant standards for copyright determination still have significant gaps. While lowering the cost of knowledge production, artificial intelligence also lowers the threshold for academic misconduct. Generative tools generally lack clear source labeling when outputting content, seriously weakening the standardization and traceability of academic citation. If researchers use such content directly without verification, it may cause hidden sources, irregular citation, and inaccurate content, and may even involve them in academic misconduct, endangering academic integrity.
Excessive reliance on artificial intelligence may erode researchers' cognitive subjectivity and weaken their capacity for independent thinking and original exploration. The popularization of artificial intelligence has brought revolutionary changes to the way humanity produces and acquires knowledge, but it may also weaken researchers' critical and innovative thinking, posing a real threat to humanity's cognitive subjectivity. When individuals excessively rely on artificial intelligence technical means, their abilities to actively obtain information, conduct logical analysis, and verify facts are systematically weakened. If one merely passively receives the easily obtainable (唾手可得, tu shou ke de - "saliva, hand, can, get") answers provided by artificial intelligence, one can easily fall into the predicament of "cognitive offloading." Over time, this may not only weaken the unique creativity of humans as research subjects but may also cause academic innovation to remain at the level of superficial integration, affecting the overall quality of research.
Promote the two-way empowerment and deep integration of artificial intelligence and philosophy and social sciences
To seize opportunities and meet challenges, we must adhere to the guidance of Marxism, adhere to giving equal weight to development and security, accurately grasp the development trends and laws of artificial intelligence, and coordinate the promotion of the transformation of scientific research organizational models, infrastructure construction, cultivation of composite talents, improvement of academic ethics rules, construction of an independent knowledge system, and expansion of international cooperation and exchange, ensuring that artificial intelligence-assisted research is reliable, trustworthy, and controllable, and consolidating the foundation for the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences.
Build a human-machine collaborative model and promote the adjustment of researchers' roles. Artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences is not only an update of research tools but also involves adjustments in the division of labor in knowledge production. Universities and research institutions should, around major research tasks, promote the coordinated allocation of professional knowledge, technical forces, and data resources, explore new scientific research organizational models led by researchers with complementary human-machine advantages, and enable the enhancement of technical capabilities and the innovation of research organization methods to promote each other. First, formulate and dynamically improve ethical guidelines and academic guidance for human-machine collaboration, clarify the role boundaries of artificial intelligence in data processing, information analysis, and auxiliary reasoning, and prevent it from excessively replacing human theoretical creation and value judgment. At the same time, guide researchers to establish correct views on technology, ethics, and values, inject value rationality into the human-machine collaborative model, and ensure that artificial intelligence research activities conform to fundamental human values. Second, guide philosophy and social sciences workers to actively assume new research roles such as model bias identifier, artificial intelligence data verifier, and human-machine collaboration optimizer, and uphold the scientific foundation and responsibility bottom line of human knowledge creation. This does not require artificial intelligence to never "make mistakes," but rather, when artificial intelligence makes mistakes, to ensure that humans still possess the ability to identify errors, correct deviations, and rebuild truth. Third, consolidate the subject role of humans in knowledge creation. The core value of philosophy and social sciences lies in critical thinking and theoretical construction, which are key aspects that artificial intelligence finds difficult to replace in humans and are also important forces driving the progress of human civilization. Protect and strengthen the unique independent thinking and critical thinking abilities of researchers themselves, and firmly keep the right to define research problems and set research agendas in human hands.
Accelerate the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure for philosophy and social sciences. Integrate data resources, computing resources, knowledge base resources, and open-source tool chains in the field of philosophy and social sciences, build a national-level artificial intelligence-enabled scientific research infrastructure platform for philosophy and social sciences that integrates "data-computing-knowledge-intelligence," and form a full-process research enabling system covering literature research, theory construction, data annotation, silicon-based experiments, knowledge generation, and simulation. First, accelerate the construction of a national-level data resource repository for philosophy and social sciences. Aggregate multi-source data including historical archives, literature corpora, survey data, economic data, social data, government data, and case materials, and build a standardized, open, and shared multimodal, high-quality public data resource system. Improve mechanisms for data use authorization, source tracing, and secure sharing, and enhance the availability and reusability of data resources. Second, build a cluster of specialized models for philosophy and social sciences research. Prioritize the development of research capabilities such as intelligent literature analysis, knowledge graph association, silicon-based sample construction, and multi-agent simulation, enhance models' language understanding, generation, reasoning, and prediction capabilities, and better adapt to complex research tasks in multidisciplinary scenarios. In view of the multi-source, semantically complex characteristics of philosophy and social sciences corpora, as well as ideological attributes and value alignment requirements, encourage the use of high-quality datasets in professional fields to train, fine-tune, and optimize specialized models. Third, build an autonomous, controllable, knowledge-integrated cluster of disciplinary intelligent agents. Around the task of constructing an independent knowledge system, support several universities and research institutions in joint research, systematically integrate domestic and international basic disciplinary literature, monographs and textbooks, journal articles, master's and doctoral theses, and other literature corpora, and integrate and develop a cluster of philosophy and social sciences intelligent agents for research and teaching scenarios. Embed academic norms, public ethics, and core values into the construction of intelligent agents, and explore the establishment of norms and guidelines for the development, use, and management of disciplinary intelligent agents.
Focus on building a high-quality composite talent team. First, enhance the artificial intelligence literacy of philosophy and social sciences workers. Incorporate basic artificial intelligence knowledge, digital ethics, algorithmic literacy, and critical thinking into the training system for researchers, so that every researcher both proficiently masters and effectively utilizes artificial intelligence tools and remains vigilant against risks such as model "hallucinations" and privacy leakage, enhancing their ability to responsibly use artificial intelligence to assist scientific research. Second, encourage universities to establish interdisciplinary fields such as computational social science and digital humanities, promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence with humanities, arts, social sciences, and other disciplines, offer interdisciplinary courses such as data science, digital governance, critical thinking, and artificial intelligence ethics, and cultivate composite research talents with both humanistic literacy and scientific quality. Third, promote the deep integration of teaching and research, implement training programs for current students, strengthen critical thinking and independent thinking abilities, cultivate digital literacy and compliance awareness, and guide students to continuously improve their ability to harness artificial intelligence technology in research practice.
Improve the management and supervision mechanisms for artificial intelligence applications in scientific research. Artificial intelligence research governance must not only prevent misuse and abuse but also create conditions for responsible academic exploration. Improve resource sharing and research collaboration mechanisms, promote timely adjustment of rules, and provide institutional support for new research practices. First, combine top-level design with grassroots exploration, and encourage universities and research institutions to formulate artificial intelligence use disclosure norms suitable for disciplinary characteristics based on actual conditions such as user subjects, research purposes, and application scenarios. Second, improve the review mechanism for content generated or assisted by artificial intelligence. Strengthen the technical supply and empowerment for reviewing artificial intelligence-generated content, with a focus on breakthroughs in key core technologies such as intelligent proofreading, social bias correction, and screening of undesirable value orientations. Consolidate the responsibility of academic units for content review and control, and identify and promptly address possible risks such as discrimination, bias, and ideological problems. Third, improve the responsibility determination and fault tolerance mechanisms for artificial intelligence use. Artificial intelligence technology has characteristics such as rapid iteration and uncertain application boundaries. A dynamic responsibility allocation mechanism should be established by comprehensively considering factors such as the degree of human-machine collaboration, model iteration, training data sources, and disciplinary characteristics. Clarify researchers' reasonable duty of care in such links as use disclosure, result verification, and problem correction, distinguish technical errors that are difficult to avoid even after fulfilling corresponding obligations from behaviors such as concealing use, neglecting verification, and intentional fabrication, and both provide institutional guarantees for responsible research exploration and prevent the misuse and abuse of artificial intelligence. Fourth, improve the ethical review mechanism for artificial intelligence research in the field of philosophy and social sciences. It is recommended that a specialized ethics review institution for philosophy and social sciences be established at the national level, and that artificial intelligence research ethics guidelines conforming to the characteristics of philosophy and social sciences be formulated. Improve the data governance system for philosophy and social sciences, formulate data classification and grading standards, and build mechanisms for desensitization processing of sensitive data and trusted computing to ensure data security.
Accelerate the construction of an independent knowledge system for artificial intelligence development and governance. China's rich practice and frontier exploration in the field of artificial intelligence provide the cornerstone and confidence for building an independent knowledge system for artificial intelligence development and governance. First, conduct in-depth research on the deep-level impacts and mechanisms of action of artificial intelligence on human cognition, judgment, ethical norms, and other aspects, study and judge the political, economic, and social impacts of artificial intelligence applications and corresponding governance mechanisms, and explore the formation of a theoretical system for the beneficial use of intelligence. Second, around the major social changes triggered by artificial intelligence, promote philosophy and social sciences research to proceed simultaneously with technology research and development, scenario application, and social governance, study the new connotations and new characteristics of basic concepts and classical theories, excavate and refine new concepts and new theories, and propose theoretical propositions with explanatory power. Third, focus on major practical needs in artificial intelligence development and governance, mobilize research institutions and think tanks to conduct forward-looking and targeted research, develop signature concepts and original theories in the process of studying real problems and solving real problems, strive to produce results that are useful and effective, and provide research support for promoting artificial intelligence to move upward and toward good, and to proceed steadily and far.
Deepen international exchange and cooperation in philosophy and social sciences. Philosophy and social sciences have distinct cultural embeddedness. Promoting international cooperation in philosophy and social sciences requires both following the general laws of academic exchange and respecting the knowledge traditions, data sovereignty, and ethical differences of different civilizations. First, promote the construction of a global cooperation network for artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences, support domestic institutions and top foreign academic institutions in conducting joint research on common issues, and strengthen exchange of research methods and sharing of research resources. Second, promote the initiation of a cross-border philosophy and social sciences data sharing alliance, build a cross-border trusted philosophy and social sciences data space ecosystem chain, and, on the premise of complying with the data laws and ethical norms of various countries, provide technical guarantees for the sharing and circulation of some social survey data and international comparative data on a global scale. Third, actively participate in the formulation of knowledge production rules, promote the establishment of international standards for social impact assessment of large models, with a focus on assessing the social risks, ethical responsibilities, and academic impacts of large models. Fourth, actively tell the Chinese story of artificial intelligence development and governance, promote experience sharing and mutual learning among civilizations, contribute Chinese wisdom to expanding the international theoretical frontier of artificial intelligence development and governance, and contribute Chinese strength to building a fair and reasonable global artificial intelligence governance system.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that philosophy and social sciences workers should "stand at the forefront of the times, understand the changes of past and present, and give voice to the thoughts of the era." Artificial intelligence drives profound changes in social practice and knowledge production methods, raising new theoretical topics while also providing new means for understanding society and innovating theory. The more artificial intelligence develops, the more philosophy and social sciences are needed to provide humanistic nourishment, rational thinking, and value guidance. Philosophy and social sciences workers should maintain independent thinking while embracing technological change, uphold value pursuits while advancing knowledge innovation, transform historical opportunities into practical achievements in accelerating the construction of an independent knowledge system for China's philosophy and social sciences, promote more stable and higher-quality development of China's philosophy and social sciences, and contribute more wisdom and strength to the construction of Chinese modernization.
(The author is Secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Return to TopBy: 马宝成
Improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is the core task of advancing the modernization of China's emergency management system and capacity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Improve the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response, accelerate the construction of the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams and national regional emergency rescue centers, enhance rescue capabilities under extreme conditions, and ensure that at critical moments we can deploy, charge forward, and win." At present, against the backdrop of global climate change, the frequency of natural disasters in China has increased markedly and their intensity has grown significantly, and the situation facing natural disaster prevention and control is severe and complex. The emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response serves as the "brain center" for handling emergencies, enabling the organic integration of emergency forces, resources, and information across different departments and levels, forming strong centripetal force, cohesion, and combat effectiveness, and ensuring rapid response and efficient handling of emergencies.
Enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and emergency command headquarters at all local levels
The "15th Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of the Emergency Response System" makes specific arrangements for enhancing the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and emergency command headquarters at all local levels. The construction of emergency command headquarters is a core issue in the modernization of the emergency management system and capacity. It is of extremely important practical significance for effectively carrying out large-scale, high-intensity emergency organization and command, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency response to emergencies, reducing the losses and impacts of major emergencies, and better safeguarding the safety of people's lives and property.
Systematically enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters. The National Emergency Command Headquarters coordinates national emergency resources, coordinates cross-regional and cross-departmental collaboration, and commands the handling of extraordinarily serious and major emergencies; its operational effectiveness is directly related to the ultimate results of emergency handling. The key to enhancing the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters lies in properly handling the relationship between "unified command" and "divided responsibilities." The function of "unified command" is mainly undertaken by deliberative and coordinating bodies such as the National Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Relief Commission, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the State Council Earthquake Relief Headquarters, and the State Forest and Grassland Fire Prevention and Suppression Headquarters, which provide unified leadership, overall guidance, and comprehensive coordination. The function of "divided responsibilities" continues to be jointly undertaken by member units and competent industry departments, which, in accordance with their respective duties and divisions of labor, give play to their respective professional advantages and conscientiously perform flood control, drought relief, accident and disaster prevention and control in their respective fields, as well as early emergency response after disasters occur. Emergency management departments must effectively assume the office functions of the aforementioned deliberative and coordinating bodies, carry out overall coordination and comprehensive management, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of all member units, and jointly accomplish the various tasks of the National Emergency Command Headquarters.
Enhance the operational effectiveness of emergency command headquarters at all local levels by level. The core essence of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" is to require local authorities to command nearby and assume the primary responsibility for emergency response to emergencies. Local Party committees and governments at all levels have advantages in time, space, and information during emergency response. The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clearly stipulates that local Party committees and governments at or above the county level shall establish local emergency command bodies for emergencies, special command bodies, and on-site command bodies, providing a basis for enhancing the operational effectiveness of emergency command headquarters at all local levels. Effectively improve and strengthen local emergency command headquarters for emergencies, with the principal responsible persons of the Party committee and government at the corresponding level taking the lead, responsible for unified command and coordination of emergency management work in their respective regions. Clarify the responsibilities of local special emergency command bodies for organizing, coordinating, and commanding responses to relevant categories of emergencies, and improve the list of responsibilities of on-site command bodies for unified command of on-site emergency response and rescue operations. Strengthen emergency management organizations and personnel in townships (subdistricts) and other grassroots units, and enhance the organizational and mobilization capacity of emergency management in villages (communities).
Improve the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams
China's emergency rescue forces take the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams as the main force, professional rescue teams as coordination, military emergency forces as assault, and social forces as assistance. During response and handling, the rescue forces arriving on site typically exhibit diversified characteristics. The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clearly stipulates that "emergency command for emergencies implements a command mechanism combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams," and requires that "all emergency forces, equipment, and materials entering the site shall be subject to unified dispatch by the on-site command body, with relevant emergency forces acting in accordance with the prescribed command relationships and command authority to ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination." The "15th Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of the Emergency Response System" makes arrangements for improving the systems and mechanisms for unified command and professional command of on-site command headquarters for disaster and accident rescue operations. These provisions take into account the complexity of command relationships and command authority among different rescue forces and aim to solve the problems of multiple commanders and acting independently without coordination (各行其是, ge hang qi shi - "each, go, its, own, act") at emergency response sites. They both emphasize ensuring the overall operational effectiveness of on-site level-by-level command and emphasize the distinctive characteristics of professional command, requiring relevant forces to aim at accomplishing prescribed tasks and ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination.
To improve the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams, it is necessary to standardize the relationship and coordination and linkage mechanisms between on-site command bodies and rescue forces. Formulate specific standards for the participation of various rescue forces in emergency response. Led by emergency management departments, clarify the dispatch rules, conditions, and procedures for incorporating different teams into professional command, and enhance the tacit understanding of coordinated operations. Build an interconnected and interoperable intelligent command platform, integrate the command resources of emergency management departments at all levels with the on-site terminal resources of professional rescue teams, ensure that the decision-making end of level-by-level command can directly understand the specific on-site situation and that the professional command end can promptly receive orders and requirements from higher levels, and improve operational effectiveness as a whole. Strengthen the compilation of emergency response plans and lists of powers and responsibilities, refine the rules for articulating powers and responsibilities, and, in light of one's own risk characteristics and risk types, clarify the lead entities and decision-making authority for level-by-level command under different response levels, with particular clarification of the activation conditions and command powers and responsibilities of professional command, so as to avoid at the institutional level the problem of unclear powers and responsibilities among different command headquarters.
Improve working mechanisms for key areas and key links of emergency command
To improve the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response, it is necessary to focus on improving relevant specific working mechanisms.
Improve the command working mechanism of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management." The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clarifies the responsible entities under the "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" principle in the emergency command work system. The core contents of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" include: where an extraordinarily serious or major emergency is initially determined to have occurred, the provincial-level Party committee and government where the incident occurred shall in principle organize and command the response; where a relatively serious or ordinary emergency is initially determined to have occurred, the municipal-level and county-level Party committees and governments shall in principle organize and command the response respectively. Where multiple administrative regions are involved, the relevant administrative regions shall jointly respond or the common higher-level Party committee and government shall organize and command the response. Where response capacity beyond the administrative region is exceeded, the higher-level Party committee and government shall provide response support or command and coordinate the response. When necessary, the relevant national emergency command body, or a new national emergency command body for emergencies established upon approval of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, shall exercise unified command and coordination of the response.
Improve the mechanism for determining the level of emergency command. Establish scientific criteria for assessing the level of emergency command, including the nature of the incident, the scope of impact, potential risks, and social reaction. In terms of the nature of the incident, the basic characteristics of different types of incidents should be clarified, such as natural disasters, accident disasters, public health incidents, and social security incidents, with corresponding response level standards formulated separately for each. For example, natural disasters can be divided into different levels according to their intensity and the losses caused, while public health incidents are assessed for response command level according to the number of infected persons and the speed of transmission. Such classification can improve the targeting of emergency response and ensure that different types of incidents receive corresponding attention and handling. In the assessment of scope of impact and potential risks, quantitative indicators can be used for measurement. For example, the number of affected persons, economic losses, and the degree of environmental damage can all serve as important indicators. By establishing models to comprehensively assess these indicators, data support can be provided for determining the level of emergency response.
Optimize the emergency command information sharing mechanism. This mechanism should include multiple links such as the collection, sorting, analysis, and reporting of information, ensuring that information on various emergencies can be rapidly and accurately conveyed to emergency command bodies at all levels and relevant decision-makers. Build a nationwide emergency management information sharing platform covering the multiple fields of natural disasters, accident disasters, public health incidents, and social security incidents, integrate various types of emergency information, and ensure real-time updating and sharing of information. The information sharing platform should be equipped with powerful data analysis functions to help decision-makers conduct rapid risk assessment and decision support.
Establish a classified training mechanism for command personnel. Taking "drilling" as the starting point, build a high-quality, professional command talent team. Strengthen routine classified and level-based training for duty personnel, dispatch personnel, and decision-making personnel of the National Emergency Command Headquarters, and enhance practical capabilities such as information reception and reporting, situation assessment, departmental coordination, rapid on-the-spot decision-making, and precise issuance of emergency instructions. Take the unified full-process standard and specification for emergency command as the main content of training, including the elements and caliber of information reception and reporting, the format specification for issuing instructions, and the timeliness requirements for handling feedback.
Standardize the relationship between emergency command bodies and social rescue forces
Emergency management requires broad participation of social emergency forces, including pre-incident education and training, emergency community building, and disaster risk identification; during-incident life rescue, resettlement and transfer, psychological comfort, and medical assistance; and post-incident home reconstruction and livelihood support. It is necessary to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for the participation of social rescue forces in emergency rescue, standardize and guide orderly participation in emergency rescue operations, and form efficient and coordinated linkage between Party committees and governments and society in emergency response. At present, China's social emergency forces have begun to take shape, policies and institutions are being gradually established, emergency capabilities are steadily improving, and rescue and relief results are evident. They have become an important component of China's emergency force system and an important element in improving the emergency command mechanism.
From a practical perspective, it is necessary to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for social emergency forces and standardize the relationship between on-site command bodies and rescue forces. With respect to social rescue forces, it is required to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for participation in emergency rescue and standardize and guide orderly participation in emergency rescue operations; with respect to various emergency teams, it is required to improve the coordination and cooperation mechanism; with respect to emergency forces entering the site, it is required to ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination. These requirements are conducive to truly establishing a "one chessboard" mechanism on site, with mutual articulation and coordination, and where necessary mutual combination and integration, achieving coordinated linkage, accomplishing tasks assigned by higher levels, and realizing the objectives of emergency rescue operations. Strengthen coordination and cooperation, enhance communication and contact with member units of the coordination and linkage mechanism, establish work liaison, work meeting, and emergency response plan systems, deepen the construction of the on-site coordination mechanism for the participation of social emergency forces in rescue operations for extraordinarily serious disasters, standardize rescue operations, and properly carry out the overall planning, coordination, and management of the participation of social emergency forces in rescue and relief. Strengthen routine communication and coordination between Party committees and governments and social emergency forces, ensuring that when disasters occur, an effectively matched action mechanism is formed.
From a long-term perspective, it is necessary to focus on training social emergency forces in emergency theory and rescue skills. The government is responsible for guiding the professional training of social emergency forces, setting standardized, normalized, and systematic training content, enhancing the professional rescue capabilities of emergency volunteers, and improving the risk prevention awareness of emergency volunteer personnel. Establish professional standards for professional emergency volunteers to participate in emergency rescue, such as for higher-risk mountain rescue and water rescue, establish professional training course systems, strictly regulate the search and rescue operations of emergency volunteers, and reduce the risk of personal injury.
Improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is a systematic reshaping of the entire emergency command logic. Only by truly breaking down command barriers between departments, levels, and regions can rapid coordinated response of all actors and all elements be achieved in the face of various complex and compound emergencies, and can emergency handling tasks be accomplished at minimal cost. This is not only the core requirement for improving the capacity to handle emergencies but also the fundamental guarantee for safeguarding the safety of people's lives and property.
[The author is Dean of the Institute of Emergency Management Research of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance)]
Return to TopBy: 本报评论员 李莹
The year 1944 was the jiashen year in the lunar calendar, marking the 300th anniversary of the fall of the Ming Dynasty. The historian Guo Moruo, using history as a guide (以史为鉴, yi shi wei jian - "take, history, as, mirror"), wrote The 300th Anniversary of the Fall of the Ming Dynasty (Jiashen Sanbai Nian Ji), first published in the Chongqing Xinhua Daily. The article revealed the fundamental causes of the Ming Dynasty's collapse and summarized the lessons of the rise and fall of the peasant uprising led by Li Zicheng, directly articulating the historical law that "pride leads to defeat, and corruption leads to ruin." Mao Zedong, then in Yan'an, was deeply moved after reading it and instructed the Liberation Daily to reprint it in full, warning all comrades in the Party to take it as a cautionary lesson. In November of that year, he wrote back to Guo Moruo, saying, "We regard your The 300th Anniversary of the Fall of the Ming Dynasty as a rectification document. Becoming conceited after minor successes (小胜即骄傲, xiao sheng ji jiao ao - "small, victory, then, pride"), and even more so after major successes, leads to repeated setbacks—how to avoid this failing is truly worthy of attention." This exchange of letters between Mao Zedong and Guo Moruo over the jiashen transition is the famous "Jiashen Dialogue" in the history of the Party.
Why did Mao Zedong place such importance on a historical treatise? This must be understood in light of the situation at the time. In 1944, the War of Resistance Against Japan entered a critical period, and the revolutionary forces led by our Party were growing ever stronger. Yet a mood of hoping for early victory and wanting to relax was quietly spreading among some comrades. At such a historic turning point, Mao Zedong discerned a profound warning in this historical essay, prompting deep reflection on the Party's future and destiny: the closer to victory, the more one must guard against pride and corruption. As the years have passed, the value of this cross-time dialogue has become ever more apparent. The sense of vigilance embodied in the "Jiashen Dialogue" has become a spiritual trait and a requirement of work style passed down from generation to generation among Chinese Communists, inspiring Party members and cadres to draw lessons from the rise and fall of history with greater consciousness, to maintain a constant sense of vigilance, and to ensure that in times of peace one does not forget danger, and in times of order one does not forget chaos.
Always maintain modesty and prudence. Our Party has been founded for 105 years and has governed for 77 years. While achieving brilliant accomplishments, it has also long faced the "four major tests" and the "four dangers," and must never treat matters with undue levity (掉以轻心, diao yi qing xin - "drop, with, light, heart"). General Secretary Xi Jinping has profoundly pointed out: "Facts show that economic development and improved living standards do not mean that the ties between the Party and the people have become closer, or necessarily closer—sometimes they have actually become more distant." Party members and cadres must guard against losing their bearings amid achievements; in victory and favorable circumstances, they must remain modest and prudent, avoiding conceit and impatience (戒骄戒躁, jie jiao jie zao - "restrain, pride, restrain, impetuousness"), and in the face of flowers and applause, they must maintain sobriety and humility. The brighter the prospects and the closer to victory, the more we must remain vigilant and self-reflective, guard against becoming extravagant before becoming wealthy and arrogant before becoming strong, prevent indulgence in pleasure and laxity, always maintain the fine work style of modesty and prudence, continue to work hard and forge ahead with determination, and persevere with unremitting effort (锲而不舍, qie er bu she - "carve, and, not, abandon") to achieve our established goals.
Always maintain vigilance during times of peace (居安思危, ju an si wei - "dwell, peace, think, danger"). The further our cause advances and develops, the more risks and challenges we will face, and the more unforeseeable events we will encounter. At present, China's development is in a period in which strategic opportunities coexist with risks and challenges, and uncertainties and hard-to-predict factors are increasing. Party members and cadres must strengthen their sense of vigilance and maintain vigilance during times of peace. They must not forget or lose memory of the detours and twists the Party has taken in its history; they must not easily forget the profound lessons of those in Chinese and foreign political history who were complacent with the status quo (安于现状, an yu xian zhuang - "content, with, current, situation") and perished through excessive indulgence in ease and pleasure (死于安乐, si yu an le - "die, in, ease, pleasure"); and they must not be slow to respond to the problems that exist within themselves. This determines that Party members and cadres must turn their sense of vigilance into consciousness and integrate it into practice, place the prevention and resolution of risks and challenges in a prominent position, adhere to bottom-line thinking and extreme-scenario thinking, improve their ability to scientifically foresee changes, promptly discern risks, and effectively respond to challenges, and strive to turn danger into safety (化险为夷, hua xian wei yi - "transform, danger, into, safety") and turn a crisis into an opportunity (转危为机, zhuan wei wei ji - "turn, crisis, into, opportunity"), firmly grasping the initiative in development in their own hands.
Always keep the people close to heart. Mental slackness makes it impossible to rally the people's strength; insufficient capability makes it difficult to meet the people's expectations; detachment from the masses makes it all too easy to violate the people's will; and passive corruption is bound to harm the people's interests. As a Marxist political party, our Party's sense of vigilance stems not only from reverence for the laws of history but also from an innate historical self-awareness—it is a sentiment and a responsibility of worrying about the Party's security, the nation's rise and fall, and the people's joys and sorrows. For Party members and cadres, possessing the ability to take on responsibility and act is the fundamental guarantee for serving the people and the bridge connecting the people's expectations with practical results. It is necessary to grasp the characteristics and laws of mass work under the new circumstances, take the lead in following the Party's mass line in the new era, embody concern for the masses and affection for the people throughout the entire process and all aspects of performing one's duties, make every effort to safeguard and improve people's livelihoods, promptly respond to the reasonable demands of the people, and truly do good deeds that relieve the people's worries well and accomplish practical matters that benefit the people's livelihoods. With a sense of responsibility of being "always concerned and unable to rest easy," one should rush to the front and take the lead, make preparations in advance, exercise precise control, respond quickly, effectively handle all kinds of situations, and ensure that all work proceeds safely and in an orderly manner.
"The wise prevent disasters before they arise; the sagacious plan for troubles before they come." When the Party Central Committee set out from Xibaipo on its "journey to Beijing to take the examination," Mao Zedong once again mentioned The 300th Anniversary of the Fall of the Ming Dynasty, believing that "this article must be read forever." On the new journey, Party members and cadres must continue to cultivate a consistent sense of vigilance, continuously improve their ability and level in managing all kinds of risks and challenges, and steadily advance the great cause of building a strong country and realizing national rejuvenation.
Return to TopPeople's health is an important marker of national prosperity and strength. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee has placed the protection of people's health in a strategic position of priority development, established the guidelines for health and wellness work in the new era, made major decisions and deployments to build a Healthy China, and driven the establishment of the world's largest medical service system, traditional medicine system, disease prevention and control system, and medical security system. The health and wellness undertaking has achieved historic accomplishments and achieved all-round progress.
Return to TopBy: 李舒
With the proliferation of mobile internet and smart terminals, ordinary people without professional academic backgrounds, relying on platforms such as short videos, podcasts, and social media, actively participate in the discussion and creation of academic topics, forming a new form of knowledge production and dissemination—mass academia. Mass academia is a process in the digital media environment in which multiple subjects, including professional scholars, knowledge-oriented creators, and the general public, jointly participate in the popularized translation, participatory dissemination, and public production of academic knowledge. In this process, professional discourse is transformed into expressions understandable to ordinary people; digital platforms, algorithmic recommendation, and social networks constitute its dissemination pathways; and knowledge is continuously supplemented, corrected, and re-interpreted in the public sphere, giving rise to an open, fluid, and decentralized new ecosystem of knowledge production and dissemination.
Making knowledge production a process of open participation by multiple subjects
Every round of media technology transformation reshapes the structure of knowledge dissemination and production. Although technology enables knowledge to reach more people faster, more broadly, and with lower barriers, those who participate in knowledge production have always been a minority; the masses can only serve as the receiving end, accepting screened knowledge, and the power structure of knowledge production has not undergone fundamental change. Digital technology has for the first time changed the structure of the production end. A platform account can enable content produced by non-professionals to be seen by millions of people; algorithmic recommendation enables knowledge in niche fields to precisely reach interested audiences; AI tools further lower the technical threshold for content production; and participation in knowledge production has shifted from a privilege of the few to a possibility for the many. It can be said that technology is a necessary condition for the rise of mass academia.
What truly made mass academia "take off" is the resonance between the lowering of technical thresholds and the educational foundation, public demand, and business models. In 2025, China's gross enrollment rate in higher education reached 61.30%, and the large-scale "knowledge masses" constitute the talent condition for mass academia. In a social atmosphere of lifelong learning, people need knowledge updates to obtain career development and cultivate the spirit, and the public's demand for academic knowledge continues to grow. At the same time, platforms have opened up business models for the conversion of knowledge-oriented content, and support such as traffic preference, creation incentives, and publishing plans provides creators with visible growth paths. Technology provides the possibility, education provides the subject condition, demand provides sustained momentum, and platforms provide an organized pathway—these four together promote the structural opening of the right to knowledge production.
In essence, mass academia is not a "popularized version of academia," but a new ecosystem of knowledge production. Its core feature is that the participating subjects of knowledge production have expanded from "institutionalized professional researchers" to "ordinary people with digital terminals and a spirit of exploration." This means that knowledge production has transformed from a relatively closed professional activity engaged in by a few into an open social process with the participation of multiple subjects.
The positive effects and hidden risks brought by mass academia
The most direct positive effect of mass academia is promoting the transformation of academic achievements into public knowledge and advancing the universal benefit of knowledge. Professional academic dissemination has long relied on channels such as journals, conferences, and monographs, which have limitations of long cycles, high thresholds, and narrow coverage, making it difficult for a large number of valuable research results to enter the public view. In the mass academia ecosystem, knowledge bloggers "translate" academic discourse into easily understandable multimodal content, and the public participates in knowledge reproduction through comments, secondary creation, and other means, transforming from knowledge "consumers" into "prosumers."
In addition, mass academia also constructs a non-institutionalized public discussion sphere. In the 2025 Qinghai "Kunlun Stone Inscriptions" incident, scholars from different disciplines and a broad range of archaeology enthusiasts engaged in cross-circle debate on the internet, and numerous netizens participated deeply through forwarding, commenting, and other means, demonstrating dissemination efficiency and cognitive diversity that professional academia finds difficult to match. A niche archaeological topic spilled over from the professional circle into a phenomenal public cultural event, reflecting that the openness and participatory nature of mass academia help achieve broader rational consensus.
The "de-institutionalized" feature of mass academia is both its valuable source of vitality and a source of structural risk. First, quality loss of control and the proliferation of pseudo-science popularization. The "de-institutionalized" model causes knowledge production to lose quality assurance mechanisms such as peer review and editorial gatekeeping in professional academia; once everyone can become a knowledge producer, "who is responsible for the truthfulness of information" becomes a real question. Second, the misalignment between algorithmic logic and knowledge value. In the mass academia ecosystem, algorithms become the dominant intermediary, and their underlying logic is to maximize user dwell time and interaction frequency, rather than knowledge value. Third, commercial interests distort the logic of knowledge dissemination. Driven by interests, pseudo-science popularization packaged with scientific concepts emerges incessantly and in an endless stream (层出不穷, ceng chu bu qiong - "layer, out, not, endless"), forming a gray industrial chain for traffic monetization and distorting the motives of knowledge dissemination.
The positive effects and hidden risks are two sides of the same coin (一体两面, yi ti liang mian - "one, body, two, sides") of the new phenomenon of mass academia. The sound development of mass academia requires establishing quality assurance mechanisms and public discussion norms adapted to the digital dissemination ecosystem while preserving its openness and participatory nature.
Seeking a dynamic balance in governance between regulation and activation
In discussing the governance of mass academia, one must clearly recognize the relationship between mass academia and professional academia. At present, mass academia has become mainstream at the level of knowledge dissemination, but at the level of knowledge production, professional academia still has advantages that mass academia cannot replace. This is mainly reflected in the following: first, the essence of academia lies in "seeking truth"; professional academia continuously corrects errors through peer review, repeatability testing, and discussion within the academic community, whereas mass academia lacks systematic error-correction mechanisms; second, professional academia gradually forms a systematic knowledge genealogy through knowledge accumulation, whereas the knowledge production of mass academia is often "point-like" and immediate, making it difficult to form disciplinary sedimentation; third, professional academia provides institutional guarantees for long-cycle, in-depth research through institutional arrangements such as subject identity and research funding, whereas mass academia is naturally inclined toward "short, flat, and fast" outputs, making it difficult to produce major breakthroughs in basic research. From this perspective, professional academia will continue to dominate the certification and accumulation of knowledge, while mass academia will dominate the dissemination and publicization of knowledge, and the landscape of knowledge dissemination and production is moving from a "single center" toward a "dual-track system."
The governance logic of mass academia lies not in "who replaces whom," but in promoting healthy development so that knowledge dissemination and production become more coordinated and orderly. On the one hand, promoting platforms to strengthen management responsibilities and establish and improve review and supervision mechanisms for knowledge-oriented information can enable timely measures against pseudo-science and anti-science information; at the same time, transitioning toward "proactively nurturing excellence," incorporating parameters such as the professionalism, originality, and social value of content into recommendation models, and using the "invisible editorial policy" of algorithmic logic to guide the standardized development of knowledge production. On the other hand, guiding the public to establish a sense of responsibility as subjects of knowledge dissemination and production, cultivating media literacy and academic literacy adapted to the digital era, strengthening the understanding that viewpoints require evidentiary support, conclusions should be subject to testing, errors should be acknowledged and corrected, and academic discussion requires "better arguments" rather than "louder voices," and promoting the public to become guardians of a sound knowledge ecosystem.
In the final analysis, the governance of mass academia must seek a dynamic balance in the tension between "regulation" and "activation," forming a diversified collaborative governance pattern with the public as the main body, platforms as the hub, and the rule of law as the bottom line, and promoting mass academia to become a vital force in building China's independent knowledge system of philosophy and social sciences.
Taking the path of combining knowledge production with the practice of the people
The rise of mass academia is not an isolated technological phenomenon, but a new development in the digital era of the fine tradition of the Communist Party of China in combining knowledge production with the practice of the people. Understanding mass academia within this fine tradition includes several important dimensions.
People-centeredness is the fundamental stance. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that China's philosophy and social sciences must adhere to a people-centered research orientation, and "if separated from the people, philosophy and social sciences will not have appeal, appeal, influence, or vitality." From "doing scholarship for the people" to "letting academic achievements benefit the broad masses of the people," people-centeredness has always been the value core of this tradition.Mass academia is precisely the large-scale unfolding of this stance in the digital era.
Practicality is the epistemological foundation. Our Party has never regarded knowledge production as an isolated activity in the study, but anchors it in social practice. Mao Zedong explicitly proposed during the Yan'an period, "Let philosophy be liberated from the classrooms and books of philosophers and become a sharp weapon in the hands of the masses." Mass academia enables ordinary people such as science enthusiasts, grassroots workers, and inheritors of skills to transform their practical experience into public knowledge. Building an independent knowledge system must be deeply rooted in the social practice of the Chinese people.
The mass line is the methodological path. The source of knowledge should not be limited to academic organizations; "from the masses, to the masses" is an important methodology of knowledge production. In particular, some local knowledge, such as dialects, folk customs, folk skills, and local history, is easily overlooked by professional academia, but can find active participants in the mass academia ecosystem. In addition, in data-intensive fields requiring large-scale observation and in cross-disciplinary innovation fields requiring the collision of diverse cognitive frameworks, the distributed participation and cognitive diversity of mass academia both have unique advantages.
Openness is the requirement of the times. Knowledge production develops continuously in dialogue with the times and the world. At present, global knowledge competition is fierce, the influence of Western-centric academic paradigms and discourse systems persists, and China's academic discourse power and influence are still disproportionate to its international status. How to create an open knowledge ecosystem that both guarantees the reliability and universal benefit of knowledge and protects the enthusiasm and creativity of the masses in participating in knowledge production, so that professional academia and mass academia form a combined force through division of labor and cooperation—this is a question of the times that we must answer well in world knowledge competition and great-power competition.
(The author is a researcher at the Beijing Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Dean of the School of Information and Communication at Communication University of China)
Return to TopBy: 李包庚
As outstanding representatives of advanced models, "Role Models of the Era" (时代楷模) are spiritual beacons that inspire the whole society to emulate the worthy, revere heroes, strive to be pioneers, and engage in selfless dedication. In his important instruction on the advanced deeds of Zhang Fuqing, a Role Model of the Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must actively promote the spirit of dedication and gather the powerful force of the whole people striving together in the new era." He also profoundly pointed out that "our cause is advanced by heroes, models, and advanced figures as the new force and backbone," and that "we must give full play to the exemplary role of heroes and models from all walks of life and vigorously stimulate positive social energy." These important expositions provide the fundamental guidance for deeply understanding what spirit shapes Role Models of the Era, how to inherit the spirit of Role Models of the Era, and thereby realize the value of life.
Role Models of the Era do not emerge from nowhere; they are not spiritual symbols simply shaped by honor and commendation, but rather the result of the integration of individual value pursuits, long-term practical perseverance, and the needs of the development of the times. The spirit of dedication is the core element running through the spiritual character of Role Models of the Era. As the spiritual trait of generations of advanced models who adhere to their original aspirations and serve the people, the spirit of dedication displayed by the group of Role Models of the Era is not a good deed done on a momentary impulse, nor a brief moral performance, but rather a value choice that has been precipitated and internalized into a conscious personality through long-term practice. This spirit has nourished and tempered their character, calibrated their values, and forged Role Models of the Era.
The primary yardstick of the spirit of dedication is answering the fundamental question of "for whom to dedicate." The common trait of Role Models of the Era is that they always keep the safety and well-being of the people in their hearts and place the cause of the Party and the people above personal gains and losses. After graduating from graduate school, Huang Wenxiu gave up job opportunities in big cities and took the initiative to go to Baise, where conditions were difficult, to serve as the first secretary stationed in Baini Village. She visited all the impoverished households in the village, hand-drew a map of impoverished households, ascertained the difficulties and demands of every household, led the masses in developing distinctive industries, and making every possible effort (千方百计, qian fang bai ji - "thousand, ways; hundred, plans") to drive the masses to increase income and escape poverty. Although she died in the line of duty in a mountain torrent, she wrote the selfless spirit of dedication of the new era with her youthful passion and blood. When personal development opportunities conflicted with the urgent needs of the masses, the spirit of dedication guided her to set aside personal development considerations and make serving the masses her life choice, demonstrating the spirit of dedication to the people of a Role Model of the Era.
The test of dedication lies less in momentous critical moments and more in the trivialities and hardships of day after day. Qian Haijun is an ordinary customer manager at State Grid Cixi Power Supply Company. For more than 20 years, he has insisted on providing free electrical volunteer services to elderly people living alone and people in difficulty. His phone has been on 24 hours a day all year round. Whether in the bitter cold of winter or the scorching heat of summer, late at night or in the early morning, whenever the masses have electrical repair needs, he is the first to arrive at their door, opening up the "last meter" of serving the masses. Volunteer service cannot rely on individual strength alone. Qian Haijun, through his own actions, inspired those around him, formed a volunteer service team, and mobilized more than a thousand volunteers to participate in services benefiting the people, expanding one person's dedication into a group's perseverance. What sustains this kind of volunteer service is precisely the ideological steadfastness forged by the spirit of dedication. The spirit of dedication dissolves the utilitarian consideration that "effort must be rewarded," making long-term perseverance in ordinary posts possible and shaping the image of a model through persistent small efforts.
Dedication is often accompanied by sacrifice. Practicing the spirit of dedication means actively embracing risks and challenges and shouldering responsibility in overcoming difficulties. Huang Shiyan served as county party secretary of Yanling County, located in the contiguous destitute areas of the Luoxiao Mountains, for eight years. He visited all the villages in the county, went deep into the mountains for research, developed local resources to develop characteristic industries such as yellow peaches, continuously improved rural infrastructure, and led the people of the whole county to achieve poverty alleviation and the removal of the county from the poverty list. The task of poverty alleviation in mountainous areas is extremely complex, with contradictions and difficulties emerging one after another without end (层出不穷, ceng chu bu qiong - "layer, emerge; not, exhausted"). Without the sense of responsibility to take the initiative to tackle difficulties (迎难而上, ying nan er shang - "face, difficulty; and, go up"), the arduous task could not be accomplished. The spirit of dedication endows individuals with the courage to face difficulties, enabling them to take the initiative to shoulder the heavy responsibilities entrusted by the times and, through the tempering of practice in overcoming difficulties, grow into Role Models of the Era trusted by the masses.
The spirit of dedication shapes Role Models of the Era, and Role Models of the Era manifest the brilliance of selfless human nature. The purpose of giving play to the exemplary and leading role of Role Models of the Era is to promote the continuous inheritance and practical implementation of the spirit of dedication. Inheritance is not simply preaching slogans, but rather building carriers and improving mechanisms to promote the transformation of the spirit of models from individual character into a common value pursuit of the whole society, integrating it into grassroots governance, post practice, and social life.
Do a good job of in-depth interpretation of model narratives and avoid typical propaganda becoming superficial and fragmented. Propaganda cannot merely be a simple listing of good people and good deeds, nor can it lack the elucidation of the spiritual value behind them. To inherit the spirit of dedication, it is necessary to deeply explore the logic of the original aspirations behind the deeds of Role Models of the Era and interpret advanced deeds in the context of the times. To interpret Zhang Guimei, one cannot only look at the result of her founding of the girls' high school, but must also understand her persistent pursuit of "changing the fate of girls in mountainous areas and using education to block the intergenerational transmission of poverty." Zhang Guimei exerted all her mental faculties (殚精竭虑, dan jing jie lv - "exhaust, essence; drain, thought") in running the school, helping more than a thousand girls from mountainous areas walk out of the mountains and into universities over more than a decade. This is not just a personal good deed, but a model of poverty alleviation through education. It is necessary to deeply explore its underlying logic so that the audience understands that the spirit of dedication is not a moral demand, but a value choice of staying in one's post and practicing one's original aspiration, thereby enhancing spiritual appeal.
Stay in one's post and promote the normalized implementation of the spirit of dedication. Dedication is not the patent of a few heroes and models, but a value pursuit that every ordinary person can practice in their own post. Qian Haijun's practical exploration provides a referenceable method. Qian Haijun not only personally persists in volunteer service, but also relies on grassroots Party organizations to build platforms, transforming individual dedication into an organized, systematic mechanism for serving the people, forming a practical paradigm of "six hearts, six types," providing a sample for all walks of life to practice the spirit of dedication on a regular basis. First, uphold the craftsman's heart and forge excellent grassroots Party organizations. Only by being proficient in one's profession can one truly solve the urgent and difficult problems of the masses. To promote the spirit of dedication, it is necessary to encourage professional competence to support the commitment to dedication, forge a craftsman's heart of constantly striving for perfection (精益求精, jing yi qiu jing - "refined, more; seek, excellence"), meticulous and careful cultivation (精耕细作, jing geng xi zuo - "fine, plow; detailed, work"), and the pursuit of excellence, and comprehensively build excellent grassroots Party organizations with strong skills, fine work style, and outstanding achievements. Second, uphold the warm heart and forge service-oriented grassroots Party organizations. The most direct manifestation of the spirit of dedication is to be full of warmth for the masses and to treat the small matters of the masses as major matters. To practice the spirit of dedication, it is necessary to firmly stand on the people's side, cultivate deep feelings for the people, always keep the masses in mind, and continuously build service-oriented grassroots Party organizations that wholeheartedly serve the people and warmly benefit the people. Third, uphold the resilient heart and forge grassroots Party organizations that tackle tough problems. Livelihood problems are difficult to solve completely at one go. To practice the spirit of dedication, one must always cherish a heart of perseverance that is not afraid of trivialities, not afraid of hardship, does not abandon small things, perseveres with constancy (持之以恒, chi zhi yi heng - "hold, it; with, perseverance"), and makes a sustained, long-term effort. For grassroots Party organizations, it is necessary to dare to face the difficulties of grassroots governance, the blockages in livelihood services, and the pain points in reform and development, and continuously forge grassroots Party organizations that are good at tackling tough problems, taking the initiative to tackle difficulties and making a sustained, long-term effort. Fourth, uphold the exploratory heart and forge pioneering grassroots Party organizations. The environment of the times is changing, the needs of the masses are changing, and the forms of dedication also need to keep pace with the times, innovate service methods, and improve service efficiency. To promote the spirit of dedication, one must have an exploratory heart that dares to innovate, is good at breaking through, and dares to try first, continuously innovating service carriers, optimizing governance methods, and improving working mechanisms, and make every effort to build pioneering grassroots Party organizations that dare to try and dare to break through. Fifth, uphold the fighting heart and forge combat-effective grassroots Party organizations. On the new journey, the tasks are arduous and require a fighting posture of daring to fight, daring to break through, and daring to act. To promote the spirit of dedication, it is necessary to carry forward the fighting heart of hard work, striving to be first, and being indomitable, and forge combat-effective grassroots Party organizations that can be summoned at any time, fight when called upon, and win when fighting. Sixth, uphold the dedication heart and forge voluntary grassroots Party organizations. The highest realm of inheriting the spirit of models is to realize the transformation from "one person's dedication" to "everyone's participation," making dedication a social norm. To promote the spirit of dedication, one must not only have a dedication heart of taking the lead, being selfless and egoless, being willing to give, and passing on the torch, but also continuously build voluntary grassroots Party organizations with full participation, driving a thousand people to walk together from one person doing good deeds, developing from individual dedication to team volunteerism, and forming a volunteer pattern of a single spark starting a prairie fire (星火燎原, xing huo liao yuan - "star, fire; scorch, plain").
Create a social and cultural ecology that is upward and good, and consolidate the social soil for the dissemination of the spirit of dedication. In the current era of diverse and intertwined social trends, concepts such as utilitarianism and refined egoism still exist, weakening the appeal of the spirit of dedication to a certain extent. This requires continuously giving play to the exemplary role of Role Models of the Era, and continuously telling the stories of models well through various means such as theoretical lectures, exhibitions of deeds, and story dissemination. Guide the vast number of Party members, cadres, and ordinary people to emulate the worthy, consciously benchmark against Role Models of the Era, and internalize the spirit of dedication in the heart and externalize it in action. Promoting the spirit of dedication does not mean denying reasonable personal interests, but rather guiding people to break out of purely self-interested thinking and realize the value of life in the process of serving the people and dedicating to society.
(The author is the Dean of the School of Marxism at Ningbo University)
Return to TopBy: 张丽丽
The key to governing a country lies first in employing the right people. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The achievements of cadres lie in practice, and the reputation of cadres lies among the people. One should carry a 'telescope' and a 'microscope,' observe cadres at close range and examine them from multiple angles; go more often among grassroots cadres and the masses, and learn about cadres more through the words of the people in the villages, so that the cadres selected are reassuring to the organization, satisfactory to the masses, and convincing to other cadres. One should combine the study of people with the study of affairs, avoiding going from the abstract to the abstract and drawing conclusions based on feelings." This important exposition profoundly elucidates the scientific working method of understanding affairs and knowing people, and unifying people and affairs, breaking down the drawbacks of subjectivization, conceptualization, and one-sidedness in cadre evaluation. In the new era, as full and rigorous self-governance of the Party advances in depth, the tasks of grassroots governance, reform and development, and livelihood security are arduous, and the scenarios in which cadres perform their duties have become more diverse and complex. Only by adhering to the deep integration of studying people and studying affairs, examining people through affairs, observing affairs through people, and cross-verifying people and affairs, can we objectively and fairly evaluate cadres' moral integrity and ability, their sense of responsibility and actual achievements, and provide a solid guarantee for forging a high-quality, professional cadre contingent.
Distinguishing the worthy and capable and selecting good talents has been a major matter of governance since ancient times. The Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance states, "The foundation of governance lies in obtaining the right people; obtaining the right people lies in careful selection; careful selection lies in verifying the truth," making clear that the root of knowing people and employing them lies in seeking truth from facts and acting pragmatically (求真务实, qiu zhen wu shi - "seek truth, be pragmatic") and in evaluating based on facts. People are the subjects of undertaking work, and affairs are the carriers of performing duties; the moral character, ability, work style, and sense of responsibility of cadres can only be truly manifested in concrete practice and in doing practical things for the people. It is necessary to prevent the separation of people and affairs, and problems such as valuing documents over actual achievements, valuing impressions over reputation, and valuing static labels over dynamic performance, so as to avoid subjective assumptions and distortion in understanding people. Closely adhering to the principle of integrating people and affairs, persisting in coming from the masses and going among the masses, and using scientific methods, multi-dimensional perspectives, and pragmatic measures to accurately understand and select people, we must truly select good cadres and put them to use.
Actual achievements arise from solid work, and a sense of responsibility is seen in personal practice. Adhering to examining people through affairs and evaluating talent by achievements is the fundamental remedy for eliminating subjective assumptions. A person's comprehensive qualities are not immutable; they gradually manifest through the tempering of performing duties and undertaking work. If one relies only on abstract impressions to judge, it is difficult to see the true level; one must base judgment on practice, examination, and research, so that understanding people is built on objective and rational practice. "No affair is clearer than when it has results, and no argument is more settled than when it has evidence." Evaluating people cannot rely on flashy rhetoric; actual results must be used as the basis. Recognizing talent cannot be confined to the paperwork of government offices, nor can decisions be made hastily based on oral reports. The footsteps of investigation should rush to the front lines of tackling difficulties, take root at the grassroots frontline, and pause at the scenes of people's livelihoods. Keep a close watch on the progress of key tasks, quietly observe the choices and trade-offs made at critical moments, and appreciate the perseverance in trivial matters. Be adept at distinguishing visible achievements from latent achievements, balancing immediate results with long-term foundations, seeing both the tangible fruits of effective implementation and appreciating the subtle, silent influence that benefits others (润物无声, run wu wu sheng - "moisten things, without sound") of laying foundations. Measure the breadth of cadres' vision through one concrete matter after another, and select diligent, steadfast, and practical talents through one achievement after another.
The hearts of people are hidden beneath the surface, and talent is revealed in circumstances. Relying only on a glimpse from one corner or a brief encounter makes it difficult to see the complete picture of a cadre; one must examine from close range and from multiple angles. A person's external performance is often influenced by the environment; if one observes only from a single dimension, it is easy to fall into cognitive blind spots. Drawing conclusions based only on fragmented impressions inevitably carries subjective bias. Only by stepping out of fixed perspectives and cross-verifying information from multiple sources can subjective misjudgment be reduced and the true nature of things be restored. One should both examine their consistent performance, observe their overall vision and enduring resolve, and not lightly pass judgment based on temporary gains or losses; and focus on the fine details, noting the small points in handling difficult problems and daily affairs, to discern hidden shortcomings and deficiencies. Coordinate information from routine assessments, special inspections, and trials in urgent and difficult tasks, take into account words and deeds both inside and outside working hours, achieve mutual verification of far and near and mutual examination of surface and interior, and depict a full and three-dimensional portrait of cadres.
Gold cups and silver cups are not as good as the reputation among the people. The masses are at the very end of governance and feel most keenly the work style and moral character of cadres. The masses have the most say in how effective the work for the people is. Whether much work is done solidly and whether the work style is good is hard to fully reflect in written materials; the masses who deal with cadres over the long term feel it most directly. Valuing the evaluative voices of the masses means looking at people from the starting point of serving the people, avoiding looking only at the surface of work, and truly understanding the original intention of serving the people behind the work. "What the people delight in, delight in; what the people detest, detest." Take the true feelings of the masses as an important yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of duty performance, and discern the true heart of cadres from the sincere evaluations of the masses. Whether a cadre's moral character is good or bad, the masses naturally have their fair judgment. One should step out of the government compound, walk into villages and neighborhoods, and quietly listen to the talk in the streets and lanes. Extensively listen to the sincere voices of grassroots cadres and service targets, observe the true state of cadres in relieving the people's worries and in dealing with people and affairs, and examine their bottom line of integrity and self-restraint. Take the masses' sense of gain and sense of recognition as important yardsticks of evaluation, read the original intention of cadres to serve the people in the colloquial speech of the villages, and select pragmatic public servants who care about the people and are rooted in the local soil.
Fine jade requires a thousand carvings, and worthy talent is valued through long observation. Knowing people and distinguishing talent is by no means a matter of a single day's effort; only by persisting with constancy and determination (持之以恒, chi zhi yi heng - "hold it, with constancy") in follow-up observation can the mutual advancement of knowing people and nurturing talent be achieved. A person's growth requires the sedimentation of time; ability is continuously strengthened through sustained tempering, and temperament gradually matures through repeated honing. A short-term inspection can only capture the state at a single point in time; long-term tracking is needed to see the trajectory of change, accurately judge growth potential, prevent hasty conclusions based on a momentary performance, and achieve the simultaneous advancement of recognizing talent and nurturing talent. "To test jade, one must burn it for three full days; to distinguish timber, one must wait seven years." Without the tempering of lacking experience in the ways of the world (不经世事, bu jing shi shi - "not, experience, world affairs"), the level of talent cannot be distinguished. The assessment of cadres should be regularized, institutionalized, and cover all situations; efforts should be made in ordinary times to understand cadres in an all-round way and through multiple channels, and attention should also be paid to understanding cadres' performance in completing urgent, difficult, dangerous, and heavy tasks, handling complex problems, and responding to major tests. Through long-term tracking and observation, continuously record the performance of cadres in their duties. See whether they can hold fast in ordinary posts, whether they can persevere in the face of heavy tasks, and what progress they make as their experience grows. Relying on long-term and sustained observation, establish an employment orientation that values solid work, and form a virtuous cycle of knowing people, nurturing people, and employing people.
Return to TopQuestion: Gu Lun, General Manager of Shanghai Caohejing New Technology Development Zone Development Corporation
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that in today's world, the scarcest resource is the market. Market resources are China's enormous advantage; we must fully utilize and leverage this advantage, continuously consolidate and strengthen it, and form a solid support for building the new development pattern. The question is: why is it said that in today's world, the scarcest resource is the market?
Interpretation: Liu Zhibiao, Executive Dean of the Yangtze River Industrial Development Research Institute, Nanjing University
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that in today's world, the scarcest resource is the market. Market resources are China's enormous advantage; we must fully utilize and leverage this advantage, continuously consolidate and strengthen it, and form a solid support for building the new development pattern. This important thesis elevates the market from a trading mechanism and spatial venue for economic operations to a proactive strategic resource for national development, providing fundamental guidance for understanding the shift in the focus of China's current economic policy. The international community often refers to the scarcity of the Chinese market as "scarcity within scarcity." Understanding where this scarcity comes from is directly related to the direction of current and future macro- and micro-economic policy efforts. The principal contradiction in economic work has shifted from supply shortage to insufficient effective demand and structural imbalance between supply and demand, and the focus of economic policy should likewise shift from expanding production capacity to strengthening the market and adjusting structure. Recognizing that the market is the scarcest resource means recognizing this shift, and thereby recognizing the direction in which policy should exert its force.
Changes in the stage of economic development determine the ranking of resource scarcity
The ranking of scarce resources is determined by the short-side rule of economic development. Non-equilibrium economics reveals that in a non-equilibrium market, the actual volume of transactions depends on the lesser of supply and demand. Whichever side is on the short side is the resource that is scarcest and most in need of supplementation at that stage. Once the stage of economic development crosses a certain threshold, this short side shifts from one end to the other.
In the era of shortage economy, in order to meet the people's constantly growing material and cultural needs, we were required to continuously increase investment, expand production capacity, and enhance the intensity of supply. Therefore, the scarcest resources at this stage were necessarily those factors directly related to investment, production capacity, and supply levels, such as capital accumulation, labor input, technological learning and innovation capacity, and so on. In this era, the actual aggregate economic output was constrained by the level of supply, which can be expressed in a simple equation: "total supply equals the actual scale of the economy." Enterprises did not need to worry about sales outlets for their products; expanding production itself meant growth. The focus of economic policy correspondingly fell on factor mobilization, project siting, and capacity construction, and catch-up-style industrial policy was a product of this stage. The habitual ways of thinking formed under the conditions of a shortage economy—such as valuing accumulation over consumption, valuing quantity over quality, and valuing output growth over market building—all had a realistic basis at this stage.
With the development of productive forces, the principal contradiction in Chinese society has undergone major changes. In the economic sphere, this is manifested in the fact that quantitative shortage is no longer the norm in economic operations; structural optimization, quality improvement, and efficiency enhancement are the goals pursued by economic policy. The driving mechanism of economic growth has also shifted from a producer-led seller's market to a consumer-led buyer's market. The focus of economic growth has correspondingly moved from the supply side to the demand side; the factors constraining the expansion of economic scale have shifted from factories and production lines to orders and purchasing power; and the economic equation has accordingly been rewritten as "total demand equals the actual scale of the economy." The scale of market demand determines the upper limit of economic growth, and changes in the structure of market demand determine the direction of industrial upgrading.
Since entering the new era, China's economic landscape has completed this transformation, and the speed at which China's supply capacity is formed has become increasingly fast. At the micro level, this is manifested in the fact that as long as enterprises obtain orders, the vast majority of goods and services can be produced continuously and in an unending stream (源源不断, yuan yuan bu duan - "source, source, not stop") very quickly, and the buyer's market pattern in which supply exceeds demand has become the norm in economic operations. Emerging industries such as photovoltaics, lithium batteries, new energy vehicles, and e-commerce platforms have also successively fallen into price wars. This shows that capacity constraints have given way to market demand constraints. The implications for economic policy arising from this are very clear: expanding domestic demand needs to transcend the scope of short-term adjustment policies, be treated as a medium- and long-term strategy, and be used as the main thread to coordinate fiscal, monetary, income distribution, and industrial policies, while supply-side structural reform assumes more of the function of adapting to changes and upgrades in the demand structure.
Market resources are a huge advantage that China must and can fully utilize and leverage
The super-large-scale market is China's most certain resource endowment. A population of more than 1.4 billion, with a middle-income group of over 400 million, constitutes the consumer group with the best growth prospects globally. In 2025, China's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 50.12 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.7 percent over the previous year, of which retail sales of goods were 44.32 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.8 percent, ranking second in the world in scale. This scale means that new technologies and new products emerging from innovative development can all find application scenarios domestically and undergo rapid technological iteration, and enterprises' fixed costs can also be amortized over larger batches, making it easier to reach the minimum efficient scale.
A complete industrial system and continuously rising resident income levels jointly support the functional optimization of a strong domestic market. China possesses all industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification, and the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain can form complete supporting facilities domestically. The procurement radius for intermediate inputs is short, and transaction costs are correspondingly reduced. With per capita GDP exceeding US$13,000 for two consecutive years, Chinese residents' consumption has shifted from subsistence-oriented to development-oriented and enjoyment-oriented. Service consumption, green consumption, and digital consumption continue to expand, and the demand structure is evolving toward high-end sophistication. There are more than 180 million business entities, the vast majority of which are small and micro enterprises and self-employed households, and they are the closest to diversified local demand. This combination of supply capacity and demand potential on such a scale is rarely seen anywhere in the world.
The building of the unified national market is the key factor in transforming potential market scale into real advantages. In the past, we often said that China was one of the world's largest markets. In fact, for a long time this market was more "potentially" large—large in the sense of "aggregated" market scale—while a functionalized, strong domestic market was still in the process of formation. At present, although the overall scale of China's market is already considerable, this market is still generally in a state of administrative segmentation and local protection, making it difficult for enterprises to engage in normalized market competition within it or to truly realize economies of scale. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed resolutely removing the bottlenecks and obstacles impeding the building of the unified national market, precisely targeting the need to make up for this shortcoming. In the building of the unified national market, unification is only a means and a tool; scale expansion and functional strengthening are the purposes of market building.
Market advantage is an asset that can be converted into multiple capabilities. Once scale is achieved, the power to set standards, the voice in rule-making, and the bargaining power in industry will correspondingly increase. The scale and experience that enterprises accumulate in the domestic market will also extend into competitiveness in foreign investment.
Continuously consolidate and strengthen China's market advantage to provide solid support for accelerating the formation of the new development pattern
Consolidating and strengthening the market advantage is the decisive condition for whether the new development pattern can take shape. The key to the formation of the new development pattern lies in the extent to which the domestic economic cycle can dominate and lead the international cycle. A modernized industrial system is the material and technological foundation for the formation of the new development pattern, and the unified national market not only enables the output of the industrial system to realize its value smoothly in internal circulation, but also provides institutional support for transactions and spatial carriers for dual circulation. Only when an independent, self-controllable, safe, and efficient modernized industrial system is combined with the unified national market can the internal circulation of a major economy truly stand on its own feet. Expanding the scale and capacity of the market and strengthening market functions therefore occupy a primary position.
From a practical standpoint, the strength of the market advantage directly determines the effective range of macroeconomic policy. Fluctuations in the economic cycle can be repaired by fiscal and monetary policy, but the effect of the repair depends on the thickness of market capacity. If market capacity is large enough, the same fiscal expenditure can be converted into more orders and employment; if market capacity is thin, the effect of policy is prone to attenuation in transmission, and may even manifest as liquidity idling within financial institutions. Using new demand to lead new supply and using new supply to create new demand presupposes that the demand side has sufficient absorptive capacity. This is the reasoning behind organically combining the expansion of domestic demand with the deepening of supply-side structural reform and making the building of a super-large-scale domestic market a sustainable historical process. The expansion of market scale also brings a knock-on effect: the larger the market scale, the finer the social division of labor, the higher the degree of specialization, and the greater the room for improvement in total factor productivity. Once the cycle of "market scale expansion—deepening division of labor—productivity improvement—further market expansion" is set in motion, economic growth acquires endogenous momentum.
Adhering to the combination of an effective market and a well-functioning government is not only a notable advantage of the socialist market economy system, but also an important principle that must be followed for economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. In order to form a strong domestic market, a well-functioning government needs to exert force in the following three areas simultaneously.
First, implement a more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy to offset the negative effects of cyclical factors in the economy. China's economic policy practice shows that relying solely on a loose monetary policy as the single leg to walk on makes it difficult for liquidity to enter the real economy and the household consumption sphere during periods of weak expectations. The intensity of fiscal policy needs to be appropriately increased, rapidly converting government expenditure into aggregate demand, and in particularly urgent circumstances, a certain amount of liquidity can be injected into households and small and medium enterprises.
Second, deeply implement microeconomic policy reforms, treating the adjustment of the labor-to-capital ratio in the primary distribution sphere as a foundational institutional innovation. The fundamental way to expand domestic demand lies in raising resident income, and raising resident income cannot be accomplished by means of taxation, credit, transfer payments, and other instruments in the redistribution sphere alone; reforms must also be advanced in the primary distribution sphere. If inequities formed in the primary distribution sphere are left until the redistribution stage for forceful government intervention, this will not only consume fiscal resources and be relatively inefficient, but will also easily breed corruption. The focus of reform lies in setting right the fundamental purpose of development, placing workers' income, consumption, welfare, and social security in a more prominent position in economic development policy, and ensuring that the fruits of economic growth are simultaneously used to raise workers' living standards and consumption capacity.
Third, deepen supply-side structural reform to resolve the structural compatibility contradiction between supply and demand. Adhere to the principle of market-oriented reform, relax market regulation, and guide enterprises to autonomously adjust their products and services in accordance with signals of demand structure upgrading. Adhere to scientific and technological innovation leading industrial innovation, promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, promote the growth of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and use new technologies to lead the supply of new products. At the same time, on the basis of the unified national market, give play to the role of central-government-led industrial policy, proactively adjust and optimize the supply structure in key areas, resolutely curb blindly and repetitively (盲目重复, mang mu chong fu - "blind, blind, repeat, repeat") construction and irrational vicious competition in emerging pillar industries, and advance in an integrated manner the building of the unified national market with unified policies, consistent rules, and coordinated actions.
Return to TopBy: 满慎刚
The great river surges vast and mighty, flowing ten thousand li into the sea. The Yellow River carries too much glory and dream of the Chinese nation. As a project of eternal importance, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has traveled across the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yellow River, presided over three symposiums and delivered important speeches, steering the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin. In October 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping personally visited Dongying City, Shandong Province, to inspect the wetland ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Delta, and issued a series of important instructions on ecological protection and governance of the Yellow River estuary, comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land, service and guarantee of energy security, and ensuring the well-being and prosperity of the people. Dongying City has always regarded the implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and requirements as a major political task, resolutely shouldering the responsibility of the city at the Yellow River estuary, and with the standard of striving for first-class, standing at the forefront, and setting an example, has striven to write an excellent answer sheet for serving and safeguarding the "great affairs of the nation," and to add luster to the entire basin with the light of one region.
Adhere to the path of ecological priority and green development, and build a demonstration zone for ecological protection and green transformation in the Yellow River basin. The Yellow River estuary is a key ecological functional area in the Yellow River basin, possessing the most complete wetland ecosystem in China's warm temperate zone. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the protection of the Yellow River estuary wetlands should be regarded as a noble cause, so that the concept of ecological civilization can be carried forward on the new journey of achieving the Second Centenary Goal, adding brilliance and color to the realization of socialist modernization. When ecology prospers, civilization prospers; when ecology declines, civilization declines. Jointly doing a good job in major protection and collaboratively promoting major governance, taking the high-quality creation of the Yellow River Estuary National Park as the lead, optimizing and integrating nature reserves, scientifically delineating management scope, and promoting in an integrated manner the strict protection and systematic governance of water, forests, fields, grasslands, wetlands, mudflats, and coastlines, we will make every effort to guard the islet of the great river. Adhere to governing ecology with ecological methods, explore and form a wetland restoration model for the Yellow River estuary of "land-sea coordination, systematic restoration, and comprehensive governance," achieving the good effect of "one-time restoration, natural succession, and long-term stability." The Yellow River Delta is the common home of countless living beings. We will improve the biodiversity protection system, achieve dynamic zeroing of smooth cordgrass governance, strengthen the protection of habitats for key species such as the oriental white stork and the Saunders's gull, and the conservation of native vegetation and marine biological resources. The types and numbers of wild animals and plants continue to grow, the Yellow River estuary migratory bird habitat has been selected as a World Natural Heritage site, and the spectacular "bird wave" phenomenon in autumn and winter has become a sensation across the internet. Correctly handle the relationship between protection according to law and scientific utilization, adhere to utilization in protection and protection in utilization, actively expand the transformation path of "two mountains," explore the mechanism for realizing the value of ecological products, enrich cultural and tourism integration formats such as research and study tours, and promote the sharing by all of the people of characteristic ecological resources such as the confluence of river and sea, newborn wetlands, wild birds, and seepweed on saline land.
Adhere to the two-way efforts of "adapting seeds to the land" and "adapting the land to seeds," and build a national demonstration zone for comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land. The Yellow River basin is a strategic support belt for national food security and one of the regions with the most concentrated distribution of saline-alkali land in China. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that carrying out comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land has important strategic significance for ensuring national food security and firmly holding the Chinese people's rice bowl. Adhere to the combination of improving seeds and improving land, and the integration of agricultural machinery, agricultural technology, and agronomic techniques, make every effort to break through key core technologies, actively explore pathways and models for comprehensive utilization, promote the transformation of saline-alkali wasteland into a "granary," and help firmly hold the rice bowl. Give full play to the engine role of the Yellow River Delta Agricultural High-tech Industry Demonstration Zone and the National Saline-Alkali Land Comprehensive Utilization Technology Innovation Center, establish and improve a collaborative innovation system radiating across the country, promote "organized scientific research" and the integration of "breeding, propagation, and promotion," and accelerate the transformation of major scientific research achievements into real productive forces. Adhere to adapting measures to local conditions, classified improvement, and ecological utilization, complete with high standards the national pilot task of comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land and other cultivated land reserve resources, explore and form technical models for high and stable yields of grain crops on mildly saline-alkali cultivated land, quality and efficiency improvement of oil, forage, and cotton crops on moderately saline-alkali cultivated land, ecological utilization of adaptable plants on heavily saline-alkali land, and engineering transformation and facility planting and breeding of saline-alkali wasteland, providing "Dongying experience" for the governance of saline-alkali land of different gradients in the Yellow River basin and even the whole country. Saline-alkali land has not only become a stable and high-yield "granary," but also a "golden land" nurturing characteristic industries. Deeply explore the unique value and functional characteristics of agricultural products from saline-alkali land, implement an action for high-quality development of the entire agricultural industry chain, cultivate and strengthen characteristic industries such as Yellow River estuary rice, Tan sheep, prawns, soybeans, and hairy crabs, and the brand influence of "Yellow River estuary agricultural products, saline-alkali land specialties" continues to improve.
Adhere to "walking on two legs" with traditional energy and clean energy, and build a new energy economy demonstration zone. The Yellow River basin is an important "energy basin" in China, with multiple national-level energy bases concentrated there. Dongying was established because of oil, built because of oil, and prospered because of oil. It is the main production area of Shengli Oilfield and an important production area of Bohai Oilfield. Taking the creation of a benchmark model for oil-land integrated development as the guide, we fully support and guarantee the stable production and increased production of oilfields and the implementation of major projects, and strive to build a national strategic guarantee base for oil and gas security. Multi-energy complementarity is the necessary path for promoting the energy system to move from "single-force advance" to "system integration." Promote in an integrated manner the development of new energy such as wind, solar, storage, hydrogen, and geothermal, accelerate the construction of the northern Shandong saline-alkali mudflat wind-solar-storage-transmission integrated base, the Bozhong offshore wind power base, and the "thousand towns and ten thousand villages wind power action" project. The installed capacity of renewable energy has been increased to nearly 70 percent of total installed capacity, the scale of new energy storage ranks first in Shandong Province, and the area of geothermal heating has reached one-third of the actual heating area. Synergistically promote the industrialization of new energy and the new energy transformation of industry, accelerate the construction of the first batch of national zero-carbon parks and the green electricity and green hydrogen heavy chemical industry park energy interaction demonstration projects, build a full industry chain demonstration base for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), orderly develop scenarios such as zero-carbon cities, zero-carbon chemical industry, zero-carbon towns, and zero-carbon oil zones, continuously optimize the ecology for high-proportion, large-scale green electricity consumption, and strive to turn the advantage of green electricity into a development advantage.
Adhere to safeguarding and improving people's livelihood in development, and build a happy home that the people are satisfied with. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the Yellow River should be made a happy river that benefits the people. We have always regarded serving the people as the fundamental mission and benefiting the people as the greatest achievement. We not only continuously make the "cake" bigger, but also practically distribute the "cake" well, so that the fruits of development benefit all the people of the city more and more fairly. Adhere to the principle that livelihood investment only increases and never decreases, livelihood projects only increase and never decrease, and livelihood guarantees only rise and never fall. Every year, we handle a number of livelihood practical matters with small entry points and tangible benefits, continuously promote the expansion and quality improvement of social undertakings, raise the standards of guarantees and assistance year after year, and continuously enhance the people's sense of happiness and satisfaction. Adhere to taking employment as the foundation of people's livelihood, explore common prosperity paths such as using industry to supplement agriculture, using cities to drive rural areas, and pairing villages with enterprises, build common prosperity platforms such as "benefiting enterprises and common prosperity" and "common prosperity workshops" according to village conditions, and promote the people to find employment at their doorstep and increase income along the industrial chain. Anchor on high-quality living spaces, high-appearance urban and rural landscapes, and high-taste people's lives, deeply promote the construction of happy homes led by Party building, orderly promote urban area renewal and renovation of old residential communities, accelerate the construction of complete communities and fine governance communities, promote the connection of urban greenways and fitness trails, and basically achieve seeing green within 300 meters and seeing parks within 500 meters. Adhere to classified, orderly, and area-based promotion of comprehensive rural revitalization, promote the contiguous implementation of planning, the integrated integration of elements, the contiguous development of industries, the contiguous construction and management of facilities, the optimization of contiguous services, and the enhancement of contiguous governance efficiency, and create a Qilu model of rural revitalization with the characteristics of saline-alkali land along the Yellow River and the coast.
(The author is the Secretary of the Dongying Municipal Party Committee of Shandong Province)
Return to TopBy: 马宝成
Improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is the core task of advancing the modernization of China's emergency management system and capacity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Improve the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response, accelerate the construction of the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams and national regional emergency rescue centers, enhance rescue capabilities under extreme conditions, and ensure that at critical moments we can deploy, charge forward, and win." At present, against the backdrop of global climate change, the frequency of natural disasters in China has increased markedly and their intensity has grown significantly, and the situation facing natural disaster prevention and control is severe and complex. The emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response serves as the "brain center" for handling emergencies, enabling the organic integration of emergency forces, resources, and information across different departments and levels, forming strong centripetal force, cohesion, and combat effectiveness, and ensuring rapid response and efficient handling of emergencies.
Enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and emergency command headquarters at all local levels
The "15th Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of the Emergency Response System" makes specific arrangements for enhancing the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters and emergency command headquarters at all local levels. The construction of emergency command headquarters is a core issue in the modernization of the emergency management system and capacity. It is of extremely important practical significance for effectively carrying out large-scale, high-intensity emergency organization and command, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency response to emergencies, reducing the losses and impacts of major emergencies, and better safeguarding the safety of people's lives and property.
Systematically enhance the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters. The National Emergency Command Headquarters coordinates national emergency resources, coordinates cross-regional and cross-departmental collaboration, and commands the handling of extraordinarily serious and major emergencies; its operational effectiveness is directly related to the ultimate results of emergency handling. The key to enhancing the operational effectiveness of the National Emergency Command Headquarters lies in properly handling the relationship between "unified command" and "divided responsibilities." The function of "unified command" is mainly undertaken by deliberative and coordinating bodies such as the National Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Relief Commission, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the State Council Earthquake Relief Headquarters, and the State Forest and Grassland Fire Prevention and Suppression Headquarters, which provide unified leadership, overall guidance, and comprehensive coordination. The function of "divided responsibilities" continues to be jointly undertaken by member units and competent industry departments, which, in accordance with their respective duties and divisions of labor, give play to their respective professional advantages and conscientiously perform flood control, drought relief, accident and disaster prevention and control in their respective fields, as well as early emergency response after disasters occur. Emergency management departments must effectively assume the office functions of the aforementioned deliberative and coordinating bodies, carry out overall coordination and comprehensive management, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of all member units, and jointly accomplish the various tasks of the National Emergency Command Headquarters.
Enhance the operational effectiveness of emergency command headquarters at all local levels by level. The core essence of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" is to require local authorities to command nearby and assume the primary responsibility for emergency response to emergencies. Local Party committees and governments at all levels have advantages in time, space, and information during emergency response. The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clearly stipulates that local Party committees and governments at or above the county level shall establish local emergency command bodies for emergencies, special command bodies, and on-site command bodies, providing a basis for enhancing the operational effectiveness of emergency command headquarters at all local levels. Effectively improve and strengthen local emergency command headquarters for emergencies, with the principal responsible persons of the Party committee and government at the corresponding level taking the lead, responsible for unified command and coordination of emergency management work in their respective regions. Clarify the responsibilities of local special emergency command bodies for organizing, coordinating, and commanding responses to relevant categories of emergencies, and improve the list of responsibilities of on-site command bodies for unified command of on-site emergency response and rescue operations. Strengthen emergency management organizations and personnel in townships (subdistricts) and other grassroots units, and enhance the organizational and mobilization capacity of emergency management in villages (communities).
Improve the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams
China's emergency rescue forces take the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams as the main force, professional rescue teams as coordination, military emergency forces as assault, and social forces as assistance. During response and handling, the rescue forces arriving on site typically exhibit diversified characteristics. The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clearly stipulates that "emergency command for emergencies implements a command mechanism combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams," and requires that "all emergency forces, equipment, and materials entering the site shall be subject to unified dispatch by the on-site command body, with relevant emergency forces acting in accordance with the prescribed command relationships and command authority to ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination." The "15th Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of the Emergency Response System" makes arrangements for improving the systems and mechanisms for unified command and professional command of on-site command headquarters for disaster and accident rescue operations. These provisions take into account the complexity of command relationships and command authority among different rescue forces and aim to solve the problems of multiple commanders and acting independently without coordination (各行其是, ge hang qi shi - "each, go, its, own, act") at emergency response sites. They both emphasize ensuring the overall operational effectiveness of on-site level-by-level command and emphasize the distinctive characteristics of professional command, requiring relevant forces to aim at accomplishing prescribed tasks and ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination.
To improve the command model combining central and local level-by-level command with professional command of teams, it is necessary to standardize the relationship and coordination and linkage mechanisms between on-site command bodies and rescue forces. Formulate specific standards for the participation of various rescue forces in emergency response. Led by emergency management departments, clarify the dispatch rules, conditions, and procedures for incorporating different teams into professional command, and enhance the tacit understanding of coordinated operations. Build an interconnected and interoperable intelligent command platform, integrate the command resources of emergency management departments at all levels with the on-site terminal resources of professional rescue teams, ensure that the decision-making end of level-by-level command can directly understand the specific on-site situation and that the professional command end can promptly receive orders and requirements from higher levels, and improve operational effectiveness as a whole. Strengthen the compilation of emergency response plans and lists of powers and responsibilities, refine the rules for articulating powers and responsibilities, and, in light of one's own risk characteristics and risk types, clarify the lead entities and decision-making authority for level-by-level command under different response levels, with particular clarification of the activation conditions and command powers and responsibilities of professional command, so as to avoid at the institutional level the problem of unclear powers and responsibilities among different command headquarters.
Improve working mechanisms for key areas and key links of emergency command
To improve the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response, it is necessary to focus on improving relevant specific working mechanisms.
Improve the command working mechanism of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management." The National Overall Emergency Response Plan for Emergencies clarifies the responsible entities under the "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" principle in the emergency command work system. The core contents of "level-by-level responsibility and territorial management" include: where an extraordinarily serious or major emergency is initially determined to have occurred, the provincial-level Party committee and government where the incident occurred shall in principle organize and command the response; where a relatively serious or ordinary emergency is initially determined to have occurred, the municipal-level and county-level Party committees and governments shall in principle organize and command the response respectively. Where multiple administrative regions are involved, the relevant administrative regions shall jointly respond or the common higher-level Party committee and government shall organize and command the response. Where response capacity beyond the administrative region is exceeded, the higher-level Party committee and government shall provide response support or command and coordinate the response. When necessary, the relevant national emergency command body, or a new national emergency command body for emergencies established upon approval of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, shall exercise unified command and coordination of the response.
Improve the mechanism for determining the level of emergency command. Establish scientific criteria for assessing the level of emergency command, including the nature of the incident, the scope of impact, potential risks, and social reaction. In terms of the nature of the incident, the basic characteristics of different types of incidents should be clarified, such as natural disasters, accident disasters, public health incidents, and social security incidents, with corresponding response level standards formulated separately for each. For example, natural disasters can be divided into different levels according to their intensity and the losses caused, while public health incidents are assessed for response command level according to the number of infected persons and the speed of transmission. Such classification can improve the targeting of emergency response and ensure that different types of incidents receive corresponding attention and handling. In the assessment of scope of impact and potential risks, quantitative indicators can be used for measurement. For example, the number of affected persons, economic losses, and the degree of environmental damage can all serve as important indicators. By establishing models to comprehensively assess these indicators, data support can be provided for determining the level of emergency response.
Optimize the emergency command information sharing mechanism. This mechanism should include multiple links such as the collection, sorting, analysis, and reporting of information, ensuring that information on various emergencies can be rapidly and accurately conveyed to emergency command bodies at all levels and relevant decision-makers. Build a nationwide emergency management information sharing platform covering the multiple fields of natural disasters, accident disasters, public health incidents, and social security incidents, integrate various types of emergency information, and ensure real-time updating and sharing of information. The information sharing platform should be equipped with powerful data analysis functions to help decision-makers conduct rapid risk assessment and decision support.
Establish a classified training mechanism for command personnel. Taking "drilling" as the starting point, build a high-quality, professional command talent team. Strengthen routine classified and level-based training for duty personnel, dispatch personnel, and decision-making personnel of the National Emergency Command Headquarters, and enhance practical capabilities such as information reception and reporting, situation assessment, departmental coordination, rapid on-the-spot decision-making, and precise issuance of emergency instructions. Take the unified full-process standard and specification for emergency command as the main content of training, including the elements and caliber of information reception and reporting, the format specification for issuing instructions, and the timeliness requirements for handling feedback.
Standardize the relationship between emergency command bodies and social rescue forces
Emergency management requires broad participation of social emergency forces, including pre-incident education and training, emergency community building, and disaster risk identification; during-incident life rescue, resettlement and transfer, psychological comfort, and medical assistance; and post-incident home reconstruction and livelihood support. It is necessary to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for the participation of social rescue forces in emergency rescue, standardize and guide orderly participation in emergency rescue operations, and form efficient and coordinated linkage between Party committees and governments and society in emergency response. At present, China's social emergency forces have begun to take shape, policies and institutions are being gradually established, emergency capabilities are steadily improving, and rescue and relief results are evident. They have become an important component of China's emergency force system and an important element in improving the emergency command mechanism.
From a practical perspective, it is necessary to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for social emergency forces and standardize the relationship between on-site command bodies and rescue forces. With respect to social rescue forces, it is required to improve the on-site coordination mechanism for participation in emergency rescue and standardize and guide orderly participation in emergency rescue operations; with respect to various emergency teams, it is required to improve the coordination and cooperation mechanism; with respect to emergency forces entering the site, it is required to ensure mutual articulation and smooth coordination. These requirements are conducive to truly establishing a "one chessboard" mechanism on site, with mutual articulation and coordination, and where necessary mutual combination and integration, achieving coordinated linkage, accomplishing tasks assigned by higher levels, and realizing the objectives of emergency rescue operations. Strengthen coordination and cooperation, enhance communication and contact with member units of the coordination and linkage mechanism, establish work liaison, work meeting, and emergency response plan systems, deepen the construction of the on-site coordination mechanism for the participation of social emergency forces in rescue operations for extraordinarily serious disasters, standardize rescue operations, and properly carry out the overall planning, coordination, and management of the participation of social emergency forces in rescue and relief. Strengthen routine communication and coordination between Party committees and governments and social emergency forces, ensuring that when disasters occur, an effectively matched action mechanism is formed.
From a long-term perspective, it is necessary to focus on training social emergency forces in emergency theory and rescue skills. The government is responsible for guiding the professional training of social emergency forces, setting standardized, normalized, and systematic training content, enhancing the professional rescue capabilities of emergency volunteers, and improving the risk prevention awareness of emergency volunteer personnel. Establish professional standards for professional emergency volunteers to participate in emergency rescue, such as for higher-risk mountain rescue and water rescue, establish professional training course systems, strictly regulate the search and rescue operations of emergency volunteers, and reduce the risk of personal injury.
Improving the emergency command mechanism under the framework of comprehensive security and comprehensive emergency response is a systematic reshaping of the entire emergency command logic. Only by truly breaking down command barriers between departments, levels, and regions can rapid coordinated response of all actors and all elements be achieved in the face of various complex and compound emergencies, and can emergency handling tasks be accomplished at minimal cost. This is not only the core requirement for improving the capacity to handle emergencies but also the fundamental guarantee for safeguarding the safety of people's lives and property.
[The author is Dean of the Institute of Emergency Management Research of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance)]
Return to TopBy: 中国国新控股有限责任公司党委书记、董事长 徐思伟
2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Long March. The great Long March spirit is an important component of the spiritual pedigree of Chinese Communists and a precious spiritual asset for state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises as they forge ahead on the new journey. China Reform Holdings Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Reform Holdings) deeply recognizes that central enterprises, as important pillars of the national economy, are also inheritors, practitioners, and promoters of the Long March spirit, and must closely focus on their mission and responsibilities and unswervingly walk the Long March road of the new era.
Forever remember the great achievements of the Party and the Red Army, and strengthen historical confidence
As a young central enterprise, China Reform Holdings has a clear lineage of red genes. China Printing Co., Ltd., under its subsidiary China Cultural Industry Development Group Co., Ltd., inherits a tradition or lineage from the past (一脉相承, yi mai xiang cheng - "one, vein, connect; one, vein, inherit") from the Central Printing House established in 1931.
Born in the cradle of revolution. In 1931, in the face of the Kuomintang's military "encirclement and suppression" and economic blockade, the Central Printing House was established under arduous conditions in Ruijin. The entire plant set up production departments such as typesetting and lead printing, overcame the numerous difficulties of material shortages, and printed Red China and Soviet banknotes, spreading the Party's voice throughout the Central Soviet Area, ensuring the effective operation of the nascent red regime, and embodying the revolutionary original aspiration and historical responsibility of Chinese Communists.
Held fast on the perilous road of the Long March. In 1934, the Red Army began its strategic shift, and several dozen comrades from the Central Printing House set out with the troops. Unafraid of hunger and cold, they broke through encirclement, pursuit, interception, and blockade. When the main force rested, they hurriedly cut wax stencils and rushed to print leaflets. At critical historical moments, they undertook the important task of rushing to print the resolutions of the Zunyi Conference. The soldiers "went wherever they marched and propagandized wherever they went," keeping the Party's voice resounding throughout the 25,000-li journey.
Grew under the oil lamps of cave dwellings. In 1937, the Central Printing House was rebuilt at Qingliangshan in Yan'an. Facing the difficulties of electricity, paper, and ink shortages, the workers used local materials, making paper from Malan grass, producing ink from waste oil residue, and operating the presses by manpower, moving the workshops into cave dwellings and air-raid shelters. Even when bombed by enemy aircraft, they made every effort to rescue equipment and insisted on printing revolutionary materials, making important contributions to uniting the strength of the whole nation in the War of Resistance.
Transformed amid the changes of the times. In 1949, the backbone personnel from Yan'an rebuilt the Beiping Xinhua Printing House in just over two months. Entering the new century, in implementing the relocation of Beijing's non-capital functions, the production portion was moved out, and the original site was transformed into the "Xinhua 1949" cultural finance and innovation industrial park, giving the red industrial memory renewed vitality for the times. In 2012, China Cultural Industry Development Group Co., Ltd. was placed in its entirety under China Reform Holdings, becoming an important part of the state-owned capital operations undertaking.
Deeply understand the requirements of the times for carrying forward the Long March spirit, and draw strength to forge ahead
Looking back on the war-torn journey of the Central Printing House, those soldiers who carried heavy burdens forward amid lead and fire added vivid footnotes to the great Long March spirit and brought us enduring and profound inspirations for doing our reform and development work well.
Firmly establish ideals and convictions, and achieve faith as bright as a torch. Zhu Zhicheng, the founder of the Party's printing undertaking, led printing backbone personnel on the Long March with the troops, crossing snow mountains and grasslands three times and experiencing a life-threatening ordeal (九死一生, jiu si yi sheng - "nine, deaths, one, life"). Faced with equipment forced to be buried and a team repeatedly reorganized, he remained as firm as a rock, holding the conviction that "there will come a day when the type is reset," and always guarded the spark of the printing undertaking. This inspires us that ideals and convictions are the "calcium" in the spirit of Communists. As a central enterprise under the Party's leadership, all of China Reform Holdings' work must stand at the height of the overall situation of the Party and the state, interpreting absolute loyalty to the Party through concrete actions and tangible results.
Not afraid of sacrifice, not fearing difficulties, and achieving hard struggle. At the beginning of the Long March, soldiers carried heavy type boxes and printing presses to break out with the troops. To cover the transport teams, many Red Army soldiers gave their lives. After arriving in northern Shaanxi, they quickly restarted printing and made important contributions to the Party's propaganda undertaking. This inspires us that not fearing sacrifice and fighting bravely are the distinctive qualities of Communists; China Reform Holdings was born out of reform, and the more arduous the reform and development tasks, the more necessary it is to carry forward the spirit of struggle, dare to gnaw on hard bones, and dare to fight tough battles.
Adhere to seeking truth from facts and achieve the courage to blaze new trails. After the Battle of the Xiang River, a large amount of equipment was forced to be discarded and buried, and the printing team was once "without rice to cook." The Red Army did not rigidly adhere to dogma but adapted to the circumstances with simple means, proposing to "use charcoal and brushes to write at least one slogan every day per person on walls and wooden boards." This pragmatic spirit enabled revolutionary propaganda to break through limitations and cover villages and towns along the route. This inspires us that seeking truth from facts is an important methodology for doing economic work well. State-owned capital operations involve diverse business forms, and we must adhere to proceeding from reality in everything, in light of local conditions and in light of enterprise-specific conditions, and continuously blaze new paths of high-quality development in the process of recognizing changes, responding to changes, and seeking change.
Take the overall situation of the revolution into account and achieve strong execution. After the Battle of the Xiang River, the Central Committee decided to streamline and reorganize the troops. This battle-hardened team, facing the separation of comrades and the abandonment of equipment, did not bargain or cut corners, but acted immediately upon receiving orders (闻令即行, wen ling ji xing - "hear, command, immediately, act") and fulfilled its mission without fail. This inspires us that a rigorous organizational system needs the support of shared conviction. Faced with a complex and ever-changing market environment, China Reform Holdings must raise its political positioning, take the overall situation into account, act upon hearing orders, and follow orders when heard, ensuring that the Party Central Committee's decisions and deployments are carried through to the end.
Closely rely on the masses and achieve sharing joys and sorrows together (休戚与共, xiu qi yu gong - "joy, sorrow, and, together"). In 1935, the masses of Yudu County, Jiangxi, at great risk, secretly sheltered and preserved some of the lead printing equipment left behind, and some masses were cruelly killed by enemy troops for this. Thereafter, the descendants of the masses long looked after the equipment and ultimately donated the precious cultural relics to the local museum free of charge. This inspires us that the people's trust is the Party's deepest foundation for governance. China Reform Holdings operates state-owned capital and must closely link enterprise development with national prosperity, national rejuvenation, and the people's happiness, and truly shoulder political, economic, and social responsibilities.
Firmly grasp the mission and responsibility of walking the new Long March road well, and create brilliant achievements
On the new journey, central enterprises shoulder the mission and responsibility of better serving the overall work of the Party and the state, serving high-quality economic and social development, and serving to safeguard and improve people's livelihoods. China Reform Holdings always bears in mind its mission and responsibility, continuously strengthening core functions and enhancing core competitiveness in advancing the reform of state-owned capital operations, and contributing greater strength to the building of Chinese modernization.
Uphold the Party's leadership and consolidate the foundation for development by strengthening the roots and casting the soul. Consciously use Xi Jinping's thought on Party building to plan and advance Party building, deeply understand the decisive significance of the Two Establishments (两个确立), resolutely achieve the Two Upholds (两个维护), adhere to the "Two Consistent Implementations," and ignite the "red engine" of high-quality development with high-quality Party building. Adhere to the Party managing cadres and the Party managing talent, strictly enforcing the political, moral, competence, work style, and integrity standards. Adhere to the clear orientation of focusing on the grassroots, ensuring that wherever state-owned capital flows, Party building follows. Deepen full and rigorous self-governance of the Party and cultivate a clean and upright atmosphere (风清气正, feng qing qi zheng - "wind, clear, air, upright") political ecology.
Keep in mind the "greatest concerns of the nation" and demonstrate the responsibility of central enterprises in serving the overall situation. Firmly grasp the political attributes of state-owned capital operations, actively serve the optimization of the layout and structural adjustment of the state-owned economy, assist in building a modern industrial system, and better support state-owned assets and central enterprises in playing their roles in scientific and technological innovation, industrial control, and security support. Consciously act as long-term capital, patient capital, and strategic capital, promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, and strive to build professional platforms for optimizing the layout, integrated operations, and innovative incubation of state-owned capital. In recent years, cumulative investment in strategic emerging industry fields has exceeded 380 billion yuan, of which more than 50 billion yuan has been invested in the integrated circuit field and nearly 70 billion yuan in original technology source projects.
Carry forward the spirit of struggle and stimulate dynamism and vitality in reform and tackling tough problems. Improve the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics, integrate the Party's leadership into the entire governance process, build a "strong headquarters, large operations, strict supervision" management and control model, and implement differentiated authorization and delegation of power. Deeply advance the reform of the three systems, establish the orientation of "judging heroes by performance and seeking answers from the market," deepen the tenure system and contractual management of managers, and improve the "strong incentives, hard constraints" assessment and distribution system. Coordinate development and security, improve investment decision-making mechanisms and negative list management for investment, consolidate and make good use of the "three lines of defense" for risk management, and firmly hold the bottom line of preventing major risks.
Adhere to the people's standpoint and embody the supremacy of the people in value creation. Practice the people-centered development philosophy and promote the fruits of reform and development to benefit more of the people. While prioritizing the layout of "bottleneck" technologies and strategic emerging industries, increase investment in livelihood-related fields such as wealth management, medical and health care, and culture and education. Strengthen the guidance and leveraging of resources, and promote the concentration of capital toward livelihood security, green and low-carbon development, and weak links in the real economy. Implement assistance tasks such as supporting Xinjiang and Tibet and rural revitalization with high quality, and better fulfill social responsibilities.
On the new journey, China Reform Holdings will take the tenth anniversary of the National Conference on Party Building in State-Owned Enterprises as a new starting point, take on responsibility and action in serving national strategies, assisting scientific and technological innovation, deepening reform and tackling tough problems, and safeguarding the security of state-owned capital, strive to walk the Long March road of the new era well, and contribute greater strength to making state-owned enterprises and state-owned capital stronger, better, and bigger.
Return to TopBy: 邓长勇
The Party's strength comes from its organization, and organization multiplies strength. The Party Committee of the Tibet Branch of China Huadian Corporation Ltd. has thoroughly studied and implemented Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, deeply comprehended the essential meaning of "upholding and improving an organizational system that is connected from top to bottom and powerful in execution," deepened the implementation of China Huadian's "Four Strengths, Four Promotions" high-quality Party building project, comprehensively strengthened the construction of grassroots Party organizations, transformed the Party's organizational advantages into advantages for the enterprise's high-quality development, and contributed the strength of an energy central state-owned enterprise to assisting Tibet in handling the four major matters of stability, development, ecology, and border consolidation.
Anchoring on goals and tasks, fully giving play to the leadership role of setting the direction, managing the overall situation, and ensuring implementation. The Party Constitution clearly stipulates that the Party committee (Party leading group) of a state-owned enterprise gives play to its leadership role, sets the direction, manages the overall situation, and ensures implementation, and discusses and decides major enterprise matters in accordance with regulations. The company's Party Committee upholds and strengthens the Party's overall leadership and fully gives play to its leadership role of setting the direction, managing the overall situation, and ensuring implementation.
Enhancing political leadership capacity to set the direction. Deeply comprehending the decisive significance of the Two Establishments (两个确立), and resolutely achieving the Two Upholds (两个维护). Deepening the "First Agenda Item" system, realizing a closed loop of work of "conveying and learning — researching and deploying — implementing and promoting — tracking and supervising — reporting and feeding back"; having a broad vision for the country's interests (胸怀国之大者, xiong huai guo zhi da zhe - "embrace, country, of, big, thing"), strictly implementing the system of requesting instructions and reporting on major matters, and consciously maintaining a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee in thought, politics, and action. Conscientiously implementing the learning system of the Party committee's theoretical learning central group, and raising the level of Marxist theory. Consolidating and expanding the results of learning and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, so that the vast number of Party members and cadres undergo a profound ideological baptism and temper strong Party spirit.
Enhancing scientific decision-making capacity to manage the overall situation. Keeping in mind the duties and mission, insisting on proceeding from reality and acting in accordance with laws, and consciously planning and advancing work within the four major matters of Tibet. Fully, accurately, and comprehensively implementing the new development philosophy, seizing the strategic opportunity of Tibet's construction of a national clean energy base, adhering to the integration of water, wind, solar, and storage, accelerating the development and construction of clean energy in Tibet, becoming the power generation enterprise with the largest installed capacity and the largest new energy installed capacity in Tibet, with annual power generation accounting for about one-fifth of Tibet's total social electricity consumption, fully demonstrating the role of a "pillar" in energy supply guarantee. Doing solid work in aid-Tibet support, relying on project construction to solve employment for more than 6,500 person-times of migrant workers, increasing income for the masses by 270 million yuan, and realizing the organic unity of economic responsibility, political responsibility, and social responsibility.
Enhancing corporate governance capacity to ensure implementation. Adhering to the "Two Consistent Principles," strengthening Party leadership in improving corporate governance, revising and improving the rules of procedure of various governance entities, dynamically optimizing and adjusting the list of decision-making authority and responsibility for "Three Major and One Large" matters, solidly advancing board of directors construction, with the overall completion rate of the tasks of the special action to deepen and improve the reform of state-owned enterprises at 100%, and the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics being continuously improved and perfected. Selecting and strengthening leading bodies at all levels, cultivating and using outstanding young cadres, implementing the "8090" Project, and continuously consolidating the "hard support" of cadres and talents. Innovatively carrying out research on digital application of peer supervision, improving the pattern of comprehensive supervision, enhancing the synergy of supervision, and continuously optimizing the political ecology. Building an integrated, highly efficient, and coordinated management system with risk prevention and control as the orientation, compliance management as the foundation, and internal control as the means, effectively enhancing risk prevention and control capabilities.
Adhering to the clear orientation of focusing on the grassroots, building the Huadian Snowy Plateau Vanguard Party Branch. The Party's grassroots organizations are the "nerve endings" of the Party's body and the "last kilometer" for implementing the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee. The company's Party Committee, focusing on strengthening the functional role of the headquarters, doing solid work in energy security supply guarantee, and assisting in comprehensive rural revitalization, takes building the "Huadian Snowy Plateau Vanguard Party Branch" as the starting point, continuously enhancing the political function and organizational function of grassroots Party organizations, and letting the bright red Party flag fly high on the front line.
Focusing on demonstration and leadership, building "Four Strong" Party branches. In the Party's organizational system, grassroots Party organizations are the most solid force supporting the Party's work and the foundation of Party building in Party organs. The company's Party Committee, in its headquarters, takes political construction as the guide, responsibility implementation as the key, strict management and strict governance as the tone, and promoting high-quality development as the goal, and strives to build "Four Strong" Party branches with strong political functions, strong branch leadership teams, strong Party member teams, and strong role performance. The headquarters Party branch makes flexible and full use of the "Five-Degree Creation Method," continuously improving the quality of Party building in the headquarters, successively winning honors such as China Huadian's Demonstration Party Branch and the company's Advanced Grassroots Party Organization, and playing a leading the way and setting an example (走在前、作表率, zou zai qian, zuo biao lv - "walk, at, front, act, exemplar") demonstration and leadership role in promoting the construction of Party branches within the company system.
Focusing on energy supply guarantee, forging project-construction Party branches. Strictly implementing the requirements of "Four Synchronizations, Four Connections," and taking optimizing grassroots organizational setup as an important link in innovating organizational structure and tightening the organizational system. When assisting in the construction of the photovoltaic power station in Nyima County, the Huadian 4588 Party Branch was established, fulfilling the promise of a bright and warm winter to the local people one year ahead of schedule in just 100 days; at the construction site of wind and photovoltaic power projects, a joint Party branch for new energy projects was established, building a "station-grid-belt" coordination mechanism, and tackling difficulties to promote the high-quality completion and operation of the Qiongjie wind power project, the highest in the world at 5,370 meters above sea level; at the construction site of the DG hydropower station, Tibet's largest domestic-demand power project, a Party branch was established, exploring and implementing a multi-level, multi-dimensional Party organization joint construction and co-building mechanism, gathering the strength of all participating parties, and tackling difficulties to achieve "four units put into operation in one year, all units put into operation in the same year," with the project winning the National Quality Project Gold Award and the China Civil Engineering Zhan Tianyou Award.
Focusing on rural revitalization, building the Huadian village-resident Party branch. Adhering to promoting rural revitalization through Party building, a total of 108 person-times of Party members and cadres have been selected and dispatched to participate in village-resident support work, helping to strengthen organizations and develop industries. At the village-resident front line in Jomda County, Qamdo City, the Huadian village-resident Party branch was established, deeply excavating intangible cultural heritage resources, and through building the "Party building + village collective economy" model, mobilizing the strength of all parties and integrating resources, driving the masses to increase income by more than 25 million yuan cumulatively and solving long-term employment for more than 200 people. The Huadian village-resident Party branch was rated as a "Central Enterprise Grassroots Demonstration Party Branch," its Party building support experience and practices were rated as a global best case of poverty reduction, and it led the assisted village to develop from a national-level impoverished village into a "National Rural Governance Demonstration Village."
Doing solid work in Party member team construction, building a strong vanguard team capable of shouldering heavy responsibilities. Party members are the cells of the Party's body. The company's Party Committee insists on strengthening Party member team construction across the entire chain with the spirit of reform and strict standards, improving and implementing the mechanism for developing Party members, the mechanism for Party member management and supervision, and the mechanism for giving play to the role of Party members, giving play to the vanguard and exemplary role of Party members, forging a vanguard team, and gathering vanguard strength.
Strictly controlling the political gate, improving the quality of Party member development. Always placing the political standard first, strengthening political absorption, and deeply examining the motives for joining the Party, political stance, ideological awareness, and value orientation of development targets. Integrating the work of developing Party members into central work, and through establishing a "dual cultivation" mechanism, continuously enhancing the combat effectiveness and cohesion of the Party member team.
Highlighting practicality and effectiveness, strengthening the daily management of Party members. Strictly implementing systems such as the "Three Meetings and One Lesson," Party Day activities, and heart-to-heart talks, doing solid work in basic training, standardizing organizational life and democratic evaluation of Party members, regularly carrying out red education, and continuously strengthening the tempering of Party members' Party spirit. Establishing a mechanism for giving play to the role of Party members in emergency mobilization, organizing Party members to advance into the core area of the Jinsha River barrier lake rescue and disaster relief, providing valuable first-hand information for precise rescue and disaster relief; completing with high quality the construction task of post-disaster transitional resettlement housing after the 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Tingri County, Shigatse City. Strengthening the management of Party members' words and deeds in cyberspace, giving play to the role of Party members in cyberspace, and promoting positive energy to form large traffic.
Centering on the central task and serving the overall situation, guiding Party members to strive to be vanguards. Solidly carrying out the Party building empowerment action for the industrial chain and innovation chain, around important production and operation tasks and major engineering construction, setting up Party member vanguard posts, Party member responsibility areas, and Party member commando teams, doing solid work in joint construction and co-building of Party organizations, doing excellent work in projects led by Party organization secretaries, organizing Party members to carry out activities such as "taking on challenges openly" and "making commitments and fulfilling them," and educating and guiding the vast number of Party members to bravely shoulder heavy burdens in Party building empowering production and operation and promoting rural revitalization. Formulating a special cultivation plan for advanced typical Party members, strengthening the cultivation and selection of various advanced models, and encouraging the vast number of Party members to engage in competing and striving for excellence through mutual learning (比学赶超, bi xue gan chao - "compare, learn, rush, surpass"), with a large number of advanced models such as "National Model Workers," "National Moral Model Nomination Award," and "National May Day Labor Medal" emerging from the Party member team.
(The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Tibet Branch of China Huadian Corporation Ltd.)
Return to TopBy: 殷本明
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China required improving the long-term mechanism for regulating law enforcement involving enterprises, and preventing and correcting illegal cross-regional law enforcement and profit-driven law enforcement. The Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the Anhui Provincial Government attach great importance to administrative inspection work involving enterprises, and have included the promotion of the "one integrated inspection" reform in the work priorities of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and the key work of the Provincial Government. The core of the "one integrated inspection" reform is to integrate administrative inspection matters scattered across various administrative departments into "one matter," freeing enterprises from struggling to cope with constant demands (疲于应付, pi yu ying fu - "tired, at, respond"). Since Anhui Province piloted the reform in Wuhu City in June 2025 and rolled it out across the province in August, the burden on enterprises has been significantly reduced, inspection efficiency has been markedly improved, and a regulatory pattern of "no disturbance when nothing is wrong, responding to every request promptly" (有求必应, you qiu bi ying - "have, request, must, respond") is taking shape. As of the end of August 2026, the province's administrative inspection matter integration rate reached 71.59%, joint inspections were carried out 21,900 times, the number of enterprise inspections was reduced by 28,200 visits, the total volume of administrative inspections involving enterprises fell by 44.66% year-on-year, and the problem detection rate rose to 29.67%.
Formulate one list of inspection matters. A total of 4,544 inspection entities and 24,773 matters at the provincial, municipal, county, and township levels were fully verified and confirmed, and were integrated into 9,202 joint inspection matters. For cases such as complaints and reports that genuinely require separate inspection, filing for the record and full traceability throughout the process are mandatory. Next, the focus will be on truly "linking up" joint inspections. First, the judicial administrative department, together with the provincial data resources and market regulation departments, will promote the shift from "managing by subject" to "managing by industry," establish enterprise databases by industry category, further integrate the list of joint inspection matters, incorporate "dual random, one open" regulation into the "one integrated inspection" reform, and dynamically issue the "one integrated inspection" and dual-random departmental joint spot-check work plan. Second, consolidate the achievements of the reform across the province, promote legislation at the provincial level, guide each city to draw on the experience of cities such as Wuhu and Fuyang, promote the formulation and issuance of unified institutional documents by all localities, sort out inspection matters at the corresponding level, formulate lists of joint inspection matters in batches, and consolidate the responsibilities of lead and participating departments. Third, guide each city to build and make good use of the non-joint-inspection enterprise database, issue typical cases, and carry out "one-table unified inspection." Before entering enterprises, share enterprise risk profiles, historical inspection and rectification data, formulate unified joint inspection plans, and eliminate problems such as repeated on-site questioning.
Law enforcement inspection handled through "one code." An administrative inspection management system covering the provincial, municipal, county, and township levels has been established. Inspections of enterprises require filing for the record first and code assignment afterward; enterprises can scan the code to know "who is inspecting and what is being inspected." Inspection results are uploaded in real time, mutually recognized by departments, and not repeated. Since the reform, the province has conducted more than 63,000 code-displayed inspections, complaints involving enterprises fell by 35% year-on-year, and the violation rate was less than 0.1%. Next, the focus will be on truly "unifying" inspection standards. First, the judicial administrative department will take the lead in issuing guidelines for compiling administrative inspection lists involving enterprises, build a two-level list catalog of "provincial standards + municipal supplements," and fully standardize the names, bases, scopes, and levels of matters. Second, drawing on the experience of advanced provinces nationwide, administrative law enforcement departments at all levels will sort out and form lists of simple matters that may be entrusted for inspection, centrally sign entrustment agreements, and ensure that entrusted inspections have a basis to rely on. Third, encourage administrative law enforcement departments at all levels to jointly issue unified standards across departments and fields, publish the "one-table unified inspection" list of inspection matters, and clarify the entities responsible for filling in records.
Joint inspections make only "one visit." The model of "lead coordination + professional execution" has been promoted, and the cross-department joint inspection rate rose from 13.6% to 20.53%. Off-site supervision is being implemented at an accelerated pace, with the proportion of off-site inspections in the ecological environment sector reaching 35%, market regulation 32%, and emergency management 28%. The average time enterprises spend receiving inspections has been reduced from 4 hours per visit to less than 2 hours, costs have fallen by about 60%, and the problem detection rate has risen from 17.91% to 39.08%. Next, efforts will focus on truly "connecting" system data. First, the judicial administrative department will take the lead in carrying out special work on system interconnection, achieving full connectivity between the provincial supervision system and the business systems of provincial departments directly under the provincial government and the government cloud platforms of cities, so that law enforcement personnel only need to enter one system and record data only once. Second, the judicial administrative department, together with market regulation, petition, and other departments, will open up multi-dimensional data sharing channels for supervision, credit, complaints and reports, and improve a graded and classified supervision evaluation system. Third, the judicial administrative department, together with various administrative law enforcement departments, will take the lead at the provincial level in formulating a list of non-essential on-site inspections, establish procedures, rules, and standards for "no-feel inspections," and ensure that what can be done online does not require an on-site visit, and what can be done remotely does not require a door-to-door visit.
Improve the quality and effectiveness of grassroots administrative law enforcement. According to statistics, 91.38% of surveyed enterprises believe the frequency of inspections is appropriate, 89.7% believe the standardization of inspections has improved, and 91.2% are generally satisfied with the reform. Next, efforts will focus on truly "strengthening" grassroots forces. First, in conjunction with the list of duties of townships (subdistricts), the provincial staffing department, together with the judicial administrative department, will coordinate and optimize the allocation of personnel and staffing to ensure that grassroots law enforcement forces and law enforcement supervision forces match regulatory tasks. Explore cross-regional deployment and dynamically reinforce key areas. Second, promote the substantive operation of administrative law enforcement coordination and supervision institutions at all levels, and implement the system of administrative law enforcement supervisors. Third, formulate and issue application guides for the provincial administrative inspection management system, operating guidelines for the "administrative inspection code," joint inspection work manuals, templates for administrative law enforcement documents, and other materials, to guide and standardize joint inspections. Promote "same-classroom" training to improve the capabilities and qualities of grassroots law enforcement personnel. For inspections requiring strong professionalism, inspection and testing institutions and research institutes may be introduced to provide technical support. Fourth, organize annual joint inspection effectiveness assessments, and incorporate core content such as the integration rate, joint inspection rate, effectiveness in reducing enterprise burdens, and public satisfaction into the assessment of law-based government construction. Establish a fault-tolerance and error-correction mechanism for grassroots law enforcement cadres, formulate a fault-tolerance list, and stand up for those who take responsibility, take responsibility for those who are responsible, and support those who do things.
(Author's affiliation: Department of Justice of Anhui Province)
Return to TopBasic research is the source of the entire scientific system and the master switch for all technological problems. In April this year, at the symposium on strengthening basic research, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must strengthen basic research with greater intensity and more concrete measures, enhance our country's capacity for original innovation, and further consolidate the foundation for building a strong science and technology nation." Centering on how to do basic research well, the high-end think tank edition of Study Times has launched an in-depth discussion.
Return to TopBy: 叶玉江 薛姝
Strengthening basic research and developing strong original innovation capacity is an urgent requirement for achieving self-reliance and strength in science and technology and is also the essential path to building a world leader in science and technology. At present, China is accelerating its transformation from a global participant and contributor in science and technology to a pioneer and leader, becoming one of the countries with the fastest rising innovation capacity. Basic research is developing rapidly, overall strength has increased significantly, and the country has entered a new stage of comprehensive improvement and breakthroughs in key areas.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed basic research in a more prominent position, making systematic arrangements in terms of top-level design, investment guarantees, team building, and the scientific research ecosystem, creating a favorable environment conducive to original innovation, promoting the continuous emergence of major original achievements in basic research, and achieving a historic leap in original innovation capacity. First, top-level design has been increasingly strengthened. On January 1, 2022, the newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on Scientific and Technological Progress officially came into effect, with "basic research" as an independent chapter. A series of policies, plans, and program documents, including the Several Opinions of the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening Basic Scientific Research and the Work Plan for Strengthening "From 0 to 1" Basic Research, have established at the legal and institutional level the strategic position of basic research as the source and foundation of scientific and technological innovation, made systematic arrangements for strengthening basic research and enhancing original innovation capacity, and guided and promoted the formation of a favorable environment across society that values and supports basic research. Second, a diversified funding pattern has initially taken shape. The establishment of a steady growth mechanism for central fiscal funds has driven a dual increase in both the scale and proportion of basic research funding. China's basic research funding grew from 49.9 billion yuan in 2012 to 277.8 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of over 14 percent, rising to 7.08 percent of total societal R&D expenditure, with the funding scale firmly ranking second globally. Enterprise investment has continued to grow; in 2025, central state-owned enterprises' basic research investment exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, and social donations have also begun to serve as a supplementary force. The national basic research funding system has been gradually optimized, achieving a funding model of "walking on two legs" with both goal-oriented and free-exploration approaches. Third, the layout of base platforms is becoming increasingly complete. Major scientific and technological infrastructure and high-level scientific research bases have been built and improved as foundational support for scaling the heights of science, with systematic optimization of the layout of national strategic scientific and technological forces. At the same time, the construction of national laboratories has been advanced, the system of national key laboratories has been restructured and optimized, and national field scientific observation and research stations, national scientific data centers, and national biological germplasm and experimental material resource banks have been established. Forty-five national major scientific and technological infrastructure facilities have been completed, including the China Spallation Neutron Source and the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). Fourth, the talent team has continued to grow and expand. At present, China's basic research talent pool ranks first in the world. In 2024, the full-time equivalent of basic research personnel reached 597,000 person-years, approximately three times that of 2012, achieving substantial growth. Moreover, about 80 percent of National Natural Science Foundation of China projects are undertaken by young talents under 45 years of age, who have become the mainstay of basic research. Top-tier talent has continued to increase; the number of China's highly cited scientists globally rose from 134 in 2014 to 1,406 person-times in 2025, accounting for 20 percent of the global total, ranking second in the world. Reserve talent support is robust, with doctoral student enrollment and enrollment scale firmly ranking first in the world. Fifth, reform of the science and technology evaluation system has been deepened, resolutely breaking the tendency toward "four onlys" (only papers, only diplomas, only titles, only awards), and promoting representative-work evaluation and long-cycle evaluation. Policies such as delegating research authority and reducing burdens and lump-sum funding systems for research expenses have been continuously implemented. The Ministry of Science and Technology and other departments have successively carried out three rounds of special actions to reduce burdens on scientific researchers. The governance system for research integrity and scientific and technological ethics has been improved, with regular rectification of academic misconduct, paper fraud, and improper solicitation of favorable reviews in evaluation.
This series of measures has driven a leapfrog improvement in the overall level and international influence of China's basic research. Landmark achievements have been made in the development of basic disciplines: the two core conjectures of Kähler geometry were successfully proven, and a young mathematician was awarded the Fields Medal. A steady stream of world-class original achievements has been produced in frontier fields: artificial synthesis of starch from carbon dioxide has achieved "technological creation," and quantum computer computing power leads globally. Original innovation in basic research has powerfully empowered industrial upgrading, supporting the continued leadership of the "three new items" represented by electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaics, and helping industries such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and innovative drugs iterate and grow. Regional innovation clusters rank among the world's leading in strength; in 2026, China occupied 25 seats among the global top 100 innovation clusters, with multiple core innovation clusters firmly ranking among the world's foremost.
At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, scientific research paradigms are undergoing profound changes, the transformation cycle of basic research has significantly shortened, the importance of original and disruptive innovation has become prominent, the global innovation landscape is being deeply reshaped, and international scientific and technological competition is increasingly focused on basic frontier fields. Measured against the goals of building a world leader in science and technology, China's basic research innovation environment still has structural shortcomings. The resource allocation logic of "short cycles and strong assessment" does not yet adapt to the essential characteristics of basic research's "long cycles and high risk," and the supply of original and disruptive achievements is insufficient. First, the investment structure is imbalanced. The proportion of basic research funding in total societal R&D expenditure remains far below the level of more than 15 percent in leading science and technology countries. More critically, funding sources are singular; for example, enterprise basic research investment accounts for less than 10 percent, compared with about 35 percent in the United States and about 45 percent in Japan. Moreover, the proportion of competitive short-term projects is too high, while stable support is relatively low, which is not conducive to long-cycle research. Second, top-tier talent is scarce, and the problem of "having plateaus but few peaks" is prominent. Among the world's top 2 percent of scientists, only 3 from mainland China rank in the top 100. Strategic scientists capable of opening new directions are scarce, while young talent is forced by short appointment periods and frequent assessments to turn to "short, flat, and fast" research. Third, the evaluation and review mechanisms need breakthroughs. The implementation of classified evaluation is not in place, with free exploration and goal orientation sharing "the same yardstick." Phenomena such as "greeting" (improperly soliciting favorable reviews) and exclusion by small cliques of peers still exist to a certain extent. In addition, "hats" (talent titles) are excessively tied to resources, squeezing the development space of researchers without such titles. Fourth, the research ecosystem and culture are still in the process of cultivation. Researchers tend to chase hot topics rather than tackle hard problems, and "clique culture" and academic dependency have not yet been eradicated. Fifth, international discourse power is insufficient. Individual countries are curbing exchanges and impeding the flow of innovation factors. China leads too few high-level international cooperation projects, holds a low share of core seats in international academic organizations, and has limited channels for voicing opinions in the formulation of key rules. Therefore, to strengthen basic research, it is necessary to adhere to a problem-oriented approach, deepen institutional and mechanism reform, focus on cultivating and improving the innovation ecosystem and environment, resolutely eliminate persistent and deep-seated problems (顽瘴痼疾, wan zhang gu ji - "stubborn, bad; persistent, deep-seated; disease, ailment") in the research ecosystem, accelerate the formation of soil and cultural atmosphere conducive to original innovation, and allow the innovative vitality of basic research to flow fully.
Strengthen the original-innovation orientation. Although China already possesses the world's largest scientific research workforce and paper output, more breakthroughs are still needed in "from 0 to 1" source innovation. First, funding layout should strengthen the original-innovation orientation. Proceeding from national strategic needs, further clarify the main attack directions and key areas of basic research, coordinate the advancement of original innovation and tackling of key core technologies, and rationally coordinate the funding proportions of demand-oriented and free-exploration projects. Set up funding channels for novel scientific ideas, and provide inclusive support for research that does not yet show clear application prospects but has potential scientific breakthrough value. Give consideration to both mainstream frontier directions and unpopular and weak disciplines, leaving resource space for researchers to explore the no-man's-land of science, and explore the possibility of establishing a small number of "protective funding for unpopular fields" in fund review. Second, build a scientific research organization model conducive to original breakthroughs. For original exploration with high risk and high uncertainty, reference can be made to the experience of the "open competition for the best candidate" (揭榜挂帅) system of research funding, explore a "milestone-based" flexible funding mechanism for basic research, and decide whether to continue support after evaluation at key nodes. Grant leading scientists greater decision-making power over technical routes and resource allocation, reduce process-based inspections, and ensure that research teams can autonomously adjust directions according to research progress. Third, the evaluation system should fully reflect the value of originality. Implement the evaluation principle centered on achievement contribution, reduce the weight of paper quantity and journal rank in evaluation, and focus evaluation on whether research raises new questions, forms new theories, and invents new methods. For individuals or teams conducting high-risk original exploration, reasonably lengthen the evaluation cycle, objectively view failures during the research process, and form an institutional environment that encourages bold exploration.
Promote coordination of strategic scientific and technological forces. From the actual situation, major breakthroughs in basic research increasingly rely on coordinated efforts by multiple actors and multiple disciplines. Fully leveraging the systemic synergy of strategic scientific and technological forces is a realistic path to enhancing the overall effectiveness of China's basic research. First, use major national scientific goals to drive coordinated tackling. Centering on basic scientific questions related to long-term development, coordinate innovation forces including national laboratories, national research institutions, high-level research universities, and leading science and technology enterprises, combine platform carriers such as major scientific and technological infrastructure and key laboratories, establish a regular mechanism for joint topic selection and consultation, form cross-institutional research teams, set up task modules requiring joint tackling by multiple actors, and gradually improve coordination effectiveness in practice. Second, improve the assessment and distribution rules for coordinated tackling. In project evaluation, fully consider the scientific value of multi-institutional coordinated output, and straighten out relevant mechanisms such as intellectual property ownership and distribution of achievement proceeds. Establish standardized channels for cross-institutional talent mobility and mutual appointment of part-time positions, promoting the reasonable flow of researchers among different innovation actors. Third, ensure reasonable sharing of innovation resources. Improve the mechanism for open sharing of resources, and consolidate the resource foundation for coordination of strategic scientific and technological forces. Promote the reasonable opening of major research instruments, scientific databases, experimental samples, and other resources to basic research actors nationwide, clarify the cost compensation mechanism for shared use, and reduce duplicate procurement and construction.
Focus support on outstanding young scientific and technological talent. The seeds of major innovation often sprout in the youth stage. First, emphasize support for young talent in the early career stage. Further expand the coverage of youth science fund projects under national and local natural science foundations, improve the basic research project funding mechanism for early-career research personnel, and explore inclusive youth fund support methods, such as providing one-time small, non-competitive natural science foundation project support to young basic research talents within five years of employment, creating more opportunities for young talents who have not yet accumulated sufficient achievements to independently lead projects. Second, strengthen long-term cultivation of young scientific and technological talent. Increase stable support for young scientific and technological talent, support young scientific and technological talent in undertaking key research tasks, and continuously expand the coverage scope and funding proportion of general projects under the natural science foundations. In major national scientific and technological tasks, tackling of key core technologies, and emergency scientific and technological tackling, boldly use outstanding young talent. For young talents who have made major progress or have potential for major breakthroughs, provide continuous support. Properly handle the relationship between short-term incentives and long-term cultivation of talent. Build academic exchange platforms, encourage young people to conduct cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary academic exchanges, and create a favorable atmosphere for equal discussion of academic issues. Third, reduce non-research burdens on young scientific and technological talent. Comprehensively address practical concerns of young scientific and technological talent such as post establishment, salary and treatment, and children's schooling, reducing life pressure. Reduce burdens from non-research affairs, enabling young scientific and technological talent to devote themselves wholeheartedly to basic research work, allowing young scientific and technological talent to have relatively sufficient thinking time that appears to "produce nothing," leaving time and opportunities to accumulate strength for future research breakthroughs.
Establish a funding mechanism combining stability and competition. Basic research has characteristics such as long cycles and strong uncertainty, requiring the construction of a mechanism combining stable support and competition, with systematic adjustments in investment structure, support methods, and evaluation logic. First, establish a stable support mechanism for basic research. Increase the intensity of fiscal funding for basic research, optimize the structure of fiscal basic research investment, and reasonably expand the scale of stable support. Provide appropriate stable funding guarantees for personnel and teams undertaking major national strategic tasks, conducting continuous basic research, and having potential for major scientific breakthroughs, reducing the burden of frequent project applications. Establish a supporting periodic performance evaluation mechanism, using scientific output, team building, and platform operation effectiveness as the main criteria, with evaluation results appropriately linked to subsequent resource allocation to prevent resource rigidity. Second, improve the funding efficiency of competitive basic research projects. According to national strategic development needs, improve the precision of funding for competitive basic research projects. Effectively leverage the role of competitive projects in selecting the best, focus on frontier emerging scientific questions and free-exploration innovative ideas, and select outstanding projects through open competition. Coordinate the funding proportion of stable projects and competitive projects; for disciplines with long cycles requiring continuous accumulation, appropriately increase the proportion of stable support, and for disciplines with rapid iteration and constantly emerging new directions, strengthen competition-based selection. Third, improve the diversified investment pattern for basic research. Steadily increase central fiscal investment, and encourage local governments to strengthen support in light of economic and social development needs. Encourage and guide enterprises to increase basic research investment through various forms, implement relevant fiscal and tax incentive policies, continue to raise the additional deduction ratio for enterprise R&D expenses, and continue to increase the intensity of joint funds established between national and local natural science foundations and enterprises. Encourage science and technology enterprises to lay out basic research projects in light of industrial technological bottlenecks, and support enterprises in jointly building basic research platforms with universities and research institutes. Encourage social forces to invest in basic research through multiple channels such as science funds and scientific donations. Fourth, consolidate the support and guarantee system for basic research. Accelerate the construction of basic research platform bases, enhance the support of artificial intelligence computing platforms for basic research, deepen the construction of scientific databases and germplasm resource banks, accelerate the building of world-class science and technology journals, continuously strengthen the development of high-end research instruments, further strengthen the open sharing of major scientific and technological infrastructure and high-end research instruments, and improve the autonomous support capacity of scientific and technological basic conditions.
Deepen reform of basic research project and funding management. Respect the laws of science and the characteristics of basic research, fully release the innovative vitality of research entities, and improve the efficiency of fund utilization. First, optimize the project formation mechanism for basic research. Science and technology management departments, strategic scientific and technological forces, and other parties should jointly study and judge frontier directions and national strategic needs, pay attention to basic scientific questions constraining industrial development, broaden channels for soliciting major scientific questions, and enhance the openness of project guideline compilation. Optimize project selection and review methods, improve project establishment pathways such as expert recommendation and proactive discovery, weaken short-term achievement orientation, encourage research that dares to break through existing theories, and provide project establishment support for potential disruptive innovation. Further simplify the application procedures for basic research projects under the natural science foundations, promote "slimming and burden reduction" of project guidelines, reduce excessive restrictions on specific research directions, and simultaneously simplify unnecessary formal requirements in the application process. Second, improve project evaluation and process management. Basic research projects should highlight originality, with focus on the scientific value of the project. For projects with strong exploratory nature, allow research plans to be reasonably adjusted according to actual progress. Pay attention to the sustained impact of basic research project achievements, and give basic research projects a longer evaluation window. Simplify process inspections of basic research projects. Third, continuously improve fund use and management. Further expand the autonomy of research institutions in fund use, and simplify various reimbursement procedures. Optimize indirect fund management, fully compensate research institutions for management costs, and guarantee reasonable expenditures related to research personnel. Strengthen the primary responsibility of relying institutions, shifting the focus of management from pre-approval to post-hoc performance supervision. Implement the lump-sum funding system in basic research projects.
Foster a sound research ecosystem. To promote the development of basic research, it is necessary to continuously cultivate an academic culture that upholds truth and devotes oneself wholeheartedly to serving the country, vigorously promote the spirit of scientists, rectify unhealthy practices in the scientific research field, and build a research environment and atmosphere that is upright, open, inclusive, and conducive to innovation. First, vigorously inherit and promote the spirit of scientists. Guide the broad community of basic research talents to cherish the country in their hearts and conduct scientific exploration based on national strategic needs. Advocate the value pursuit of seeking truth and being indifferent to fame and fortune, guide researchers to abandon impetuous and utilitarian mindsets, be willing to sit on the cold bench, encourage daring to question, advocate rational contention, and tolerate reasonable failures in exploration. Second, promote the return of talent titles to their academic and honorary nature. Continuously reduce the influence of "hats" in project review, talent evaluation, and institutional assessment, and sever their direct connection with research resources, salary and treatment, and professional title promotion. Guide the scientific and technological community to reduce the pursuit of "hats," focus time and energy on pursuing original innovation, and let the atmosphere of dedicated research safeguard the development of basic research. Third, continuously strengthen the construction of academic atmosphere and research integrity. Run research integrity management through the entire process of scientific research activities, implement more proactive supervisory measures, and seriously investigate and punish violations of research integrity. Consolidate the primary responsibility of research institutions, improve internal mechanisms for academic atmosphere education, supervision, and warning, and regularly carry out research integrity education. Create an organizational culture in research institutions in which administration serves research and safeguards innovation. Standardize academic review work, rectify human-relationship interference in review, adopt zero tolerance for academic misconduct, seriously handle all types of violations, and give play to the warning and deterrent role. Break the "clique" culture, strengthen the self-discipline and self-purification function of the academic community, standardize academic ethics, and resolutely curb unhealthy academic practices such as seeking quick success, impetuosity, exaggeration, fraud, and monopolizing resources.
(The authors are respectively a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, Ministry of Science and Technology)
Return to TopBy: 苏牧
Basic research is the source of the entire scientific system and the master switch for all technical problems. General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out at the symposium on strengthening basic research that "basic research ultimately depends on high-level talent." The original purpose of the talent title system was to recognize and incentivize the stage-by-stage academic achievements of researchers. However, for a period of time, the role of talent titles has tended to deviate from their original purpose, degenerating from honor into hierarchical labels, deeply tied to resource allocation, and to a certain extent damaging the research environment. Therefore, to develop basic research, it is urgently necessary to return talent titles to their academic and honorary nature, so that honor is honor and resources are resources.
Returning talent titles to their academic and honorary nature is the prerequisite for stimulating the innovative vitality of basic research. Talent evaluation is the "baton" that guides talent development, and whether its orientation is correct directly affects the quality and efficiency of basic research. Basic research has the characteristics of being long-term and uncertain, requiring researchers to concentrating with single-minded devotion (心无旁骛, xin wu pang wu - "heart, no, side, distraction") and devote themselves to deep study. When titles are deeply tied to salary and benefits, research funding, and professional promotion, researchers are dragged into the vortex of competing for "hats" and forced to accept the practical logic that "those who get the hat get everything." Only by promoting the return of talent "hats" and talent titles to their academic and honorary nature can researchers shed their burdens and setting out with a light load (轻装上阵, qing zhuang shang zhen - "light, equipment, go, array"), focusing their main energy on researching truly scientific questions.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee has placed the enhancement of basic research capabilities in a more prominent position and has made important progress in promoting the return of talent titles to their academic and honorary nature. At the policy level, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council have successively issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Professional Title System," the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Talent Evaluation Mechanism by Category," and the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Project Review, Talent Evaluation, and Institutional Assessment," which put forward clear requirements for the reform of the talent evaluation mechanism and promoted important progress in returning talent titles to their academic and honorary nature. At the practical level, various regions and relevant departments have also gradually explored some good practices and good experiences. Starting in 2025, the National Natural Science Foundation of China renamed the "Outstanding Young Scholars" project to the Young Scientists Fund Project (Category A), renamed the "Excellent Young Scholars" project to the Young Scientists Fund Project (Category B), and renamed the Young Scientists Fund Project to the Young Scientists Fund Project (Category C), completely abolishing the terms "Outstanding Young Scholars" and "Excellent Young Scholars," which both demonstrates a clear attitude of downplaying "hats" and provides a useful demonstration and guidance for the academic community. At the implementation level, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, issued the "Implementation Measures for the Evaluation and Confirmation of High-Level Talent in Xi'an City," which highlights market-oriented talent evaluation guided by actual contributions and breaks the tendency of only valuing "hats."
At the same time, we must also clearly see that there are still some prominent problems in the use of talent titles that urgently need to be solved. Some research institutions still over-link talent titles with salary and benefits, resource allocation, and so on, and the tendency of only valuing "hats" has not yet been fundamentally reversed. Those researchers who devote themselves to basic research but have not yet obtained talent titles often lack corresponding resource allocation because they lack "hats," and their innovative potential is difficult to fully support.
The period of the 15th Five-Year Plan is a critical period for consolidating the foundation and making comprehensive efforts to basically realize socialist modernization, and it is also a critical period of tackling key problems for achieving high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology and building a strong country in science and technology. Only by returning talent titles to their academic and honorary nature, so that every researcher who is committed to basic research can obtain support by virtue of possessing genuine talent and solid knowledge (真才实学, zhen cai shi xue - "true, talent, solid, learning") and win respect through actual contributions, can the source of living water for basic research flow fully.
A talent title is an affirmation of work at a certain stage and should not automatically be transformed into treatment and privileges enjoyed for life. It is necessary to promote the "ability to go up and down" and dynamic adjustment of titles, avoid using static evaluation results to permanently label talent, and let researchers shift their attention from protecting "hats" to doing research. The allocation of research funding, project review, and post appointment should be based on actual research ability and innovation potential. High-level talent should not be equated with holders of talent titles, and talent titles should not be used as the sole basis for allocating academic resources. In various reviews, excessive favoritism toward "hat" talent should be avoided, the decoupling of titles from resources should be promoted, rigid binding should be cut off, lifelong attributes should be eliminated, and the bad tendency of "hats" being equated with academic privilege should be broken. At the same time, improve the employment mechanism based on trust, reduce unnecessary review and evaluation, forums and ceremonies, and transactional interference, strengthen the construction of research integrity, cultivate a clean and upright atmosphere (风清气正, feng qing qi zheng - "wind, clear, air, upright") for the research ecosystem, and let researchers no longer be trapped by "hats."
Give full play to the role of the assessment baton, improve classified evaluation, highlight original orientation and long-cycle support, and grant researchers greater autonomy. The assessment of basic research talent should focus on evaluating their original ability to propose and solve major scientific problems, the scientific value and academic influence of their achievements, appropriately extend the evaluation and assessment cycle for basic research talent, highlight medium- and long-term goal orientation, and support them in willingly enduring long periods of obscurity or hardship (甘于坐冷板凳, gan yu zuo leng ban deng - "willing, at, sit, cold, long bench") and conducting long-cycle research. For talent engaged in research on emerging interdisciplinary disciplines and non-consensus research, increase efforts to explore evaluation, establish a low-frequency, personalized, and effective assessment and evaluation system, give them sufficient time for accumulation and space for trial and error, and explore mechanisms such as rolling support and tolerance of failure. Adhere to classified evaluation and avoid "measuring everything with one ruler." At the same time, grant leading scientific and technological talent greater power over personnel, finances, and materials and greater choice over technical routes, reduce administrative interference, strengthen research integrity, and create a good ecosystem for devoted research and a clean and upright atmosphere.
Returning talent titles to their academic and honorary nature also requires genuinely increasing support for young talent and "hatless" talent. Young talent has active thinking, abundant energy, and the courage to try and dare to break through. They are in the golden period of innovation and creation and are the main force of basic research. It is necessary to break the narrow concept of "origin theory," build platforms for young talent in major research projects and key disciplinary fields, and give them the opportunity to taking on the main responsibility or leading a task (挑大梁, tiao da liang - "carry, big, beam") and play the leading role. Explore providing long-term stable support and non-competitive research funding to researchers who devote themselves to research but have not yet obtained titles, reduce frequent applications and competitive assessments, and let researchers with genuine talent have having an opportunity to display one's talents (有用武之地, you yong wu zhi di - "have, use, martial, place"). At the same time, optimize the growth environment for young talent and "hatless" talent, reduce unnecessary review and evaluation and administrative burdens, grant them corresponding research autonomy, strengthen the construction of research integrity, and let every researcher committed to basic research be able to concentrate with single-minded devotion on deep cultivation at the front line of research.
(Author's affiliation: Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development)
Return to TopBy: 沈文科
With the continuous development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, FPV and other types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are, with unprecedented cost advantages and combat effectiveness, becoming battlefield sharp tools in modern warfare, and will also be one of the important forces determining victory or defeat in future wars. However, the current UAV swarm operations model still has many problems, and it is necessary to further explore its internal mechanisms of employment, so as to find suitable methods and pathways for fully unleashing the role of UAVs in modern warfare.
There are notable differences in the ways weapon systems are employed in clustered form across different operational domains
The practice of war shows that different operational environments greatly affect the effectiveness of weapon employment, resulting in the formation of different dominant patterns of clustered weapon employment in different operational domains. The following takes land, sea, and air operations at the peak of the mechanized-warfare era as examples.
Land-domain operations often implement large-cluster deep thrusts. In the practice of modern warfare, because the land battlefield features convenient mobility conditions, strong logistical support, and planar operations, it is more suited to large-scale centralized employment of weapons. For example, the employment of tanks represents the typical land-domain large-cluster deep-thrust model. In the early period of World War II, because the British and French armies clung to the traditional defense-first operational thinking and did not fully recognize the combat effectiveness of clustered tank offensives, they mainly employed tanks in a dispersed manner to support infantry, and thus failed to bring out the maximum utility of tanks. The German army, by contrast, benefited from innovation in advanced operational thinking, vigorously developed assault groups centered on armored divisions, and fully exploited the numerical advantage of tanks, achieving the combat effect of clustered offensives. In the contest with the German army, the Soviet army further enriched the methods of tank employment guided by the theory of deep operations, maximized the use of the mobility advantage of tank clusters, and reached the peak of clustered offensives in the mechanized era.
Sea-domain operations widely adopt small-cluster distributed attacks. In modern naval warfare, because the sea battlefield environment has changeable climate, difficult support, and limited mobility, naval operations more often adopt small-formation and small-cluster operational methods. For example, the ideal submarine wolf-pack tactic is a representative of the small-cluster distributed attack model, whose essence is "linear disposition, coordinated attack," that is, multiple submarines are disposed at certain intervals along a straight line or arc; when one submarine discovers an enemy ship formation, in order to improve combat efficiency, it does not attack first, but instead stalks and follows in stealth, reconnoiters and reports position information, and at night concentrates as many submarines as possible to launch the attack. In the spring of 1945, in order to cut Japan's sea lines of communication in the Pacific theater, the U.S. military decided to implement the "scoundrel operation" raid, with a total of 9 submarines organized into 3 groups of 3 submarines each. The "wolf pack" formed by the 9 submarines hunted in the Sea of Japan for 10 days, sinking a total of 28 ships and 1 submarine, achieving an excellent combat effect.
Air-domain operations more often carry out dispersed coordinated strikes. The air battlefield has a wide operational scope, fast mobility, and great real-time confrontation, so weapon employment must effectively resolve the contradiction between concentration and dispersion. Existing research has found that the survival probability of a penetration aircraft in air combat is the product of the probability that the penetration aircraft is not destroyed by enemy air-defense weapons and the probability that it does not collide. Therefore, in air combat, one can neither launch an attack against the enemy simultaneously with a force three to five times superior in numbers, nor implement a tactic of surrounding the enemy on four or six sides so that no enemy aircraft escapes; one can only, on the premise of a certain quantity of forces, carry out extensive maneuver, segmented, and continuous interception (attack) in the form of combat formations, so as to achieve the goal of preserving oneself and destroying the enemy.
Clustered weapon employment must comply with the principle of concentrating superior forces
The patterns of clustered weapon employment differ both because of differences caused by domain and because of the influence of changes in the development of the forms of war, but at the most fundamental level they cannot depart from the constraint of the principle of concentrating superior forces. For this reason, one must fully understand the essence of concentrating superior forces in order to better guide the patterns of weapon employment in modern warfare.
Clustered weapon employment must aim at improving combat effectiveness. Whether it is the cold-weapon era's emphasis on concentration of physical strength, the firearm era's emphasis on concentration of firepower, or the information era's emphasis on concentration of information power, the operational purpose is all focused on gaining an asymmetric advantage for destroying the enemy. Therefore, concentrating superior forces is not the goal but the means; the ultimate goal is to obtain the greatest combat effectiveness relative to the enemy. This is why there are notable differences in the patterns of force concentration across different domains — it is the direct projection of the principle of concentrating superior forces in various battlefield environments. Forces of the same quantity, firepower, and energy, when disposed differently and employed differently, produce vastly different effects. In modern warfare, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the actions of operational subsystems and thereby implement the principle of concentrating superior forces, it is necessary to scientifically analyze the various factors affecting operational actions and rationally allocate operational resources, so as to achieve the goals of reducing consumption while also achieving quick decision, complete annihilation, or smooth accomplishment of the offensive objective.
Clustered weapon employment must adapt to the enemy and employ forces according to the enemy's strength. The essence of concentrating superior forces is to obtain local superiority and initiative over the enemy through force concentration according to the needs of the overall operational situation; therefore, concentrating forces cannot simply be viewed as a matter of numerical quantity. In fact, according to calculations with the Lanchester equations, once the battlefield environment and the lethality of both sides are specified, force input and force attrition become contradictory after exceeding a certain threshold — that is, the more forces are input, the greater the attrition. This mechanism was confirmed by the American military historian Dupuy using a quantitative evaluation model. After examining 93 cases of the Western European theater in World War II, he found that once a given combat-power ratio was reached, continuing to increase forces produced worse effects than other methods, and he thereby proposed the law of diminishing returns. The practice of several recent local wars further shows that the larger and denser the forces committed to the battlefield, the more easily they suffer casualties, which is unfavorable to preserving oneself. Therefore, concentrating forces must be moderate, adapting to the enemy and employing forces according to the enemy's strength; this is also the wartime goal of preserving oneself and destroying the enemy.
Clustered weapon employment must continuously and dynamically advance in patterns and means. Viewed longitudinally from the history of the development of weapon-employment tactics, no form of clustering is fixed and unchanging; technological development inevitably requires new ways of concentrating superior forces, presenting a situation in which the quantitative expansion of large clusters and the structural quality optimization of small clusters alternately drive progress, continuously evolving around the goal of raising combat effectiveness. When the quantitative expansion of a large cluster reaches the zero point of marginal benefit, increasing quantity will no longer enhance combat effectiveness; at this time one should turn to internal structural optimization and adjustment to achieve quality improvement. This is because when the constituent elements are the same, different system structures produce greatly different functions. The more closely connected and the more consistent in behavior the elements composing a system are, the more orderly the system and the stronger its functions. If there is no structure and only the superposition of quantity, a system cannot be formed. Viewed from the development of infantry tactics, in the firearm era the infantry phalanx became shallower and changed to line tactics, and later further developed into skirmisher tactics; under skirmisher tactics there also appeared structural optimizations of infantry organization such as the "three-three system." It is precisely this pulsating change from emphasizing quantity to emphasizing quality, and then back to emphasizing quantity, that forms a spiral progression in tactical development.
UAV offensive operations should flexibly adopt swarm models
UAVs are sharp tools of modern low-altitude operations; their employment should combine the characteristics of air-domain operations and, under the guidance of the principle of concentrating superior forces, achieve the combat effect of defeating the enemy asymmetrically.
Comprehensively assess the scale effects of UAV swarms. At present, according to the quantity of UAVs employed in operations, they can be divided into four typical operational patterns: single-aircraft precision elimination, multi-aircraft coordinated attack, swarm integrated attack, and "bee swarm" autonomous attack. In terms of combat effectiveness, because the first two patterns — single-aircraft precision elimination and multi-aircraft coordinated attack — involve small numbers of UAVs, and individual unmanned platforms have small payloads, simple functions, and limited destructive power, the overall effectiveness of UAVs is not fully manifested, and they are more often used in precision-strike scenarios. Although the swarm integrated attack and "bee swarm" operational models focus more on the saturation-attack effect formed by the numerical advantage of UAVs, they have problems such as complex and fault-prone command and control, insufficient sustained combat capability, and a relatively low combat-effectiveness ratio. Therefore, the employment of UAV swarms must combine the characteristics of the mission, distinguish the categories of scenarios, and innovate employment models to maximize strike effectiveness.
Emphasize the design of organized, multi-route strikes. In UAV operational employment, in order to adapt to the characteristics of air-domain weapon employment and better achieve the strike effect of concentrating superior forces, one can more often adopt the "small groups, multiple routes" distributed integrated employment model, which is dispersed in form but concentrated in spirit. This can both significantly improve the attack effectiveness of UAV swarms and satisfy the requirement of dispersed disposition in light of local conditions according to combat needs. The number and scale of the groups should be determined according to the attack target and the type of UAV; for example, one can adopt the "three-three" organization of the same type of aircraft, or adopt the "high-low" organization in which large UAVs are paired with small UAVs. In the attack phase, UAVs should use the superposition of multiple groups to ensure the continuity and scale of strikes. The scale of each group should be appropriate, and the groups can be coordinated either by time or by mission. Although multiple groups advance in superposition, the main-attack and supporting-attack directions should be distinguished, and within the main-attack and supporting-attack directions there should also be a distinction between main routes and secondary routes. In the allocation of UAV forces, priority should be given as much as possible to the main-attack direction and the main routes in each direction.
Dynamically adjust the relationship between technological development and employment patterns. Weapon employment patterns are closely related to technological development, which determines that the design of UAV swarm employment must keep pace with the iterative updating of new technologies. With the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, UAV technology is still in a stage of rapid development, and some new operational patterns may well experience leapfrog development along with a technological explosion. Therefore, for UAV swarms, one must continuously innovate employment patterns, shift from emphasizing quantity to emphasizing quality, and continuously explore new employment models. The iterative development of UAVs and employment patterns are deeply coupled and mutually empowering; dynamic adjustment is the key to UAV performance optimization and scenario adaptation. In the exploratory stage of UAV swarm employment, attention must be paid to sorting out the shortcomings of UAV employment in different scenarios, converting requirements into technical optimization indicators for adjustment, feeding back problems through operational experiments, virtual simulation, and the like, and always moving toward the direction of maximizing the combat effectiveness of UAV swarm operations.
Return to TopBy: 王江燕 裴杰
Consider a combat scenario: an early-warning aircraft is on duty, and the radar screen suddenly fills with snow-like static — clearly an enemy electronic-warfare aircraft has unleashed powerful jamming. An operator of a traditional radar can only switch frantically between a few preset anti-jamming modes, hoping one of them works. By the time a countermeasure is finally found, the enemy has already switched jamming patterns, and the radar is blinded again. This is the fatal weakness of traditional radar: its operating parameters are "welded shut" at the factory, leaving limited battlefield adaptability, and cognitive radar was born precisely to break this passive predicament.
The working process is a cyclical "intelligent closed loop"
The core of cognitive radar is to imitate the human cognitive process, forming a closed loop of "perception—learning—decision—action."
Perception is the foundation. In the perception stage, cognitive radar does not merely receive target echoes; it also actively senses the entire electromagnetic environment, ascertaining the details of the jamming — for example, which frequency bands are being jammed, how high the noise floor is, and in which direction the target may be hidden. This is equivalent to a sentry observing the surrounding sky, terrain, and listening to nearby sounds before taking up his post, marking the key directions. Learning is the soul; this is the key distinction between cognitive radar and ordinary "adaptive radar."
In the learning stage, cognitive radar stores the experience of each encounter in a knowledge base — for example, what counter-waveform corresponds to a certain type of jamming, which frequency band is cleanest at which time, and what echo characteristics are suspicious. The more times it engages an adversary, the richer its experience becomes.
In the decision stage, cognitive radar, based on the experience it has learned, assesses threats in real time and formulates the optimal working plan: what waveform to use next, which airspace to scan, and to whom to allocate energy first — just as a commander on a rapidly changing battlefield allocates forces appropriately based on past experience and current intelligence.
In the action stage, cognitive radar adjusts its transmission parameters according to the decision: hopping frequency bands, changing waveforms, adjusting power, and altering scan rhythm. The moment the enemy jammer switches on, it has already moved to a clean frequency band, and may even use a new waveform to turn the tables. Finally, the results of the action feed back to the perception end, initiating a new round of the cycle. In this way, cognitive radar continuously evolves through repeated cycles of "making a move—observing the effect—making another move."
Transforming from passive victim to active contender
The advantage of cognitive radar is essentially transforming radar from a "passive target to be beaten" into a "boxer actively engaging in a contest," specifically reflected in the following four aspects.
First, anti-jamming — when the enemy changes, we change. Electronic warfare is a cat-and-mouse game. Electronic jamming is the radar's number-one mortal enemy. Traditional radar has very limited anti-jamming means, whereas cognitive radar can automatically identify jamming characteristics and switch countermeasures within milliseconds, minimizing the impact of jamming. A traditional radar is like a sentry who only knows how to shout passwords; once the enemy figures out its pattern, it can easily deceive it. A cognitive radar, by contrast, is like an intelligence officer who speaks many dialects and adapts to circumstances. It not only hops frequencies, but also changes waveforms and coding methods. Even better, it can "show weakness," deliberately lowering power and disguising itself as a civilian signal to make the enemy think it is not switched on.
Second, engaging in a battle of wits and courage (斗智斗勇, dou zhi dou yong - "fight, wisdom, fight, courage") with stealth targets. The design philosophy of stealth targets is "to reflect as little radar echo as possible, thereby achieving stealth against enemy radar." Since stealth effectiveness varies with frequency band and angle, cognitive radar's countermeasure is to probe repeatedly from multiple angles, multiple frequency bands, and with multiple waveforms: if the meter-wave band cannot see clearly, switch to the microwave band; if there is no echo from the front, let the beam "sweep" from the side; accumulate weak signals over a long time to strengthen them; and once abnormal echoes are detected under a certain waveform, immediately lock on and refuse to let go, causing the stealth target to lose its cover. This is like finding a cat hiding in the dark — not by shining one big lamp directly at it, but by constantly changing position and changing the light, one can always catch its shadow.
Third, more flexible power allocation. Although traditional phased-array radar can scan quickly, most of the time it is "looking" at airspace with no targets, wasting power. Cognitive radar, based on target motion prediction models, concentrates attention on the positions where targets are most likely to appear, with the beam able to "hold on and track closely." When facing a massive swarm of drones, cognitive radar can dynamically allocate resources like a seasoned commander — prioritizing tracking of high-threat targets, slowing down to examine cluttered areas carefully, rather than spreading effort evenly.
Fourth, tighter coordination in system-of-systems operations. The "pitfalls" one radar has stepped into can, through data links, make the platforms of the entire system "learn a lesson," achieving sharing of cognitive achievements. Even if a single radar intercepts only one weak target signal, all cognitive radars in the entire operational network can immediately update the target identification feature library; when the target is encountered again later, it can be locked on directly, avoiding repeated trial and error and greatly shortening the reaction time for detecting and engaging targets.
Four technical difficulties
The technical difficulty of cognitive radar lies not in making the radar "smarter," but in making cognitive radar reliable, undeceivable, and trustworthy on the battlefield. Specifically, the following four problems must be solved.
First, real-time performance. On the battlefield, extremely rapid or momentary (电光石火, dian guang shi huo - "electric, light, stone, fire") events occur; jamming must be countered within milliseconds or even microseconds. Deep learning algorithms often involve heavy computation, which places extremely demanding requirements on processing chips — equivalent to requiring a person to complete hearing the sound, identifying the direction, drawing the gun, aiming, and firing all at the same moment the gunshot rings out.
Second, anti-deception. The enemy will try every possible means (想方设法, xiang fang she fa - "think, method, set, way") to pollute the radar's "experience" — for example, by releasing false targets and forging echo characteristics to induce it to "learn the wrong things." Cognitive radar must be able to identify and resist such data deception; otherwise, the more it learns, the more confused it becomes, being outwitted by one's own cleverness (聪明反被聪明误, cong ming fan bei cong ming wu - "clever, instead, be, clever, mistake").
Third, the knowledge base. The battlefield environment is constantly changing and evolving (千变万化, qian bian wan hua - "thousand, change, ten thousand, transform"). How can an accurate, generalizable knowledge base be constructed? Battlefield data is scarce and sensitive — where does the "experience base" come from? Relying on digital twin simulation pre-training and few-shot learning is far from sufficient; a "brain" not fed with real substance is nothing but a showpiece on the battlefield.
Fourth, reliability. Military equipment cannot tolerate "mysticism." AI decision-making has poor explainability, and the cost of a misjudgment is extremely high. Having machines provide recommendations and humans make the final ruling, establishing a trust chain of human-machine collaboration, is likewise carrying a heavy responsibility on a long journey (任重道远, ren zhong dao yuan - "undertake, heavy, road, far").
With the maturation of artificial intelligence, MIMO systems, and software-defined radar, adaptive waveforms and intelligent anti-jamming have already shown initial signs of brilliance or talent (初露锋芒, chu lu feng mang - "first, reveal, blade, edge") on new-generation radars. On the future battlefield, operational units will move from single-equipment cognition to system-of-systems cognition, with radar, electronic warfare, communications, and electro-optical equipment sharing "knowledge" to form a learning network. Looking deeper, in the future, electromagnetic confrontation will no longer be about who has greater power or wider frequency bands, but whose "brain" turns faster, adapts more broadly, and cannot be deceived. The path of cognitive radar has only just begun, but every step of its evolution is rewriting the formula for victory and defeat in future warfare.
Return to TopBy: 苏春生
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Long March. In the special exhibition hall on the decision-making and departure of the Central Red Army's Long March in Ruijin, Jiangxi, a special historical scene is on display: He Shuheng and Lin Boqu are conversing intimately while sitting close together (促膝交谈, cu ji jiao tan - "knees, touch; talk, converse") across a small square table, and on the wall Lin Boqu's poem "Parting at Meikeng" is prominently printed in light. This poem records the moving farewell between him and his old comrade-in-arms He Shuheng at Meikeng, Ruijin, on the eve of the Long March.
He Shuheng and Lin Boqu were not only fellow townsmen but also old comrades-in-arms who had known each other for many years. In 1928, the two studied together in the special class of Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. In 1930, He Shuheng returned to China first and arrived in the Central Soviet Area in 1931; in 1932, Lin Boqu returned to China and came to Ruijin in 1933. The comrades who had been separated for three years were reunited in the Soviet Area, caring for and encouraging each other, often sitting close together in heartfelt conversation, forging a profound revolutionary friendship.
From 1933 to 1934, the Kuomintang reactionaries mobilized 1 million troops to launch the fifth large-scale military "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the revolutionary base areas, of which 500,000 troops were focused on attacking the Central Revolutionary Base Area. From late April to early May 1934, after Guangchang, Junmenling, Jianning, Longgang and other places fell one after another, the northern and southern gateways of the Central Soviet Area were laid wide open. Although the Red Army soldiers and commanders resisted tenaciously with bloody battles, they suffered successive defeats overall and found it very difficult to break the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" predicament from within the base area, and were forced to make the realistic choice of withdrawing from the Central Soviet Area. On October 10, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission led the main forces of the Central Red Army and others in a strategic shift from Ruijin, beginning the Long March.
On the night before the troops departed, He Shuheng, who had been ordered to remain in the Soviet Area to persist in guerrilla warfare, held a farewell banquet at Meikeng for his old comrade-in-arms Lin Boqu, who was about to embark on a long journey. The two drank together, pouring out their revolutionary innermost feelings and speaking of the concerns in their hearts. At the moment of parting, He Shuheng took off the woolen sweater he was wearing and gave it to Lin Boqu, to shield him from the wind and frost on the Long March. This sweater had been knitted stitch by stitch by He Shuheng's daughter, and was filled with a daughter's concern and deep love for her father.
Receiving this gift still carrying the warmth of his body, Lin Boqu was overcome with a mixture of many emotions (百感交集, bai gan jiao ji - "hundred, feelings, intersect, join") and wrote down "Parting at Meikeng" with his brush:
The common cause is still arduous; clear wine fills the cup, joyfully we drink face to face.
I dared to manage political and legal affairs at Yeping; gladly I handled finance and economics at Shaba.
Whether to stay or go, my heart feels heavy either way; in wind and rain, the desolate rooster, I long for its early crow.
You gave me a padded robe of boundless meaning; with earnest handshakes we part at Meikeng.
Little did one expect that this parting would become a permanent farewell. In February 1935, He Shuheng was surrounded by enemy troops in Changting, Fujian. In order not to burden his comrades, he, nearly sixty years old, resolutely and decisively (毅然决然, yi ran jue ran - "resolute, determined") leapt from a cliff and died a heroic death, "shedding his last drop of blood for the Soviet." In February 1961, this sweater was donated by Lin Boqu's wife Zhu Ming to the Museum of the Chinese Revolution (now the National Museum of China).
A woolen sweater bears witness to the deep comradely affection of those sharing the same ideals and goals (志同道合, zhi tong dao he - "will, same; path, together"); a poem embodies the great righteousness of family and country in pursuing one's dreams and ideals (追光逐梦, zhui guang zhu meng - "chase, light; pursue, dream"). "Parting at Meikeng" is a historical microcosm of the Central Red Army bidding farewell to Ruijin and setting out on its long expedition. In those days, countless revolutionary forebears set aside their small families for the sake of the country, acting with firm determination and decisiveness (毅然决然, yi ran jue ran - "resolute, determined") as they bid farewell to wives and daughters, to relatives and friends, to their hometowns and native soil, and steadfastly and courageously embarked on an expedition whose outcome, life or death, was unknown.
Return to TopBy: 刘东超
"All things each obtain their proper harmony to live, and each obtain their proper nourishment to grow" comes from the Xunzi, "Discourse on Heaven." Its general meaning is that all things must possess suitable conditions in order to grow, and must possess suitable "nourishment" in order to take form. This embodies Xunzi's thought of respecting the laws of nature, and also contains a developmental concept in which things depend on one another and coexist without mutual harm (并育不悖, bing yu bu bei - "together grow, not conflict").
Heaven and Earth unite, and the myriad things are born
The ancients regarded Heaven and Earth as the vehicle through which the myriad things are transformed and nurtured. Xunzi said: "Heaven and Earth unite, and the myriad things are born; yin and yang connect, and change and transformation arise." Jia Yi's "Rhapsody on the Owl" further likened it: "Heaven and Earth are the furnace; creation is the craftsman; yin and yang are the charcoal; the myriad things are the copper." Both take yin and yang as the core driving force of Heaven and Earth's transformation and nurturing. The Huangdi Neijing: Suwen calls yin and yang the "guiding principle of the myriad things" and the "origin of life and death."
Explaining transformation and generation through yin and yang alone is not yet sufficient to exhaust its subtlety. Dong Zhongshu's Chunqiu Fanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals) says: "Heaven covers and nurtures the myriad things; having transformed them, it gives them life, and having nourished them, it brings them to completion. Its works and achievements never cease, cyclical repetition or returning to the beginning (终而复始, zhong er fu shi - "end, then, return, start"), and all that it does is directed toward serving humanity. Observing the intent of Heaven, it is a benevolence without limit or end." He regards Heaven's transformation and nurturing as the manifestation of the Way of Heaven's benevolent virtue, endowing natural Heaven with the attributes of a moral person. The "benevolence" here is both the endless cycle of life and growth (生生不息, sheng sheng bu xi - "birth, birth, not stop") of Heaven and Earth, and the positive conditions and momentum on which the growth of all things relies. The ancients further held that the achievement of transformation and nurturing originates from "zhong he" (centrality and harmony). The Doctrine of the Mean says: "Centrality is the great root of the world; harmony is the universal path of the world. Achieving harmony and balance (致中和, zhi zhong he - "reach, middle, harmony"), Heaven and Earth take their proper positions, and the myriad things are nurtured." "Centrality" is the original foundation of all things; "harmony" is the operating principle of all things. "Achieving harmony and balance" means preserving their root and following their path, so that all things each obtain what is fitting for them and order is coordinated.
Humanity is also born of Heaven and Earth, and among the myriad things alone possesses spiritual acuity, being the heart of Heaven and Earth. The Liezi, "Tian Rui" (Heaven's Auspices), says: "Heaven gives birth to the myriad things; only humanity is precious." This is the classic positioning of the human status in Chinese philosophy. Dong Zhongshu also said: "Among what the essence of Heaven and Earth produces, nothing is more precious than humanity." Both emphasize that humanity receives the vital essence of Heaven and Earth and alone possesses spiritual acuity. The Huangdi Neijing: Suwen says: "Heaven covers and Earth supports; the myriad things are all complete, and nothing is more precious than humanity. Humanity is born of the qi of Heaven and Earth and is formed by the laws of the four seasons." This both clarifies the nobility of humanity and states that humanity is shaped by nature and should act in accordance with the seasonal order. Wang Yangming's Chuanxi Lu (Instructions for Practical Living) proposes: "Humanity is the heart of Heaven and Earth. Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things are originally one body with me." It further says that among Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things, "the most subtle point where the aperture opens is the single point of spiritual clarity in the human heart," meaning that the human heart carries the spiritual knowing of Heaven and Earth, and that humanity and the myriad things belong to one body and share the same breath — this is precisely where the "benevolence" of Heaven and Earth finds its resting place.
Mountains and marshes are seasonally closed, and fish and turtles grow
The ancients regarded mountains and rivers as component parts of the unity of Heaven and Earth. The Zhou Yi, "Commentary on the Hexagram Kan," says: "The peril of Heaven cannot be climbed; the peril of Earth is mountains, rivers, hills, and mounds." It holds that the qi of Heaven, Earth, mountains, and rivers flows through and connects with one another. Wen Tianxiang's "Song of the Righteous Qi" says: "Heaven and Earth possess a righteous qi, variously bestowed and given form. Below it becomes rivers and peaks; above it becomes sun and stars." In order to protect and sustain the harmonious qi of Heaven and Earth, to emulate the benevolence of Heaven and Earth, and to safeguard the life and growth of all things, the ancients implemented regulations of "prohibition and opening according to the seasons" over mountains, rivers, lakes, and marshes, which are recorded extensively in the statutes and institutions of successive dynasties.
The Yi Zhou Shu, "Da Ju Jie" (Great Gathering), records the "Prohibitions of Yu" as related by the Duke of Zhou: "In the three months of spring, axes do not enter the mountains and forests, so as to allow the growth of grasses and trees; in the three months of summer, nets do not enter rivers and marshes, so as to allow the growth of fish and turtles." It is said that even in the time of the Great Yu there were prohibitions: felling of mountain forests was banned in spring, and fishing in rivers and marshes was banned in summer, leaving sufficient growth cycles for animals and plants. The Li Ji, "Yue Ling" (Monthly Ordinances), set prohibitions by month: in the first month of spring, "felling of trees is forbidden; overturning of nests is forbidden; killing of young insects, embryos, newborns, and flying birds is forbidden; taking of fawns and eggs is forbidden," protecting the weak and young living things of early spring. The Tang Liudian (Six Statutes of the Tang) stipulated that fishing and hunting should follow the seasonal order: "At the turn of winter and spring, aquatic creatures are gestating; fishing implements are not deployed in rivers and marshes." It also records: "For all the Five Sacred Mountains and famous mountains that can harbor spiritual energy and produce extraordinary things, causing clouds to rise and rain to fall (兴云致雨, xing yun zhi yu - "rise, clouds, lead, rain") and benefit humanity, felling and gathering are prohibited, and seasonal sacrifices and prayers are offered there." This highlights the function of mountains and rivers in nurturing ecosystems and breeding rare species. The Tang Lü Shuyi (Tang Code with Commentary), the Song Xingtong (Song Penal Code), the Da Ming Lü (Great Ming Code), and the Da Qing Lü Li (Great Qing Code) and other successive dynastic codes all contain similar provisions.
Throughout Chinese history there were also many officials who implemented measures to close off and protect mountain forests, lakes, and marshes. In the Eastern Han, Hepu Commandery over-harvested pearls and shells, causing the pearl oysters to migrate and the resources to be exhausted; when Meng Chang served as Grand Administrator, he strictly ordered a ban on harvesting, and within less than a year the pearl oysters returned and the ecology was restored. During the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, the forests of Mount Lao were illegally felled, and Xu Ting, the magistrate of Jimo County, had a stele erected with prohibitions inscribed upon it, severely punishing unauthorized felling and placing the forests under the care of the Daoist priests of Hualou Palace and local village heads. During the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty, the forests of Mount Fanjing were illegally sold and burned for charcoal; Jing Wen, the prefect of Tongren, erected a stele to protect the forest, and the "Record of the Forest Prohibition Stele of Mount Fanjing" says: "Grasses and trees are the essence of mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers are the qi and veins of a whole prefecture... inscribed upon stone, to stand as a prohibition forever." When Zuo Zongtang was overseeing military affairs in the Northwest, he saw the people of Anding County burning the wasteland and admonished the magistrate: in times of peace there is no need to use this to repel enemies, "and moreover in the bitter cold of winter, insects are curled up in hibernation; to burn them at will destroys all their vitality — is this what a benevolent gentleman should do?" He then issued orders that the practice be strictly prohibited throughout southeastern Gansu and Ningxia alike. Although the starting points of these measures differed, their core all contained the meaning of ecological protection, and they already deeply recognized that the natural environment is the fundamental support for the continued existence of all things and of humanity.
All species coexist without harming one another
The prominent manifestation of all things living through harmony and growing through nourishment is the mutual dependence and coordinated coexistence among species, and related practices are mostly seen in records of ancient agriculture and sericulture. For example, Liu Xun's Lingbiao Lu Yi (Records of the Strange in the Lingnan Region), written at the end of the Tang dynasty, records: people in Xinzhou and Longzhou bought grass carp fry and put them into newly reclaimed paddy fields. After one or two years the grass carp grew large and ate all the weeds in the water. Through this method they not only harvested large quantities of grass carp, but also, because of the fish's activity, turned the wasteland into mature fields, and rice planting was free from the interference of barnyard grass. In this way a mutually beneficial coexistence (互生共利, hu sheng gong li - "mutually, grow, together, benefit") ecological chain was formed among grass carp, rice, and paddy fields. Chen Fu's Nongshu (Book of Agriculture), written around the turn of the Northern and Southern Song dynasties, also records in the chapter "Shi Di Zhi Yi" (Suitability of Terrain): in places where rainwater easily accumulates, ponds are dug, and mulberry and paper mulberry trees are planted on the embankments to tie up cattle. "The cattle obtain cool shade and so follow their nature; the embankment, trodden by the cattle, becomes firm and solid; the mulberry trees obtain rich water and grow luxuriant; in drought there is released water for irrigation; in flood the water does not spread and damage the crops." Cattle, embankments, mulberry trees, and rice support one another, combining the benefits of flood control, irrigation, planting, and animal husbandry.
The mulberry-dike fish-pond model of southern China — "mulberry trees planted on the dikes, mulberry leaves fed to silkworms, silkworm droppings fed to fish, fish manure fertilizing the pond, pond mud enriching the mulberry trees" — had already grown increasingly mature by the Ming dynasty. Within this system, resources were recycled and utilized with high efficiency and intensity. The Changshu area of Jiangsu had a similar production method: in low-lying places, fish ponds surrounded by high dikes were dug, and on the dikes wooden beams were used to set up cages for raising chickens and pigs, whose manure could feed the fish. "On the dikes are planted plum, peach, and other fruit trees. In the muddy ponds are grown wild rice, arrowroot, water chestnuts, and gorgon fruit. Land that can be made into plots is used to grow the four seasons' various vegetables, all counted in the thousands. All the waterfowl and insects are gathered and sold." The variety of its products and the completeness of its system surpassed even the mulberry-dike fish-pond model. In the mid-Qing, Yang Shen, in his Zhi Ben Ti Gang (Outline of Knowing the Fundamentals), summarized the methods of fertilizing northern farmland: "For example, paddy fields should use bone, clam, hoof, horn, feather, and fur manure; wheat and millet should use black-bean manure and seedling manure; melons and gourds should use human manure and oil-residue manure." He emphasized that fertilizers must be selected and matched according to the characteristics of the crops, and that through long-term practice nutrients are matched and yields increased — this is precisely a vivid example of "each obtaining its proper nourishment to grow."
Only by following the seasons of Heaven, adapting to the suitability of the land, and complying with the objective laws of the growth of all things can humanity achieve sustainable development together with nature.
Return to TopBy: 徐修
The Harvard-Yenching Library, renowned for collecting, researching, and disseminating East Asian documents, is one of the most important humanities and social sciences libraries at Harvard University in the United States, and also one of the world's most important centers for the collection of Chinese documents. As a major stronghold for preserving and disseminating Chinese documents overseas, the Harvard-Yenching Library has witnessed the enduring transmission of the Chinese cultural lineage through its cross-border exchanges.
Inheriting in an unbroken line (一脉相承, yi mai xiang cheng - "one, vein, inherit, together"), the Yenching Institute and the Library. The history of the Harvard-Yenching Library can be traced back to the early 20th century. In 1928, under the impetus of John Leighton Stuart, president of Yenching University, Harvard University and Yenching University jointly founded the "Harvard-Yenching Institute," relying on the legacy fund of American industrialist Charles Martin Hall, with the aim of promoting Sino-Western academic dialogue and cultivating talent for international Chinese studies. The establishment of the Institute promoted the institutionalized development of modern overseas Sinology and became an important milestone in the history of 20th-century East-West academic cooperation.
In 1931, the Sino-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute moved onto the Harvard University campus to operate independently, achieving an independent institutional status. The Institute established a book-purchasing office at Yenching University in Beiping to purchase classics locally. In the same year, Chinese-American scholar Qiu Kaiming (裘开明) was hired as the first director of the Harvard University Sino-Japanese Library. The library initially focused on collecting Chinese and Japanese classics, gradually expanding to the field of East Asian documents. After Japan launched its full-scale war of aggression against China, the Japanese army invaded North China in force, and the books in Beiping faced the danger of being scattered or damaged; some of the collection was transported through many twists and turns to Harvard University.
After the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, Harvard University continued to increase its investment in Chinese studies, and the scale of the collection and the range of academic disciplines expanded rapidly. The Sino-Japanese Library gradually grew into one of the largest East Asian document libraries with outstanding academic influence among North American universities. In 1965, the Sino-Japanese Library was renamed the Harvard-Yenching Library, with the building, collection system, and academic mission inheriting in an unbroken line; Qiu Kaiming was the actual founder of the library. The systematic Chinese book cataloging system and inter-library academic exchange network established during the Sino-Japanese Library period laid a solid foundation for the organization of East Asian documents and Sinological research in North America during this period. To this day, the Harvard-Yenching Library still adheres to its academic mission, passing on the torch of Chinese classics and cultural lineage overseas.
A voluminous collection system of Chinese documents. The Harvard-Yenching Library is known for its rich collections and complete holdings of classics. The total collection amounts to approximately 1.5 million volumes, of which Chinese documents exceed 800,000 volumes, including rare ancient books, local gazetteers, modern manuscripts, and other precious holdings, with 30,000 to 40,000 volumes added annually; the scale of the collection continues to expand.
Within the collection, Chinese ancient books number approximately 150,000 volumes and more than 13,300 titles, of which rare books number approximately 4,000 titles, mostly imprints from before the sixtieth year of the Qianlong reign, covering Song and Yuan woodblock editions, Ming and Qing manuscripts and transcripts, polychrome overprinted editions, movable-type editions, and various other edition types. Specifically, there are more than 30 Song and Yuan woodblock editions, more than 1,400 Ming woodblock editions, more than 2,000 early Qing woodblock editions, and more than 1,000 manuscripts and transcripts; in terms of edition format, there are both polychrome overprinted books and Ming-dynasty copper movable-type editions and Qing-dynasty wooden movable-type editions — truly a feast for the eyes (琳琅满目, lin lang man mu - "jade, luster, fill, eye"). The collection of collectanea (congshu) is especially abundant, with more than 1,400 titles; of those included in the General Catalog of Chinese Collectanea (Zhongguo congshu zonglu), half can be found here. In addition, the Mao family Jiguge transcripts and the two surviving volumes of the Yongle Dadian are also of extremely high artifact and documentary value.
Apart from traditional ancient books, the local gazetteer collection is another distinctive feature of the Harvard-Yenching Library. According to statistics in The Current State of Chinese Local Gazetteers and Related Materials at the Harvard-Yenching Library by the second director, Wu Wenjin (吴文津), taking the total number of extant local gazetteers recorded in the then Union Catalog of Chinese Local Gazetteers (Zhongguo difangzhi lianhe mulu) as a reference, the gazetteers held by this library account for approximately 46 percent by title and approximately 59 percent by volume. The time span extends from the Ming and Qing dynasties through the Republic of China period, and the content covers local administration, social customs, economic change, and other aspects, providing systematic and detailed source material support for research on regional social history. At the same time, imperial examination documents, stele rubbings, and genealogy archives also occupy a considerable proportion of the collection.
The Harvard-Yenching Library has also invested considerable effort in collecting modern and contemporary publications. From the Eastern Miscellany (Dongfang zazhi) and New Youth (Xin qingnian) of the early 20th century, to the People's Daily and Red Flag after the founding of New China, and then to contemporary academic journals and electronic databases, the collection almost completely covers the key periods of China's modernization process. Of particular note, the library holds a large quantity of original historical materials related to China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Among them, the Papers of George A. and Geraldine Fitch are rich in content; the first-hand materials preserved therein truthfully record the profound disasters caused by Japanese militarism's war of aggression against China, the arduous course of the international propaganda for China's War of Resistance, and the evolution of Sino-American relations during the war, possessing irreplaceable historical value. In addition, the library also preserves a batch of Red Army documents, printed materials, periodicals, and other items collected by Edgar Snow during his visits to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region; these materials are inscribed with the unyielding struggle of the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, struggling to save the nation from peril (救亡图存, jiu wang tu cun - "save, perish, map, exist") and resisting foreign aggression.
A new chapter of digital collections in academic dialogue. The Harvard-Yenching Library is an academic bridge deeply connecting overseas Chinese studies with the domestic academic community. Over the past century, countless Chinese and foreign scholars have pursued research and study here, leaving a profound imprint of transnational exchange. From John King Fairbank to Prasenjit Duara, from Philip A. Kuhn to Peter K. Bol, generation after generation of renowned internationally (蜚声国际, fei sheng guo ji - "fly, reputation, state, international") Sinologists have conducted systematic and in-depth Chinese research here. Their representative achievements have not only promoted the development of overseas Chinese studies but have also, to a considerable extent, influenced the international academic community's overall understanding of China.
The Harvard-Yenching Library has long maintained close cooperation with Chinese libraries and research institutions. In recent years, this cooperation has become more diversified, with yielding abundant results (成果丰硕, cheng guo feng shuo - "fruit, result, abundant, fruitful") in digital document construction, database interoperability, and other areas. With the systematic organization of the special collection of Chinese rare books as a link, the Harvard-Yenching Library has carried out multi-party collaboration with the National Library of China, the Office of Chinese Local Gazetteers, Guangxi Normal University Press, and the Zhejiang University Library, building a cross-border document cooperation network whose shared content covers the China Biographical Database, rare books of the four divisions of classics, history, philosophy, and belles-lettres, Republican-era documents, Chinese rubbings, and other rich categories. In February 2025, the Harvard-Yenching Library donated digital resources of Chinese rare books, local gazetteers, collectanea, and other ancient books to the National Library of China; in early 2026, the first batch of resources was officially released on the National Library platform, incorporated into the Chinese Ancient Books Resource Database and the Chinese Ancient Books Intelligent Service Platform, freely accessible to readers worldwide.
Entering the digital-intelligence era, the Harvard-Yenching Library's strategy revolves mainly around three dimensions: large-scale digitization of the collection, open access and global collaboration, and actively leading digital humanities research. A large number of rare classics that previously required a personal trip to the United States to consult are now open to the world in the form of high-precision scans and electronic databases, greatly facilitating the conduct of Chinese studies. Taking only the special collection of Chinese rare books as an example, the digitization project of 4,200 titles totaling 53,000 volumes has been fully completed, with the entire project taking 10 years. At the end of 2025, the digitized ancient book resources donated by the Harvard-Yenching Library were made available on the "Shidian Guji" platform, allowing people to view high-definition images of such rare world treasures as the Song woodblock Sarvastivada Vinaya (Shi song lü), the Yuan woodblock Book of Sui (Sui shu), the Ming manuscript Yongle Dadian, and the Qing manuscript Du Fu's Poems (Du shi), and also to search for the collation traces and research paths left by ancient book collators and literary and historical researchers such as Qi Sihe, Gu Jiegang, and Rong Geng.
For generation after generation of Chinese scholars, the Harvard-Yenching Library has served them in immersing themselves in the classics (涵泳典籍, han yong dian ji - "contain, swim, classics, books") and drawing forth new knowledge. Scholars here explore the classics and engage in dialogue with the outside world, making the voice of Chinese scholarship increasingly prominent on the international stage.
Return to TopBy: 邱勇
In May 2026, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued important instructions on promoting the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences, emphasizing the need to "accelerate the construction of an independent knowledge system for China's philosophy and social sciences, and better answer the questions of China, the questions of the world, the questions of the people, and the questions of the times." At present, artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape of economic and social development, profoundly affecting humanity's modes of production, ways of life, and ways of thinking. A series of major theoretical and practical problems arising from this require in-depth research and answers from philosophy and social sciences. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology also provides new methods and means for studying these new problems and deepening understanding of existing ones. Driven by the wave of artificial intelligence, China's philosophy and social sciences are undergoing profound changes in disciplinary perspectives, research paradigms, tools and methods, and organizational forms, while also facing multiple challenges in value positions, reliability of conclusions, academic ethics, and research subjectivity. In this regard, it is necessary to deeply grasp the internal logic and external impact of artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences, actively respond to the new problems brought by intelligent transformation, and through comprehensive measures, steadily and prudently promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and philosophy and social sciences, so as to promote the high-quality development of China's philosophy and social sciences.
Artificial intelligence expands the breadth, depth, and validity of philosophy and social sciences research
The rapid development of artificial intelligence has driven a qualitative leap in philosophy and social sciences research. Basic research and knowledge creation increasingly show a trend of interdisciplinary intersection, giving rise to emerging disciplinary growth points such as computational social science, machine behavior science, artificial intelligence psychology, and digital humanities. This brings about all-round changes in the disciplinary system, academic system, and discourse system of philosophy and social sciences, and has a revolutionary impact on the research horizons, observational perspectives, and knowledge production and dissemination of philosophy and social sciences.
Artificial intelligence promotes the closer integration of theory-driven and data-driven approaches, opening new paths for philosophy and social sciences to discover problems and construct theories. Traditional theory-driven research usually first proposes hypotheses based on theoretical deduction and observation of reality, then collects data, builds models, and conducts empirical testing. With the help of artificial intelligence's powerful data processing, pattern recognition, and simulation capabilities, researchers can reduce their reliance on preset theoretical models and variable relationships, identify complex correlations, group differences, and anomalous patterns from large-scale, high-dimensional, multimodal data that are not easily discovered through conventional analysis, providing clues for discovering problems that existing theories have not yet fully explained, and providing support for subsequent theory construction, data exploration, and empirical testing. Data analysis driven by artificial intelligence not only serves hypothesis testing but is also expected to participate more deeply in problem discovery and theory construction, deepening understanding of individual behavior and social operation mechanisms.
Artificial intelligence provides full-process support for scientific research activities, reducing the burden of routine work and enabling researchers to devote more energy to original research. Artificial intelligence is being integrated into research links such as literature research, data analysis, and presentation of results, providing more efficient and convenient technical assistance for philosophy and social sciences research. In literature research, artificial intelligence can assist in the retrieval, classification, and synthesis of massive academic resources, helping researchers sort out relevant achievements. In data analysis, artificial intelligence can assist in coding interview materials, theme identification, and cross-case comparison in qualitative research, as well as support data cleaning, complex relationship modeling, and visualization of results in quantitative research. In terms of presentation of results, artificial intelligence can assist in manuscript writing and multilingual translation, and can also enrich the presentation forms of cultural heritage through new technical means. These applications help reduce repetitive labor, enabling researchers to focus more on more complex, more innovative research activities that are difficult for artificial intelligence to replace, such as posing questions and constructing theories, promoting the formation of a research model in which "artificial intelligence processes data, and humans focus on innovation."
Through synthetic data generation and scenario simulation, artificial intelligence expands the space of scenarios beyond observation of reality, providing new means for understanding complex social processes. Traditional philosophy and social sciences research usually collects data through questionnaire surveys, behavioral experiments, interviews, and participatory observation to understand individuals and groups and their dynamic evolutionary characteristics. While assisting traditional research, artificial intelligence can generate synthetic sample data through agent simulation, providing new means for examining and understanding research problems beyond observation of reality. By setting appropriate scenarios and conditions, agents can simulate individual responses and group interactions, examine possible behavioral outcomes under different conditions, and provide assistance for forming research hypotheses, deducing possible mechanisms, and improving research design. In particular, for research that is difficult to conduct experiments on directly, such as natural disasters and cyber violence, agent simulation can provide scenario deduction and auxiliary analysis, helping to expand researchers' understanding of complex social processes.
China's rich practice in the development and governance of artificial intelligence provides new historical opportunities for building an independent knowledge system and leading the international academic frontier. Artificial intelligence not only changes the research means of philosophy and social sciences but also becomes an important research object of philosophy and social sciences. The widespread application of artificial intelligence in economic production, organizational management, and social life has led to the emergence of a series of new problems, giving rise to governance issues such as algorithmic discrimination, data sovereignty, and computing power monopoly. China is at the forefront of global artificial intelligence development and has carried out extensive innovative practice and exploration in artificial intelligence technological innovation, industrial development, enabling applications, and regulatory governance, providing fertile soil for theoretical innovation. In the process of new problems being continuously raised and new explanatory frameworks gradually taking shape, China's philosophy and social sciences have the opportunity to actively shape new academic agendas, propose new concepts and propositions in the field of artificial intelligence development and governance, and form original theoretical achievements rooted in Chinese practice and of universal significance to the world.
Artificial intelligence brings multi-dimensional and systematic challenges to philosophy and social sciences
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "artificial intelligence brings unprecedented development opportunities, and also brings unprecedented risks and challenges." Artificial intelligence drives the transformation of research paradigms in philosophy and social sciences, expands research horizons and observational perspectives, and improves the efficiency of knowledge production and dissemination, but it also brings challenges at the levels of value positions, knowledge production, academic ethics, and research subjectivity.
The implicit biases in artificial intelligence training data and limitations in contextual understanding may lead to deviations in value positions in research conclusions. Large models rely on real-world corpora for training and may inherit value biases entrenched in the training data. If the training data is imbalanced on key attributes such as gender and race, or if researchers select features improperly or assign unreasonable weights to data, artificial intelligence may replicate or even amplify existing social biases in the research process. Philosophy and social sciences research is highly dependent on specific, dynamic social contexts, whose connotations constantly change with social development. However, artificial intelligence mainly analyzes based on past data and finds it difficult to fully grasp specific and dynamic social situations. Research conclusions generated in this way cannot fully reflect value judgments in real society, thereby producing deviations in value positions.
The "hallucination" phenomenon and "black box" characteristics of artificial intelligence models may affect the accuracy and explainability of research conclusions. Large language models may exhibit "hallucination" phenomena in the content generation process, outputting content that appears semantically coherent and logically self-consistent but is in fact false, often manifesting as fabricated historical data, fictitious expert opinions, and forged cited references. If researchers directly cite such content without sufficient ability to discern it, it may induce false conclusions. If "hallucinated" content is allowed to spread widely, it may erode professional authority, interfere with subsequent research, and even mislead the direction of disciplinary development. The internal computational mechanisms of large artificial intelligence models are highly complex, and the basis for output is not sufficiently transparent, resulting in unclear processes of conclusion formation and unclear conditions for the applicability of conclusions.
The deep participation of artificial intelligence in knowledge production increases the difficulty of maintaining academic norms and academic integrity. The deep participation of artificial intelligence in research changes the division of labor in knowledge production, making the identification of research contributions, attribution of achievements, and determination of responsibility more complex. Current academic authorship norms and ethical guidelines are mainly designed for human researchers and are difficult to apply directly to human-machine collaborative achievements. Relevant standards for copyright determination still have significant gaps. While lowering the cost of knowledge production, artificial intelligence also lowers the threshold for academic misconduct. Generative tools generally lack clear source labeling when outputting content, seriously weakening the standardization and traceability of academic citation. If researchers use such content directly without verification, it may cause hidden sources, irregular citation, and inaccurate content, and may even involve them in academic misconduct, endangering academic integrity.
Excessive reliance on artificial intelligence may erode researchers' cognitive subjectivity and weaken their capacity for independent thinking and original exploration. The popularization of artificial intelligence has brought revolutionary changes to the way humanity produces and acquires knowledge, but it may also weaken researchers' critical and innovative thinking, posing a real threat to humanity's cognitive subjectivity. When individuals excessively rely on artificial intelligence technical means, their abilities to actively obtain information, conduct logical analysis, and verify facts are systematically weakened. If one merely passively receives the easily obtainable (唾手可得, tu shou ke de - "saliva, hand, can, get") answers provided by artificial intelligence, one can easily fall into the predicament of "cognitive offloading." Over time, this may not only weaken the unique creativity of humans as research subjects but may also cause academic innovation to remain at the level of superficial integration, affecting the overall quality of research.
Promote the two-way empowerment and deep integration of artificial intelligence and philosophy and social sciences
To seize opportunities and meet challenges, we must adhere to the guidance of Marxism, adhere to giving equal weight to development and security, accurately grasp the development trends and laws of artificial intelligence, and coordinate the promotion of the transformation of scientific research organizational models, infrastructure construction, cultivation of composite talents, improvement of academic ethics rules, construction of an independent knowledge system, and expansion of international cooperation and exchange, ensuring that artificial intelligence-assisted research is reliable, trustworthy, and controllable, and consolidating the foundation for the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences.
Build a human-machine collaborative model and promote the adjustment of researchers' roles. Artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences is not only an update of research tools but also involves adjustments in the division of labor in knowledge production. Universities and research institutions should, around major research tasks, promote the coordinated allocation of professional knowledge, technical forces, and data resources, explore new scientific research organizational models led by researchers with complementary human-machine advantages, and enable the enhancement of technical capabilities and the innovation of research organization methods to promote each other. First, formulate and dynamically improve ethical guidelines and academic guidance for human-machine collaboration, clarify the role boundaries of artificial intelligence in data processing, information analysis, and auxiliary reasoning, and prevent it from excessively replacing human theoretical creation and value judgment. At the same time, guide researchers to establish correct views on technology, ethics, and values, inject value rationality into the human-machine collaborative model, and ensure that artificial intelligence research activities conform to fundamental human values. Second, guide philosophy and social sciences workers to actively assume new research roles such as model bias identifier, artificial intelligence data verifier, and human-machine collaboration optimizer, and uphold the scientific foundation and responsibility bottom line of human knowledge creation. This does not require artificial intelligence to never "make mistakes," but rather, when artificial intelligence makes mistakes, to ensure that humans still possess the ability to identify errors, correct deviations, and rebuild truth. Third, consolidate the subject role of humans in knowledge creation. The core value of philosophy and social sciences lies in critical thinking and theoretical construction, which are key aspects that artificial intelligence finds difficult to replace in humans and are also important forces driving the progress of human civilization. Protect and strengthen the unique independent thinking and critical thinking abilities of researchers themselves, and firmly keep the right to define research problems and set research agendas in human hands.
Accelerate the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure for philosophy and social sciences. Integrate data resources, computing resources, knowledge base resources, and open-source tool chains in the field of philosophy and social sciences, build a national-level artificial intelligence-enabled scientific research infrastructure platform for philosophy and social sciences that integrates "data-computing-knowledge-intelligence," and form a full-process research enabling system covering literature research, theory construction, data annotation, silicon-based experiments, knowledge generation, and simulation. First, accelerate the construction of a national-level data resource repository for philosophy and social sciences. Aggregate multi-source data including historical archives, literature corpora, survey data, economic data, social data, government data, and case materials, and build a standardized, open, and shared multimodal, high-quality public data resource system. Improve mechanisms for data use authorization, source tracing, and secure sharing, and enhance the availability and reusability of data resources. Second, build a cluster of specialized models for philosophy and social sciences research. Prioritize the development of research capabilities such as intelligent literature analysis, knowledge graph association, silicon-based sample construction, and multi-agent simulation, enhance models' language understanding, generation, reasoning, and prediction capabilities, and better adapt to complex research tasks in multidisciplinary scenarios. In view of the multi-source, semantically complex characteristics of philosophy and social sciences corpora, as well as ideological attributes and value alignment requirements, encourage the use of high-quality datasets in professional fields to train, fine-tune, and optimize specialized models. Third, build an autonomous, controllable, knowledge-integrated cluster of disciplinary intelligent agents. Around the task of constructing an independent knowledge system, support several universities and research institutions in joint research, systematically integrate domestic and international basic disciplinary literature, monographs and textbooks, journal articles, master's and doctoral theses, and other literature corpora, and integrate and develop a cluster of philosophy and social sciences intelligent agents for research and teaching scenarios. Embed academic norms, public ethics, and core values into the construction of intelligent agents, and explore the establishment of norms and guidelines for the development, use, and management of disciplinary intelligent agents.
Focus on building a high-quality composite talent team. First, enhance the artificial intelligence literacy of philosophy and social sciences workers. Incorporate basic artificial intelligence knowledge, digital ethics, algorithmic literacy, and critical thinking into the training system for researchers, so that every researcher both proficiently masters and effectively utilizes artificial intelligence tools and remains vigilant against risks such as model "hallucinations" and privacy leakage, enhancing their ability to responsibly use artificial intelligence to assist scientific research. Second, encourage universities to establish interdisciplinary fields such as computational social science and digital humanities, promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence with humanities, arts, social sciences, and other disciplines, offer interdisciplinary courses such as data science, digital governance, critical thinking, and artificial intelligence ethics, and cultivate composite research talents with both humanistic literacy and scientific quality. Third, promote the deep integration of teaching and research, implement training programs for current students, strengthen critical thinking and independent thinking abilities, cultivate digital literacy and compliance awareness, and guide students to continuously improve their ability to harness artificial intelligence technology in research practice.
Improve the management and supervision mechanisms for artificial intelligence applications in scientific research. Artificial intelligence research governance must not only prevent misuse and abuse but also create conditions for responsible academic exploration. Improve resource sharing and research collaboration mechanisms, promote timely adjustment of rules, and provide institutional support for new research practices. First, combine top-level design with grassroots exploration, and encourage universities and research institutions to formulate artificial intelligence use disclosure norms suitable for disciplinary characteristics based on actual conditions such as user subjects, research purposes, and application scenarios. Second, improve the review mechanism for content generated or assisted by artificial intelligence. Strengthen the technical supply and empowerment for reviewing artificial intelligence-generated content, with a focus on breakthroughs in key core technologies such as intelligent proofreading, social bias correction, and screening of undesirable value orientations. Consolidate the responsibility of academic units for content review and control, and identify and promptly address possible risks such as discrimination, bias, and ideological problems. Third, improve the responsibility determination and fault tolerance mechanisms for artificial intelligence use. Artificial intelligence technology has characteristics such as rapid iteration and uncertain application boundaries. A dynamic responsibility allocation mechanism should be established by comprehensively considering factors such as the degree of human-machine collaboration, model iteration, training data sources, and disciplinary characteristics. Clarify researchers' reasonable duty of care in such links as use disclosure, result verification, and problem correction, distinguish technical errors that are difficult to avoid even after fulfilling corresponding obligations from behaviors such as concealing use, neglecting verification, and intentional fabrication, and both provide institutional guarantees for responsible research exploration and prevent the misuse and abuse of artificial intelligence. Fourth, improve the ethical review mechanism for artificial intelligence research in the field of philosophy and social sciences. It is recommended that a specialized ethics review institution for philosophy and social sciences be established at the national level, and that artificial intelligence research ethics guidelines conforming to the characteristics of philosophy and social sciences be formulated. Improve the data governance system for philosophy and social sciences, formulate data classification and grading standards, and build mechanisms for desensitization processing of sensitive data and trusted computing to ensure data security.
Accelerate the construction of an independent knowledge system for artificial intelligence development and governance. China's rich practice and frontier exploration in the field of artificial intelligence provide the cornerstone and confidence for building an independent knowledge system for artificial intelligence development and governance. First, conduct in-depth research on the deep-level impacts and mechanisms of action of artificial intelligence on human cognition, judgment, ethical norms, and other aspects, study and judge the political, economic, and social impacts of artificial intelligence applications and corresponding governance mechanisms, and explore the formation of a theoretical system for the beneficial use of intelligence. Second, around the major social changes triggered by artificial intelligence, promote philosophy and social sciences research to proceed simultaneously with technology research and development, scenario application, and social governance, study the new connotations and new characteristics of basic concepts and classical theories, excavate and refine new concepts and new theories, and propose theoretical propositions with explanatory power. Third, focus on major practical needs in artificial intelligence development and governance, mobilize research institutions and think tanks to conduct forward-looking and targeted research, develop signature concepts and original theories in the process of studying real problems and solving real problems, strive to produce results that are useful and effective, and provide research support for promoting artificial intelligence to move upward and toward good, and to proceed steadily and far.
Deepen international exchange and cooperation in philosophy and social sciences. Philosophy and social sciences have distinct cultural embeddedness. Promoting international cooperation in philosophy and social sciences requires both following the general laws of academic exchange and respecting the knowledge traditions, data sovereignty, and ethical differences of different civilizations. First, promote the construction of a global cooperation network for artificial intelligence empowering philosophy and social sciences, support domestic institutions and top foreign academic institutions in conducting joint research on common issues, and strengthen exchange of research methods and sharing of research resources. Second, promote the initiation of a cross-border philosophy and social sciences data sharing alliance, build a cross-border trusted philosophy and social sciences data space ecosystem chain, and, on the premise of complying with the data laws and ethical norms of various countries, provide technical guarantees for the sharing and circulation of some social survey data and international comparative data on a global scale. Third, actively participate in the formulation of knowledge production rules, promote the establishment of international standards for social impact assessment of large models, with a focus on assessing the social risks, ethical responsibilities, and academic impacts of large models. Fourth, actively tell the Chinese story of artificial intelligence development and governance, promote experience sharing and mutual learning among civilizations, contribute Chinese wisdom to expanding the international theoretical frontier of artificial intelligence development and governance, and contribute Chinese strength to building a fair and reasonable global artificial intelligence governance system.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that philosophy and social sciences workers should "stand at the forefront of the times, understand the changes of past and present, and give voice to the thoughts of the era." Artificial intelligence drives profound changes in social practice and knowledge production methods, raising new theoretical topics while also providing new means for understanding society and innovating theory. The more artificial intelligence develops, the more philosophy and social sciences are needed to provide humanistic nourishment, rational thinking, and value guidance. Philosophy and social sciences workers should maintain independent thinking while embracing technological change, uphold value pursuits while advancing knowledge innovation, transform historical opportunities into practical achievements in accelerating the construction of an independent knowledge system for China's philosophy and social sciences, promote more stable and higher-quality development of China's philosophy and social sciences, and contribute more wisdom and strength to the construction of Chinese modernization.
(The author is Secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Return to TopOn October 24, 2026, Weihai Guangtai Airport Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Weihai Guangtai) will celebrate its 35th anniversary. Over these 35 years, this private enterprise, which started from an old workshop in Weihai, has remained steadfast in the equipment manufacturing industry, breaking new ground in development through innovation and transformation.
Unwavering commitment to original aspirations (初心如磐, chuxin rupan - "initial heart, like, rock"): Starting from a single power supply vehicle
In 1990, 50-year-old Li Guangtai took his first step in entrepreneurship in a rented old workshop in Weihai. At that time, China's airport ground support equipment mainly relied on imports, and an imported power supply vehicle was prohibitively expensive. Driven by a spirit of defiance, Li Guangtai led his team to conduct research from scratch. In 1991, Weihai Guangtai successfully developed a commercial aircraft power supply vehicle.
Over the following 30-plus years, Weihai Guangtai has deeply cultivated the airport ground support equipment sector, launching at least 3 to 4 new products each year, and has introduced over 40 series and more than 500 product models, gradually forming a complete product spectrum covering all airport operational areas.
Key core technologies cannot be obtained by asking, buying, or begging for them. In 2015, when the domestically produced large aircraft C919 rolled off the final assembly line, the tractor developed and produced by Weihai Guangtai undertook its towing support mission. From towbar towing to towbarless towing, this represented a technological revolution in the tractor field—towbarless tractors connect directly to the aircraft's nose landing gear and achieve towing by relying on the aircraft's weight, placing extremely high demands on center-of-gravity distribution, impact control, and precision recognition. The Weihai Guangtai R&D team built a test simulation vehicle at a 1:1 ratio based on the C919's aircraft model parameters, extensively collected parameters from all aircraft models on the market, and repeatedly debugged, tested, and simulated. In just 2 years, the R&D team successively broke through a series of core technologies including aircraft model recognition and oversteer monitoring, controlling docking precision to within 1 centimeter.
At Weihai Guangtai, there are many stories of innovation and breakthrough like this one. The company invested 30 million yuan to build an engineering laboratory and spent 310 million yuan to establish the National Airport Ground Support Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center. As of 2025, Weihai Guangtai has accumulated over 1,000 technology patents and more than 40 national, provincial, and ministerial-level science and technology progress awards.
Forging with craftsmanship: From "being able to make" to "making with precision"
Over 30 years of dedicated manufacturing has accumulated not only technological depth but also the craftsmanship standards and quality pursuits engraved into every production process. Over a thousand craftsmen and technicians are striving for perfection and excellence (精益求精, jing yin qiu jing - "refine, seek, excellence"), and 9 modern factories, 5 large-scale machining centers each worth over ten million yuan, and industrial robot clusters operate in coordination, effectively ensuring the high precision and consistency of batch production of heavy equipment, creating the company's advantage of an annual production capacity of over 400 platform vehicles.
Weihai Guangtai has established a full-chain quality traceability mechanism from raw material entry to complete machine delivery, with over 2,000 sets of testing equipment accredited by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS). Before each piece of equipment leaves the factory, it must undergo strict testing in professional laboratories. Equipment produced by Weihai Guangtai can adapt to various extreme environments such as extreme cold, high temperature, and humidity, and always operates stably and efficiently. "Product quality is the quality of our character" is deeply engraved in the hearts of every Weihai Guangtai employee.
Good products also need to be matched with good service. Shandong Guangda Aviation Service Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary established in 1996, has turned the maintenance and repair of airport ground support equipment into an independent and professional undertaking. Through 30 years of deep cultivation, it now has over 800 maintenance technicians and more than 40 directly operated maintenance offices, has reached maintenance outsourcing service cooperation with 80% of domestic airports, and achieves 1-hour rapid response and 24/7 all-weather service. At the same time, the company has established maintenance service stations and parts warehouses in Singapore, Japan, and other places, gradually building a global service network.
The 35 years of development have not been smooth sailing all the way. In 2021, before the applause from the 30th anniversary celebration had even faded, facing the global wave of intelligence, Weihai Guangtai people clearly recognized: those who do not proactively transform will ultimately be eliminated by the times.
Transforming with intelligence: From traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing
In 2024, international orders for platform vehicles grew substantially, and the company's production capacity was severely insufficient—at that time, the company produced only about 8 platform vehicles per month, and the pressure to increase production was unprecedented.
To increase production and improve efficiency, Weihai Guangtai comprehensively implemented the "Five Major Transformations." Taking the platform vehicle production line as a pilot, it broke the traditional "overall assembly" model and promoted a parallel operation model of modular assembly and final assembly, changing the production line from a "single lane" to "multiple lanes." The results were exciting: monthly platform vehicle production capacity soared from 8 units before the pilot to 35 units, with per-capita efficiency improving nearly threefold. A deeper transformation occurred at the design source. Weihai Guangtai promoted "design-process integration," allowing process personnel to be deeply integrated into the design department, requiring designers to "design for manufacturing and design for assembly," proactively leaving space for manufacturing and finding solutions for assembly at the drawing design stage. Through design splitting, the tractor frame achieved robotic welding, more than doubling production efficiency; the cab structure was changed from square tubing to U-shaped bending, successfully solving the challenge of the electrophoretic coating process—these seemingly minor design changes brought about a dual leap in production efficiency and product quality.
With the advancement of the platform vehicle intelligent manufacturing pilot, intelligent manufacturing at Weihai Guangtai is no longer an option but a necessity. The second phase of the Weihai Guangtai Yangting Industrial Park plant has been put into use, with 80% of cutting and laser welding processes achieving intelligence; the three-dimensional warehouse operates in conjunction with automated guided vehicles (AGVs), with material delivery precise to the specific time point of each workstation; quality management has moved from "end-of-line inspection" to "front-end prevention," with a statistical process control system monitoring electrophoretic line parameters in real time and a cloud platform statistically analyzing after-sales fault data to achieve proactive rectification of common problems. Weihai Guangtai people have crossed the river by feeling the stones, blazing an intelligent path suitable for "multi-variety, small-batch" discrete manufacturing enterprises.
New horizons overseas: From Weihai to the world
Built on advanced R&D and manufacturing and high-quality service, Weihai Guangtai has accumulated a good reputation in the global market: its products are exported to Europe, with over 100 shuttle buses produced by Weihai Guangtai operating in Spain alone; it has provided fuel-to-electric conversion solutions for London Luton Airport in the United Kingdom, helping the airport's green transformation and upgrading. In September 2022, at the European Airport Ground Support Equipment Exhibition held in Paris, France, Weihai Guangtai became the focus of the entire venue as the lead sponsor. In the same year, Weihai Guangtai's electric power supply vehicle became the only product meeting performance requirements in rigorous testing at Munich Airport in Germany.
In recent years, Weihai Guangtai's pace of internationalization has further accelerated, establishing strategic cooperative relationships with multiple global leading ground handling service companies. In 2023, the company's international market order value grew nearly threefold year-on-year, setting a new historical high. Today, Weihai Guangtai's products are distributed across more than 100 countries and regions worldwide, with services covering over 1,000 airports.
Business expansion: From focusing solely on airports to dual-business-driven development
The ultimate pursuit of safety and reliability in airport equipment laid a solid technological and manufacturing foundation for Weihai Guangtai. In 2009, the company began expanding into the emergency rescue and support sector. The commissioning of the Lingang base in 2026 is precisely the something happening naturally as a result of circumstances (水到渠成, shui dao qu cheng - "water, reaches, channel, forms") of this exploration. The company has gradually built an "air-ground integrated" overall solution spanning early warning and perception, emergency response, and medical rescue, marking Weihai Guangtai's transition from a single airport equipment manufacturer to a new stage driven by the dual main businesses of "airport equipment + emergency rescue and support equipment."
On the early warning and perception front, the series of fire alarm equipment products can provide timely and accurate fire warnings for various types of buildings, assist in controlling fire spread, and provide support for personnel evacuation and escape.
On the emergency response front, from conventional firefighting, high-rise assault, to special operations and logistics support, Weihai Guangtai has formed a complete fire rescue equipment matrix. For high-rise building areas that ground equipment cannot cover, large-payload, long-endurance emergency rescue drones can build an aerial lifeline in extreme scenarios such as high-rise firefighting, forming an air-ground coordinated rescue force with ground equipment.
When lives are in danger, from pre-hospital emergency care, transport and rescue, to rapidly deployable fully functional mobile hospitals, Weihai Guangtai relies on its complete equipment matrix to build a rapidly responding mobile medical overall solution, erecting a mobile lifeline of defense.
While airport equipment is advancing boldly to the world, Weihai Guangtai is also gradually promoting its mature emergency rescue solutions globally. Weihai Guangtai mobile hospitals have been delivered in batches to Burkina Faso and Tanzania in Africa, and mobile surgical vehicles continue to be exported to Central Asia and Southeast Asia, helping regions with weak medical resources build flexible, efficient, and reliable medical security systems.
Today, more than 50,000 pieces of equipment manufactured by Weihai Guangtai are operating around the world, day and night without pause. Thirty-five years on, the transformation is complete; the road ahead is vast, and a new chapter is unfolding. From breaking foreign monopolies to solving industry challenges, from producing single products to providing complete solutions, from being confined to one corner to serving a hundred countries globally. Weihai Guangtai deeply understands that only through continuous innovation can it achieve a business that remains prosperous for a long time (基业长青, ji ye chang qing - "foundation, business, long, green"), and only by embracing change can it win the future. Weihai Guangtai will always uphold its corporate mission of "win-win with customers, development with employees, returns to shareholders, and contributions to society," giving back to society with quality products and services.
(Weihai Guangtai Airport Equipment Co., Ltd.)
Return to Top