Summary: The article reports on remarks emphasizing that China's regions should implement the Party Central Committee's strategic decisions, adopt a correct view of political achievements, and fully apply the new development philosophy. It calls on all regions to seize development opportunities, build on local conditions, and leverage comparative advantages to promote high-quality development tailored to local circumstances.
Summary: The article discusses the theoretical and practical framework for developing "new quality productive forces," as outlined by General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Central Committee's recent "Opinions" on the subject. It emphasizes that these forces require a leap in the "qualitative state" of labor, means of labor, and objects of labor, driven by digital-intelligent and green economies, with data, computing power, and algorithms as core factors. The transformation from scientific "qualitative state" to industrial "form of business" involves upgrading traditional industries, cultivating strategic emerging industries, and planning future industries, including through "overtaking by changing tracks" as seen in China's new energy vehicles. Building an innovation ecosystem requires improving relations of production around data, coordinating government and market roles, and integrating education, science, and technology reforms. The author, a former Party Secretary of Nanjing University, stresses the importance of technology entrepreneurs with "innovative spirit + scientific and technological vision" in driving this innovation.
Summary: The Long March served as a touchstone for the Party to test and identify leading cadres, building a cadre examination system centered on "identifying cadres on the battlefield, discerning original aspirations in times of crisis, and deciding appointments and removals based on actual performance." The article outlines four key characteristics of this testing process: prominent orientation, strong political character, distinct combat character, and broad mass character, emphasizing the need to uphold the Party managing cadres, place the political standard first, maintain combat effectiveness as the sole standard, and follow the mass line. It recounts how the Zunyi Conference ended "Left" dogmatist errors and established Comrade Mao Zedong's leadership position, while criticizing Bo Gu and Li De for mechanically copying Communist International instructions. Chairman Xi is quoted on the importance of the Party managing cadres, placing the political standard first, and establishing combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard for the military. The author, a researcher at the Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military Research Center, concludes that cadres must be assessed comprehensively, historically, and dialectically, with dynamic inspection mechanisms for testing on the front lines of major struggles.
Summary: The article reflects on the "Cave Dwelling Dialogue" of 1945, when Mao Zedong told Huang Yanpei that democracy and people's supervision would allow the Party to escape the historical cyclical pattern of rise and decline. It cites Xi Jinping's formulation that the Party's second answer to this question is self-revolution, complementing Mao's first answer of letting the people supervise the government. The piece argues that people's supervision and self-revolution must be integrated, with power confined in institutional cages and leading cadres, as the "key minority," leading by example. It stresses the need to keep supervision channels open through whole-process people's democracy, including people's congress supervision, CPPCC democratic supervision, and public opinion supervision. The article concludes that unifying external supervision with internal self-revolution will ensure the Party's long-term governance on the new journey.
Summary: The article argues that actively advancing the energy revolution is essential for developing new quality productive forces and achieving Chinese modernization, framing it as a strategic choice amid global green transitions and major-power games. It traces the historical significance of energy shifts in human civilization and outlines China's basic logic for the revolution, including meeting carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, ensuring energy security for new industries, and seizing technological and industrial competitive advantages. The practical path involves advancing the "four revolutions and one cooperation," building new-type power, heating, and fuel systems, driving technological and institutional innovation, deepening international cooperation, and strengthening energy security reserves. The author, the Director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, emphasizes that China's clean energy technologies have become a new calling card of "Made in China," with products sold globally.
Summary: The article discusses expanding "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation, marking its 10th anniversary, and outlines three priority areas: deepening rule alignment, improving transaction services, and promoting industrial connectivity. It notes China has signed e-commerce cooperation memorandums with 38 countries, helping over 80,000 small and medium-sized merchants in partner countries, and highlights new characteristics such as expansion to multilateral regional cooperation. The piece emphasizes transforming intergovernmental cooperation into enterprise-participable, consumer-beneficial economic and trade exchanges, citing institutional innovations like cross-border mutual recognition of digital identities in Shanghai. It also mentions nearly 200 national pavilions and over 60 overseas direct-purchase bases facilitating two-way trade. The article concludes that sustained cooperation can turn "Silk Road E-commerce" into an industrial bond promoting common development.
Summary: The Long March served as a touchstone for the Party to test and identify leading cadres, building a cadre examination system centered on "identifying cadres on the battlefield, discerning original aspirations in times of crisis, and deciding appointments and removals based on actual performance." The article outlines four key characteristics of this testing process: prominent orientation, strong political character, distinct combat character, and broad mass character, emphasizing the need to uphold the Party managing cadres, place the political standard first, maintain combat effectiveness as the sole standard, and follow the mass line. It recounts how the Zunyi Conference ended "Left" dogmatist errors and established Comrade Mao Zedong's leadership position, while criticizing Bo Gu and Li De for mechanically copying Communist International instructions. Chairman Xi is quoted on the importance of the Party managing cadres, placing the political standard first, and establishing combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard for the military. The author, a researcher at the Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military Research Center, concludes that cadres must be assessed comprehensively, historically, and dialectically, with dynamic inspection mechanisms for testing on the front lines of major struggles.
Summary: The rapid expansion of digital virtual humans into fields such as entertainment, e-commerce, and medical guidance has introduced significant legal risks regarding personality rights, data security, and content safety. To address issues like deepfake fraud and the unauthorized use of images of the deceased, China is developing a governance framework through regulations such as the *Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments)*. The proposed approach emphasizes refining legal norms, building coordinated regulatory mechanisms across multiple departments, and ensuring technical compliance through mandatory content labeling. Additionally, the article suggests that China should strengthen international rule-making and cooperation to manage the cross-border complexities of digital virtual human services.
Summary: The article discusses the functional positioning and coordination of special committees and working committees within local people's congresses, emphasizing their distinct legal statuses, personnel compositions, and duties. It outlines that special committees exercise statutory powers like bill examination and supervision, while working committees provide support and routine services. The piece highlights common issues of blurred boundaries and proposes measures such as clarifying divisions of labor, enhancing information sharing, and strengthening overall coordination. It stresses the importance of these reforms for improving the quality and effectiveness of local people's congress work under the people's congress system.
Summary: The article discusses the theoretical and practical framework for developing "new quality productive forces," as outlined by General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Central Committee's recent "Opinions" on the subject. It emphasizes that these forces require a leap in the "qualitative state" of labor, means of labor, and objects of labor, driven by digital-intelligent and green economies, with data, computing power, and algorithms as core factors. The transformation from scientific "qualitative state" to industrial "form of business" involves upgrading traditional industries, cultivating strategic emerging industries, and planning future industries, including through "overtaking by changing tracks" as seen in China's new energy vehicles. Building an innovation ecosystem requires improving relations of production around data, coordinating government and market roles, and integrating education, science, and technology reforms. The author, a former Party Secretary of Nanjing University, stresses the importance of technology entrepreneurs with "innovative spirit + scientific and technological vision" in driving this innovation.
Summary: The article emphasizes that state-owned enterprises must uphold the centralized, unified leadership of the Party Central Committee to serve the Party and the state. Using China Huadian as a primary example, the text details how the company has implemented the Party's decisions regarding high-quality economic development, ecological civilization, and energy security. It reports that China Huadian has focused on green development, achieved significant reductions in emissions, and enhanced its energy supply guarantee capacity. Furthermore, the article highlights the role of state-owned enterprises in driving scientific and technological innovation and deepening reform to improve corporate governance.
Summary: The article reports on Shengli Oilfield's efforts over the past five years to implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's instructions on energy security, focusing on holding the "energy rice bowl" firmly. It details the oilfield's achievements in oil and gas exploration, including new shale oil discoveries and the acceptance of the Shengli Jiyang Shale Oil National Demonstration Zone. The piece also highlights progress in green energy development, such as photovoltaic capacity and CCUS projects, alongside technological innovations in shale oil and carbon capture. Party building and the petroleum spirit are emphasized as guiding forces for the workforce. The article concludes with Shengli Oilfield's commitment to contributing to Chinese modernization through a "second entrepreneurship."
Summary: The article, authored by the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Jiangsu Communications Holding Co., Ltd., argues that the company must evolve from linear capabilities of "financing, construction, and operation" into ecological capabilities of "linking, matching, and governance" to serve the national "six networks" construction. It details how the company's "six major sectors" — including transportation infrastructure, digital computing, transportation energy, modern logistics, commercial services, and air-space intelligent connectivity — are designed to achieve structural reshaping from "building networks" to "integrating networks." The piece outlines a "3+3+X" modern industrial system, with core leading industries ensuring stable cash flow, emerging pillars like the low-altitude economy and smart logistics driving incremental growth, and future industries such as embodied intelligence and commercial aerospace targeting new tracks. It also describes mechanisms for joint platform construction, joint incremental creation, and joint ecological governance to shift coordination from administrative promotion to institutional operation. The article emphasizes reshaping the value-creation model of traditional assets with new quality productive forces, including data-driven integration and cross-network synergy.
Summary: The article examines whether short videos undermine deep thinking, arguing that algorithmic recommendation and infinite scrolling train users to rely on automatic attention, reducing tolerance for the waiting and low stimulation required for sustained directed attention. It contends that short videos fragment memory by constantly shifting contexts, weakening the ability to connect information, while deep thinking depends on lingering over relationships and tolerating temporary incomprehension. The author, an executive council member of the Chinese Communication Association and a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University, concludes that the real danger is a cognitive mode of seeking instant stimulation becoming the default, not a fixed loss of ability.
Summary: The article argues that despite AI's capabilities, genuine learning still requires sustained, long-term effort and deep thinking. It critiques the notion that AI can replace traditional scholarship, emphasizing that tools cannot substitute for human discernment, judgment, and creativity. The piece cites historical figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Huang Kan to illustrate the value of diligent, accumulated study. It concludes that AI should empower learning, not replace the hard work of research and thought, urging readers to preserve human subjectivity and focus on shaping thought rather than merely acquiring knowledge.
Summary: The article analyzes the viral success of *Munao Zongge*, a national-level intangible cultural heritage folk music-and-dance work from Dehong, Yunnan, which surpassed 10 billion online views by September 2026. It attributes the breakout not to commercial marketing or technology, but to decades of cultural sedimentation and relayed artistic creation by figures including Shi Legan, Zhen Zhen, and Yuan Zhiping. The piece contrasts the traditional ten-thousand-person collective dance with Yuan Zhiping's choreographed male group knife-dance, which added modern aesthetic appeal while preserving ritual core. It warns that short-video fragmentation and traffic-driven adaptations risk diluting cultural heritage, urging transformation of online traffic into offline cultural-tourism vitality. The article concludes that lasting inheritance requires rooting in folk sources, professional refinement, and adaptation to the times rather than fleeting popularity.
Summary: Peng Xianjue, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and former Director of the Science and Technology Committee of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, discusses the principles and technical routes of nuclear fusion, including inertial and magnetic confinement, and notes that China has included fusion energy development in its national long-term planning and the 15th Five-Year Plan. He argues that pure fusion faces constraints from lithium and beryllium reserves, unresolved technical loops, high costs, and safety challenges, making it unlikely to compete economically with fission by 2060 without disruptive breakthroughs. He proposes the Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid reactor (Z-FFR) as a more viable path, citing its inherent safety, economy, efficient resource utilization, and flexibility, with commercial application targeted around 2040. He concludes that the ideal future energy system combines nuclear and renewable energy, advocating diversified exploration and prudent decision-making to grasp the fate of future energy.
Summary: The article argues that building a strong science and technology nation requires both hard scientific strength and cultural soft power, with innovation culture as a key underpinning. It outlines the content, hierarchical structure, and characteristics of innovation culture, drawing on China's traditional cultural genes and the spirits of scientists, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and educators. The piece cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on cultivating an innovation culture that encourages exploration and tolerates failure, making advocating science a widespread social trend. It details four priorities: strengthening value guidance, improving institutional arrangements, advancing reform pilot demonstrations, and promoting open collaboration to build a globally competitive innovation ecosystem. The author, a researcher at the Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, concludes that building this culture requires joint efforts from the scientific community and society as a whole.
Summary: The article discusses the challenges of caring for China's approximately 160 million empty-nest elderly, who account for 59.7 percent of those aged 60 and above, and outlines governance shortcomings in precise assistance, urban-rural resource allocation, and service supply. It proposes establishing precise assistance mechanisms, including special survey ledgers, differentiated assistance based on risk grading, and smart guardianship systems with emergency call and fall alarm devices. It also recommends optimizing differentiated urban and rural resources, focusing on spiritual care for urban elderly and strengthening safeguards for rural left-behind elderly through family doctor visits and mobile care services. Finally, it calls for iterating exclusive diversified services, such as companionship industries and social participation platforms, to shift elderly care from "survival care" to "dignity and decency." The author is a Wu Yuzhang Senior Chair Professor at Renmin University of China and Vice President of the China Population Association.
Summary: The article emphasizes that strengthening grassroots agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief capacity is vital for national food security and agricultural modernization, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's guidance on improving infrastructure and early warning systems. It notes steady progress in monitoring networks, engineering projects like high-standard farmland, and coordinated emergency response, but identifies shortcomings in risk warning adaptation, project maintenance, and interdepartmental linkage. To address these, it proposes optimizing monitoring layouts, customizing agricultural early warning products, and consolidating end-stage warning implementation responsibilities. It also calls for clarifying management and maintenance duties, securing funding, and upgrading facility standards to enhance disaster resilience. Finally, it advocates institutionalized coordination among departments, stronger grassroots training, and greater involvement of social and market forces in disaster prevention.
Summary: The article argues that artificial intelligence is reshaping online public opinion and creating new risks, including intelligent production of false content, amplification of dissemination, and covert confrontation. It outlines challenges such as increased difficulty in distinguishing truth from falsehood, inaccurate situation research and judgment, and complex responsibility traceability. The piece proposes governance measures, including source regulation, human-machine collaborative research and judgment, and a full-chain closed-loop defense system. It emphasizes adhering to Xi Jinping's guidance on preventing and defusing AI-derived risks while ensuring AI remains under human control. The author is the Director of the Cyberspace Affairs Office of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department.
Our country is vast in territory, with notable differences in resource endowments across the east, west, south, north, and center. On the new journey, all regions should, in accordance with the strategic decisions and planning arrangements of the Party Central Committee, establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy, keep pace with the trends of the times, seize development opportunities, build on their own conditions, leverage comparative advantages, and promote high-quality development in light of local conditions.
Return to TopBy: 洪银兴
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "High-quality development requires new theories of productive forces to guide it, and new quality productive forces have already taken shape in practice and demonstrated a powerful driving and supporting force for high-quality development, requiring us to summarize and generalize them theoretically so as to guide new development practice." Three years after the scientific proposition of new quality productive forces was put forward, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces." This is a scientific guidance and standardization of actions for developing new quality productive forces, based on the theoretical innovation achievements and practical experience of new quality productive forces. The significance of developing new quality productive forces lies in promoting industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation, especially in using disruptive technologies and frontier technologies to give rise to new industries, new models, and new drivers of growth, involving the transformation of new science and technology—new qualitative states—new forms of business. In practice, it is necessary to build an innovation ecosystem for developing new quality productive forces based on the transformation in these three aspects.
The Scientific and Technological "Qualitative State" of New Quality Productive Forces
New quality productive forces are an advanced qualitative state of productive forces in which innovation plays a leading role, breaking free from traditional economic growth models and paths of productive forces development, characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, and conforming to the new development philosophy. When studying the qualitative state of new quality productive forces, it is necessary to accurately judge the role played by the leap and optimized combination of various innovation factors in improving total factor productivity. The characteristic of new quality productive forces is innovation. The concept of innovation was first proposed by Schumpeter. He believed that innovation is a process of "creative destruction," in which new technologies, new products, or new organizational forms, while replacing old technologies and industrial structures, also create new industries and economic structures. The leap in the qualitative state of productive forces embodied by new quality productive forces is prominently manifested in the following three aspects.
First, the leap in the qualitative state of the labor force factor. In the past, people generally defined the three elements of productive forces as labor, means of labor, and objects of labor. New quality productive forces take the leap of laborers, means of labor, objects of labor, and their optimized combination as their basic connotation. Here, labor is changed to laborers because developing new quality productive forces is not a general labor process but an innovation process. In the innovation process, what is more important is the laborer, not labor. Developing new quality productive forces places requirements for qualitative improvement on laborers: complex laborers who provide knowledge, technology, and management factors play a decisive role in developing new quality productive forces. Talent becomes the first element of innovation. Under the conditions of the digital economy, the content of direct labor has undergone qualitative changes, manifested in laborers using data collected from various internet platforms and digital and intelligent equipment, processing data according to certain algorithms, and forming new data as a factor of production. Innovation is more complex and more valuable than general labor. As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, as a new generation of general-purpose technology, it is widely penetrating the digital-intelligent production and exchange process, and is revolutionizing the industrial system, becoming a new driver for high-quality economic development. Since it is a general-purpose technology, it requires various types of complex laborers to learn and master general-purpose knowledge. The application of general-purpose technology in specialized fields also needs to match the technical requirements of those specialized fields. As for simple laborers, simple labor is labor that can be performed without education and training. But in the era of the digital-intelligent economy, simple laborers are not those who do not need training; rather, they are laborers with relatively lower levels of education and training, whose skills also need to be upgraded through education and training. In the era of machine-based large industry, simple laborers mainly served machines; in the era of the digital economy and intelligent economy, some laborers must control modern tools and systems such as robots and drones. This confirms Marx's judgment at the time: "The nature of large-scale industry determines the change of labor, the variation of functions, and the all-round mobility of the worker."
Second, the leap in the qualitative state of the means of labor. The means of production include the means of labor and the objects of labor. Among them, the means of labor are the measure of the level of productive forces in each economic era. The new quality productive forces of each era are embodied in the breakthrough improvement and widespread application of the means of labor. The means of labor in the era of machine-based large industry mainly involved machinery and equipment. The creative destruction of the means of labor in the current digital-intelligent era is that the means of labor of the era of industrial civilization are replaced by digital platforms and intelligent systems. With the development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and large models, smartphones, internet platforms, cloud computing, drones, intelligent sensors, automated assembly lines, and industrial robots have become new types of means of labor. The industries that provide these new modes of production and means of labor have also become carriers of new quality productive forces. The means of labor relying on artificial intelligence have automatic learning functions that humans cannot match. At the current stage, whether digital platforms and intelligent systems are used, and the advanced level of these platforms and systems, can to a large extent reflect the innovation capability of industries and enterprises.
Objects of labor usually refer to the material means that are processed and transformed in the labor process, including natural resources such as energy, raw materials, and land. In the current new quality productive forces, the creative destruction of objects of labor is prominently manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, the creative destruction of objects of labor by green productive forces; on the other hand, the creative destruction of objects of labor by digital productive forces. Entering the digital-intelligent era, data has become a key factor of production, and in many production scenarios, data collection and processing have become objects of labor. Unlike other material objects of labor, in many innovation scenarios, powerful computing power and scientific algorithms collect and process data to form data and its products as advanced factors of production. For data to become a factor in a specific production and innovation process, it needs to be processed and refined as an object of labor.
Third, "digital-intelligent economy + green economy" has become the comprehensive qualitative state of current new quality productive forces. American scholar Jeremy Rifkin, in The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, defined the third industrial revolution as the combination of internet technology and renewable energy. The comprehensive qualitative state of new quality productive forces can be grasped from the two aspects of the digital-intelligent economy and the green economy.
On the one hand, the digital-intelligent economy is the combination of the digital economy and the intelligent economy. The new technologies, new energy, and new industries of new quality productive forces at the current stage are all inseparable from the digital economy. The reason the digital economy has become the representative qualitative state of new quality productive forces is mainly that it contains three entirely new elements: first, data has become a key factor of production; second, computing power has become a new driving force after thermal power, electric power, and network power; third, algorithms have become a new method of modern science and technology. These three aspects empower various industries to produce the effects of new quality productive forces. The more sufficient and accurate the data, the more powerful the computing power; the more advanced the algorithms, the more cutting-edge the digital technology; the larger the scale of digital platforms and the wider their application, the greater the role of the new quality productive forces of the digital economy. At present, the role of the new quality productive forces of the digital economy still has much room to play. Whether it is digital industrialization or industrial digitalization, there are both modern technological applications and exploration of new-generation frontier technologies. Therefore, developing the digital economy has requirements for iterative upgrading: artificial intelligence is a new stage of the digital economy, a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and the corresponding intelligent economy has become a new economic form.
On the other hand, green productive forces are an important aspect of new quality productive forces. Green development is the background color of high-quality development, and new quality productive forces are themselves green productive forces. The harmonious coexistence of man and nature is built on the foundation of green development. Green productive forces involve not only new energy and the energy revolution it brings, but also the ecological benefits generated by green technologies, as well as the development and utilization of renewable materials. From the perspective of energy, although fossil energy is still the energy foundation of various industries to this day, it has already shown obvious unsustainability. Green productive forces involve new energy and the energy revolution it brings. The new energy revolution is not only about discovering and developing new energy, but also involves the application of new energy, which is an extension of the energy revolution.
The Industrial "Form of Business" of New Quality Productive Forces
The development of new quality productive forces originates from scientific and technological innovation, and its ultimate goal is industrial innovation, that is, building a modern industrial system. This gives rise to the transformation of new quality productive forces from "qualitative state" to "form of business." According to modern competition theory, the competitiveness of countries and regions is manifested as industrial competitiveness, and the enhancement of industrial competitiveness depends on scientific and technological innovation. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed: "It is necessary to promptly apply the achievements of scientific and technological innovation to specific industries and industrial chains, transform and upgrade traditional industries, cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, plan and build future industries, and improve the modern industrial system."
From the perspective of the path of industrial innovation, first, traditional industries are broad in scope and large in scale, with advantages in scale, supporting facilities, and leading advantages in some fields. Traditional industries are not synonymous with sunset industries or low-end industries as opposed to new quality productive forces. Their traditional nature refers to meeting traditional needs, and by no means implies that their technological foundation is traditional. Only when their technological foundation transforms toward digitalization, intelligence, and greening can they enter the modern industrial system. This is the transformation of the "qualitative state" of new quality productive forces in the field of traditional industries to the "form of business." This means that there is great space for developing new quality productive forces in the field of traditional industries, and they should not be easily abandoned.
Second, from the perspective of cultivating national industrial competitiveness, what is more important in the transformation from "qualitative state" to "form of business" is cultivating future industries and strengthening strategic emerging industries. The Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made arrangements for this: focusing on developing productive forces characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, strengthening institutional supply for new fields and new tracks, establishing a growth investment mechanism for future industries, using the upgrading of national standards to lead the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries, and promoting the concentration of various advanced production factors toward the development of new quality productive forces.
Future industries are emerging industries in the embryonic stage of the industrial life cycle, representing the development direction of scientific and technological innovation and emerging industries. They require forward-looking deployment and cultivation. The future industries that need attention at the current stage mainly include the metaverse, brain-computer interfaces, quantum information, humanoid robots, generative artificial intelligence, life sciences, biomanufacturing, future displays, future networks, new energy storage, and other fields. Facing the high uncertainty, long investment return period, and high risk of future industries, it is necessary to establish a growth investment mechanism for future industries.
Cultivating and strengthening strategic emerging industries is in fact the "realization" of future industries. When future industries enter a relatively mature stage and their technologies and products are accepted by the market and produced on a large scale, they become current strategic emerging industries. Strategic emerging industries are industries based on major technological breakthroughs and major development needs, which have a significant leading and driving role for the overall economic and social situation and long-term development. This is "developing strategic emerging industries with high technological content, strong market competitiveness, great driving effect, and good economic benefits, and truly implementing scientific and technological innovation in industrial development." The strategic emerging industries identified in the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China include "building a number of new growth engines such as new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, and green environmental protection."
Third, there is actually a question of switching tracks in the transformation from scientific and technological qualitative state to industrial form of business. Developing new quality productive forces requires accurately identifying the trends of scientific and technological change, daring to seize new opportunities and new tracks, breaking the path dependence on existing industries and mature technological routes, and relying on frontier science and technology to achieve surpassing others by taking a different route or catching up quickly (弯道超车, wan dao chao che - "bend the curve, overtake") and even "overtaking by changing tracks." The development of China's new energy vehicles is a typical example. In the field of traditional fuel vehicles, Chinese automakers could only remain in a following position. By switching tracks, on the new track of electrified, intelligent, and green vehicles, they quickly formed new advantages in international competition. At present, artificial intelligence has become a new form of business. Digital industrialization has entered the stage of artificial intelligence industrialization, that is, "'artificial intelligence +' science and technology, industry, consumption, people's livelihood, governance, global cooperation, etc." China has abundant data resources, a complete industrial system, broad application scenarios, and huge market space. Promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation has become a new growth point for developing new quality productive forces.
Finally, the transformation from scientific and technological qualitative state to new industrial forms of business requires the docking of the industrial chain with the innovation chain. This is "to take cultivating leading industries with core competitiveness as the main direction of attack, and deploy the innovation chain around the industrial chain." The characteristic of modern industrial division of labor is intra-product division of labor; the production links of the same product are distributed among different enterprises, forming an industrial chain and supply chain. Industrial innovation requires innovation in every link of the industrial chain, and at every stage of the industrial chain, the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation is needed, including the integration of basic research and applied research, to solve the problem of high-level technology supply in relevant industrial chain links. The blockage in the circulation of the industrial chain lies in the existence of "bottleneck" links in technology. The "bottleneck" links become the main direction of attack for industrial innovation. At the same time, making breakthrough progress in key links of the industrial chain and producing key core technologies with independent intellectual property rights can promote the entire industrial chain to move up to the middle and high end of the value chain. In addition, innovation in industrial forms of business cannot ignore innovation in the forms of business of the service industry and its role.
The Innovation Ecosystem for Developing New Quality Productive Forces
The innovation of developing new quality productive forces is in essence the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation. Various scientific and technological innovation resources are integrated through certain relations of production. Whether it is the scientific and technological qualitative state or the industrialized form of business, it is necessary to attract and gather innovation factors, remove the blockages and sticking points in the transformation of disruptive and frontier technologies into new industries, and promote the industrialization innovation of new technologies.
First, in the context of the digital-intelligent economy, data, computing power, and algorithms have become core factors of production. Among them, data formed on the basis of computing power and algorithms has become a key factor of production, and it is necessary to improve the relations of production around data. It is necessary to confirm the property rights of data and establish a new type of property rights system compatible with the digital economy. Establish a market for data factors, and promote market access and sharing of data factors. Make full use of the platforms and technologies of the digital economy to improve the market economy system. Various innovation factors are optimally combined according to their respective supply and demand conditions and their contribution weights to productive forces. Further improve the institutional mechanisms for distribution according to factors, and promote the optimal combination of factors of new quality productive forces.
Second, coordinate the relationship between the government and the market. New quality productive forces are cultivated and driven jointly by the government's "visible hand" and the market's "invisible hand." New quality productive forces require both the government's forward-looking planning and guidance and scientific policy support, and the adjustment of market mechanisms, but the boundaries of their respective roles need to be clearly distinguished. The role of the government should be to do some things and not do others. The so-called "doing some things" means, first, focusing on supporting basic research in the innovation qualitative state, doing a good job in integrating basic research institutions and R&D platforms, creating an atmosphere for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and building collaborative innovation platforms for industry, academia, and research. Second, in terms of form-of-business innovation, formulate and implement industrial policies that support innovation in industrial forms of business, promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and realize the transformation from "qualitative state" to "form of business." Aim at the next generation of science and technology and industry for upgrading and transformation; implement the strategy of replacing old industries with new, high-tech ones (腾笼换鸟, teng long huan niao - "empty the cage, change the bird"), freeing up space to develop emerging industries. The focus of work should be placed on optimizing the market environment, correcting market failures, and regulating the order of competition. The so-called "not doing some things" is key to breaking the dilemma of "homogenized" development of high-tech parks. It is strictly forbidden to engage in vicious investment attraction, blindly "follow the trend" in launching projects, or recklessly "burn money" in the name of developing new quality productive forces.
As for the role of the market, developing new quality productive forces mainly still depends on the role of the market. Fair competition and property rights incentives are the institutional driving force for developing new quality productive forces. In addition, in the scientific and technological qualitative state, venture capital and technology finance should invest early and invest small, cultivating disruptive new technologies of strategic emerging industries and future industries ahead of time. In innovation in industrial forms of business, industrial innovation and the corresponding venture capital investment are themselves a process of market selection. In particular, filling technology gaps on the industrial chain is even more a matter of market selection. Special attention should be paid to the fact that, compared with investing early and investing small in the qualitative-state innovation stage, what is more important in the form-of-business innovation stage is investing in hard technology and investing for the long term. Correspondingly, it is necessary to improve the capital market and give full play to financial capital, attracting and cultivating patient capital.
Third, coordinate and advance the integrated reform of the institutional mechanisms for education, science and technology, and talent. Talent is the first element of innovation and also the first element for developing new quality productive forces. Education, science and technology, and talent are the basic and strategic support for forming new quality productive forces. This is both the responsibility of the government and the responsibility of the market. The focus is on the docking of the talent chain with the innovation chain. The key to the docking of the talent chain with the innovation chain lies in cultivating and building talents with insight and leadership for strategic emerging industries and future industries, prominently manifested in two types of talent: strategic scientists and technology entrepreneurs. The key to the talent strategy for forming new quality productive forces is to accelerate the building of a national strategic talent force and stimulate the market value of knowledge, technology, and talent.
Finally, attach importance to the role of technology entrepreneurs. In the innovation ecosystem, enterprises are the main body of innovation, and the foundation of their initiative is entrepreneurs. In developing new quality productive forces, the entrepreneur factor undergoes a leap in qualitative state. The entrepreneurs produced in the era of industrial civilization were prominent for their innovative spirit. Entering the era of the digital and intelligent economy, it is not enough for entrepreneurs to have only an innovative spirit; they also need a scientific and technological vision, that is, technology entrepreneurs with "innovative spirit + scientific and technological vision." Entrepreneurs who lead innovation in different eras will also iterate. The creative destruction of innovation for entrepreneurs lies in the fact that later entrepreneurs may innovate by changing tracks. Much experience shows that innovation does not depend on the history of the enterprise, nor on the scale of the enterprise, but on the enterprise's innovation track and the entrepreneur's scientific and technological vision. Small and micro enterprises and even individual innovators may achieve success in innovation in one leap.
(The author is the former Party Secretary of Nanjing University)
Return to TopBy: 陈东恒
The Long March was a declaration, a propaganda team, and a seeder, and it was also a touchstone for the Party to test and identify leading cadres and reshape the leadership system in a life-and-death predicament. The test of enduring extreme hardships (艰苦卓绝, jian ku zhuo jue - "hard, bitter, extraordinary, resolute") not only proclaimed revolutionary propositions, armed the masses, and sowed scientific truth, but also built a leading cadre examination system with the core logic of "identifying cadres on the battlefield, discerning original aspirations in times of crisis, and deciding appointments and removals based on actual performance," with seeking truth from facts as the foundation, political loyalty as the root, struggle performance as the baseline, the mass standpoint as the background, and dynamic inspection as the key, achieving a comprehensive examination of political stance, ideals and convictions, execution capability, purpose consciousness, and discipline and character, forging a backbone force that is firm in conviction, politically loyal, determined to fight and win (敢打必胜, gan da bi sheng - "dare to fight, must win"), seeking truth and being pragmatic (求真务实, qiu zhen wu shi - "seek truth, be pragmatic"), uniting for the benefit of the people (团结为民, tuan jie wei min - "unite for the people"), and responsible and capable of action.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has prominent orientation; it is necessary to uphold the Party managing cadres and the organization selecting personnel
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a vivid practice of the Party exploring a scientific mechanism for selecting and employing personnel under extremely difficult conditions. This expedition was not only a great military strategic shift but also a screening of our army's leading cadre corps. In this great examination, our Party not only relied on self-revolution to complete the rectification of its own construction, but also forcefully corrected deviations in cadre policy, washing out and refining an outstanding group of leaders and leading cadres.
During the period before and after the Long March, Bo Gu and Li De, disregarding China's actual conditions, mechanically copied the instructions of the Communist International and implemented erroneous cadre policies. Cadre appointments and removals were dictated by the Communist International's advisers, replacing collective leadership with personal dictatorship, using sectarianism to attack and exclude dissidents, rejecting worker-peasant cadres with practical combat experience, and arbitrarily dismissing and criticizing commanders who held differing opinions. The failure of the Fifth Counter-Encirclement Campaign and the severe losses in the early stage of the Long March were closely related to errors in personnel selection. After the Battle of the Xiang River, the Party Central Committee began to achieve autonomy in cadre selection and employment; high-level appointments and removals, the deployment of division and regiment cadres, and frontline promotions were no longer subject to the Communist International, and cadres were no longer mechanically judged by book theories and Communist International directives. From the high-level central leadership down to the division and regiment grassroots, cadre work was discussed collectively by Party committees and the Political Bureau, fully listening to the opinions of frontline commanders, party branches, and soldiers, with major and complex personnel issues resolved collectively, avoiding errors caused by individual one-sided judgment. The Zunyi Conference resolved the most urgent organizational and military problems facing the Party, ended the rule of "Left" dogmatist errors within the Central Committee, and in fact established Comrade Mao Zedong's leadership position in the Party Central Committee and the Red Army.
Chairman Xi emphasizes, "We are a Party that manages cadres, and the organization selects personnel." The Long March not only screened out thoroughgoing revolutionaries and revolutionary ranks, but also screened out the Party's correct ideological line, organizational line, and military line, and moreover constructed for the Party and the military's cadre corps construction a set of fundamental institutions suited to national and military conditions, tested by history, and influential to this day. On the road ahead, it is necessary to combine the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities, uphold the principle of the Party managing cadres, and implement the responsibility system of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Give full play to the role of Party committee leadership and political organs, strictly select and employ personnel for the Party and the people in accordance with principles, policies, regulations, and procedures, select and use well leading cadres who are loyal, clean, and responsible, and ensure that the gun barrel is always in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the Party.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has strong political character; it is necessary to strictly uphold the political standard
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a severe test of the political stance and line identification of leading cadres amid arduous exploration. This expedition was not only a physical struggle against heaven and earth, a physiological challenge to limits, but also a screening of ideals, convictions, and political beliefs. Those with wavering beliefs, weak will, and fear of hardship and death were eliminated; revolutionary idealists, revolutionary heroes, and revolutionary optimists were ultimately retained.
The enduring extreme hardships struggle practice during the Long March period was the most hard-core and most impartial assessment yardstick. All identification standards were closely tied to the core goal of revolutionary survival, grounded in the concrete implementation of life-and-death struggle, and precisely distinguished qualified cadres, speculative cadres, and erroneous cadres. Mao Zedong said: "Our military strength once reached 300,000 before the Long March; because of mistakes, it later fell to fewer than 30,000, less than one-tenth. What matters is not wavering in difficult times. Which is stronger, 30,000 or 300,000? Because lessons were learned, a force of fewer than 30,000 is stronger than 300,000." The Long March, amid arduous tests, screened out those who deserted, fled, or even betrayed due to wavering beliefs. It profoundly demonstrates that identifying cadres must place the political standard first, and select and employ well those leading cadres who are loyal to the Party and firm in stance at major tests and historical turning points.
After the victory of the Long March, Mao Zedong, based on his personal experience, deeply felt the urgency of political construction in the cadre corps, made theoretical summaries of cadre issues, systematically expounded the line of appointing only the worthy (任人唯贤, ren ren wei xian - "appoint people based on merit") and the policy of possessing both moral character and ability (德才兼备, de cai jian bei - "possess both virtue and talent"), proposed that "politics is primary, is first," and placed "virtue" first, elevating practical experience into systematic theory and constructing the theoretical framework for the Party's cadre corps construction.
Chairman Xi has repeatedly made important expositions on the "political standard," pointing out that strengthening the military must first be strong politically, and political strength is the most fundamental strength; emphasizing that in selecting and appointing cadres, the political standard must be placed first. The Long March was an extremely severe political examination concerning survival and extinction, testing the Party, testing the military, and testing everyone's beliefs. It tells us that firm ideals and convictions are the spiritual pillar for overcoming all difficulties; it is necessary to put ideals and convictions at the forefront, weeding out the inferior and keeping the best (去粗取精, qu cu qu jing - "weed out the coarse, keep the essence"), eliminating the false and preserving the true (去伪存真, qu wei cun zhen - "remove the false, preserve the true"), and "illuminating the mind and seeing one's nature"; political discipline is an important guarantee for unity and cohesion; it is necessary to strictly enforce political discipline, take strict adherence to discipline and rules as the first criterion for judging behavior, and resolutely identify and purge careerists and speculators; political integrity is the primary virtue of leading cadres; it is necessary to prominently examine the political loyalty, political resolve, political responsibility, political capability, and political self-discipline of leading cadres, ensuring that in political loyalty there is "no admixture of any impurities" and "no moisture whatsoever."
Testing and identifying leading cadres has distinct combat character; it is necessary to uphold the standard of combat effectiveness
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a great practice of testing the quality of cadres through survival-and-death trials, distinguishing the brave and worthy through battlefield performance, and tempering the cadre corps through responsibility in crisis. Under the screening of cruel warfare, the Red Army, based on the core needs of military struggle, upheld the standard of combat effectiveness, understood affairs, recognized people, and employed generals, laying a solid talent foundation for the victory of the Long March.
Being able to "step forward" at critical moments tests and identifies the mission responsibility of acting immediately upon receiving orders (闻令而动, wen ling er dong - "move upon receiving orders") and daring to take responsibility. Throughout the Long March, the Red Army was under enemy pursuit and interception, facing life-and-death challenges every day; leading cadres directly undertook military tasks such as commanding operations, charging to break through the enemy, covering transfers, and emergency breakout, and only those skilled in both planning and fighting (谋战善战, mou zhan shan zhan - "plan war, excel at war") and capable of leading troops to victory could be competent in their posts and shoulder their missions. Being able to "hold the line" in the face of difficulties tests and identifies the ability to tackle dangerous shoals and not fear sacrifice in attacking hard points. Only those who charge to the front in every major and fierce battle, dare to gnaw the hardest bones, and fight the most rampant enemies can become rare generals. Being able to "withstand" heavy pressure and adversity tests and identifies the tenacious character of rock-solid conviction and striving under pressure. After the Zunyi Conference, the Zhaxi reorganization, anchored on the real needs of actual combat, implemented organizational adjustments of sending cadres down, with ranks able to rise and fall; division commanders became regiment commanders, regiment commanders became battalion commanders, and organ cadres were sent down to combat companies, using the cruel adversity of war as a whetstone to temper the behavioral performance of not being discouraged by demotion, not retreating in the face of danger, and daring to bear sacrifice.
Chairman Xi repeatedly requires the military to be able to fight and win battles, firmly establishing combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard. The Long March, amid the test of blood and fire, reversed the malpractice of dogmatist and sectarian personnel selection, tempered and cultivated a large number of revolutionary backbones with both military and political excellence in the practice of struggle, effectively filled the gap in combat talent during the Long March, guaranteed the smooth completion of key strategic tasks, and provided a solid talent guarantee for the final victory. On the road ahead, it is necessary to firmly establish combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard, uphold the clear employment orientation of "selecting generals for war, recognizing people through war," take the ability to fight and win battles as the starting point and endpoint of talent work, uphold the principle of cultivating whatever talents war needs, and precisely identify commanders who have the enemy in their minds, strategy in their hearts, command in their hands, and dare to charge at critical moments.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has broad mass character; it is necessary to uphold the mass line
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a history of the Party upholding the mass line to strengthen cadre corps construction. This expedition was not only a major military victory achieved by the Party leading the Red Army, but also a successful application of the Party's mass line in cadre corps construction. Cadres who, under extremely difficult conditions, still kept the masses in their hearts, relied on the masses, and served the masses were truly qualified cadres; those who were divorced from the masses and harmed the interests of the masses were ultimately eliminated by history.
The Long March passed through more than 10 ethnic minority areas including Miao, Yi, Tibetan, and Hui, where ethnic estrangement and cultural differences were prominent, and the masses had little understanding of the Red Army, even fearing it due to reactionary Kuomintang propaganda. Senior generals such as Liu Bocheng took the initiative to go deep into villages to publicize the Party's policies and help ethnic minorities solve practical problems; the "Yi-Hai Alliance," the "Miao Company," and the silk banner "Hui and Han Brothers as Close as One Family" converged into the surging torrent of the Long March. Facing the extremely harsh living environment, leading cadres led by example, took the lead in strictly observing the "Three Main Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention," did not take a single needle or thread from the masses, and helped the masses solve livelihood difficulties. After Mao Zedong stayed overnight in Shixiangzi, he paid the landlord 3 copper coins as room and board. Three female Red Army soldiers lodged at the home of Xu Jiexiu, an elderly woman in Shazhou Village, Rucheng County, Hunan; when leaving, they cut in half the only quilt they had and left half for the elderly woman. Only by placing the masses at the very center of their hearts can cadres connect with the masses, win over the masses, and become good generals and great talents. The rapidly changing enemy situation and extremely harsh environment of the Long March directly tested the mass organization capability of leading cadres. Behind war miracles that challenged human limits, such as skillfully crossing the Jinsha River, forcibly crossing the Dadu River, and seizing the Luding Bridge by flight, lay the efforts of leading cadres at all levels to go deep among the masses, mobilize the masses, and rally the masses. Only by integrating with the masses and organizing the masses can leading cadres unite the masses and become commanders capable of handling affairs independently.
Chairman Xi repeatedly emphasizes that the mass line is the lifeline and fundamental working line of our Party, and an important heirloom for our Party to maintain eternal youthful vitality and combat effectiveness, requiring leading cadres at all levels to establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, and to create achievements that stand up to practice and historical testing, truly benefit the people, and gain public recognition. The Long March demonstrates that the mass line is the scientific way to test and identify leading cadres. The stance toward the masses, the actions of serving the masses, the ability to mobilize the masses, and the skill of organizing the masses together constitute an effective screening method. On the road ahead, it is necessary to uphold the mass line, dare to give the masses the first right to judge the identification of leading cadres, and use the eyes of the masses to identify the quality of leading cadres; uphold the inclusion of mass evaluation in the closed loop of cadre assessment, regularly collect genuine feedback from the masses, and take mass satisfaction and the effectiveness of mass work as important bases for cadre promotion, demotion, retention, and removal; uphold the mass work capability as the core capability of leading cadres, incorporating it into learning and training, practical tempering, and growth and progress.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has complex dynamic character; it is necessary to uphold a comprehensive, historical, and dialectical viewpoint
The Long March created a history of long-term mobile warfare rarely seen in the world, becoming a model for multi-dimensional dynamic testing and identification of leading cadres. In the mobile warfare environment, the ideals and convictions, political quality, will and character, psychological resilience, and military talent of leading cadres received the strictest, deepest, and most authentic display and testing.
The Long March was a "perspective mirror" for testing and identifying the political stance and moral conduct of leading cadres. After the Battle of the Xiang River, the broad masses of Red Army commanders and fighters realized that dogmatists such as Wang Ming and Bo Gu were unable to shoulder the heavy responsibility of leading the Chinese revolution, and Mao Zedong's propositions were gradually understood and accepted by more people. The stance of many leading cadres also underwent a transformation from wrong to correct, from wavering to firm. Wang Jiaxiang had been influenced by Wang Ming to exclude Mao Zedong, but at the Zunyi Conference he firmly supported Mao Zedong's correct propositions.
The Long March was a "drill ground" for testing and identifying the military command capability of leading cadres. At the Zunyi Conference, Mao Zedong was co-opted as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, but due to erroneous intelligence, the Tucheng battle suffered a setback, and he once faced a crisis of trust. Thereafter, relying on flexible, calm, and decisive command, Mao Zedong led the Red Army to one victory after another. It was precisely because of repeated testing in continuous combat and long-term tracking that Mao Zedong's political wisdom and military talent were fully displayed, and his leadership position was ultimately recognized by the entire Party and the entire army. The Long March was accompanied by multiple large-scale organizational restructuring, institutional reorganization, and cadre deployment; every organizational change was simultaneously embedded in the process of cadre screening, inspection, and appointment, achieving the effect of one restructuring, one round of inspection, and one batch of adjustments, testing the moral conduct of leading cadres and forming a virtuous cycle of leading cadres being able to rise and fall.
Chairman Xi profoundly pointed out, "To employ people properly, it is necessary to adhere to a comprehensive, historical, and dialectical view of cadres, paying attention to consistent performance and all work." The Long March marched, fought, and reorganized all the way, completing high-intensity, all-round screening of leading cadres in a dynamic environment, not only preserving the most elite backbone forces for the Party and the Red Army, but also identifying and cultivating a large number of leading backbones with both moral character and ability for the subsequent Chinese revolution. On the road ahead, it is necessary to uphold the standard of practice, looking not only at the performance of leading cadres in peacetime and favorable circumstances, but also at their actions in wartime and adversity, with special attention to testing and identifying them on the front lines of major struggles and in arduous and complex environments; establish a normalized, tracking-style dynamic inspection mechanism, not replacing comprehensive understanding and comprehensive evaluation with a single assessment, a single victory or defeat, or a momentary performance; uphold an overall perspective and integration into the whole, observing the overall situation concept and obedience consciousness of leading cadres in organizational adjustments where they can rise and fall, and screening and forging backbones who can view the overall situation and withstand pressure.
(The author is a researcher at the Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military Research Center)
Return to TopBy: 本报评论员 吴青
In the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, at a critical turning point in China's destiny, the Chinese Communist Party's proposal to establish a coalition government won broad popular support, while the Kuomintang clung to dictatorship and grew increasingly corrupt. In July 1945, Huang Yanpei and others visited Yan'an for inspection and witnessed firsthand the scene of unity between upper and lower levels and vigorous progress in the border region. During this time, Mao Zedong invited Huang Yanpei for a long conversation in the cave dwelling. Huang Yanpei, addressing the historical phenomenon of those in power becoming mentally lax, succumbing to inertia, and forcing development, posed the question: "Throughout history, some regimes have fallen through official indolence, some have perished with their rulers, and some have sought glory only to reap humiliation. In short, none have been able to escape this cyclical pattern. I have some understanding of you gentlemen of the Chinese Communist Party, from past to present. My hope is to find a new path to escape the domination of this cyclical pattern." Mao Zedong replied: "We have already found a new path, and we can escape this cyclical pattern. This new path is democracy. Only by letting the people supervise the government will the government not dare to slacken. Only when everyone rises to take responsibility will there be no perishing of the state with its ruler." This is the famous "Cave Dwelling Dialogue" in the history of the Party.
More than 80 years have passed with the passing of time (斗转星移, dou zhuan xing yi - "fight, turn; star, move"), yet the maladies revealed by the "Cave Dwelling Dialogue" have not disappeared with the changing times. As the conditions of the world, the country, and the Party have undergone profound changes, the targets, environment, and problems of Party governance and self-discipline are no longer what they once were. The essential meaning of the "Cave Dwelling Dialogue" is to answer the question of how to escape the historical cyclical pattern of order and chaos, rise and decline, avoid the perishing of the state with its ruler, and ensure the long-term existence of political power. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "How to escape the historical cyclical pattern? Comrade Mao Zedong gave the first answer in the cave dwelling in Yan'an, which was 'letting the people supervise the government'; after a century of struggle, especially the new practice since the 18th Party Congress, the Party has given a second answer, which is self-revolution." This important exposition connects the historical question posed in the Yan'an cave dwelling with the answer of the times on the road of the new era's examination. Self-revolution is the "internal immunity" for strengthening the body, while accepting people's supervision is the "external remedy" for dispelling illness and removing ailments. The two work in the same direction, both needing to be integrated into daily life and grasped regularly, managing key people, managing key places, managing key matters, and managing key moments, promoting the normalization and long-term effectiveness of supervision.
Rely on the people to supervise power. Huang Yanpei's question, on the surface, asked about the rise and fall of political power, but in essence it asked about the relationship between power and the people. Mao Zedong's answer was precisely a profound awareness of this relationship: power comes from the people, governance is for the people, and rise and fall are ultimately judged by the people. The people are the most powerful supervisory force. Relying on this force, no matter how deeply bad practices "lurk," they are impossible to hide or escape detection (无所遁形, wu suo dun xing - "no, place, hide, form"). General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated: "The masses of the people contain the wisdom and strength for governing the country and managing the Party, and strict Party governance must rely on the people." To prevent power from being "willful" under supervision, it is necessary to stimulate the people's sense of being masters of the country and their enthusiasm for supervision, continuously enhance the people's awareness of supervision, improve their enthusiasm and ability for supervision, create favorable conditions for the sound development of supervisory work, and promote the formation of a good atmosphere in which everyone wants to supervise, everyone is willing to supervise, and everyone dares to supervise. At the same time, let the masses feel respected, trusted, and confident in supervision. Improve and implement the system of safeguards for supervision, strengthen the protection of supervisors, reward those who make meritorious contributions to supervision, and hold accountable those who fail to provide adequate safeguards for supervision in accordance with laws and regulations, fully mobilizing the enthusiasm and initiative of the broad masses of the people in supervision.
Consciously accept people's supervision. The problems discovered through people's supervision are the targeting of self-revolution; the effectiveness of self-revolution must be tested by people's supervision. Practicing the two answers to the historical cyclical pattern is difficult in connecting them, and success also lies in connecting them. The key to connection lies in transforming external constraints into internal consciousness. For supervision to be long-term effective, it must ultimately rely on consciousness. Leading cadres must be able to listen to words that are unpleasant to hear but beneficial (逆耳之言, ni er zhi yan - "reverse, ear, particle, speech") and tolerate sincere criticism. For problems exposed through supervision, they must not cover up or shirk responsibility, but proactively acknowledge them and engage in turning the blade inward for self-examination (刀刃向内, dao ren xiang nei - "knife, edge, toward, inside"). Continuously improve the implementation of institutions, confine power within the cage of institutions, turn the process of institutional implementation into a process of accepting supervision, and turn supervision into long-term governance. Seize the "key minority" to lead by example from above. Leading cadres must become accustomed to working and living in an environment of supervision and constraint, truly transforming discipline and rules into daily consciousness.
Always keep supervision channels open. For people's supervision to take effect on the ground, it cannot be separated from the guarantee of institutionalized, standardized, and procedural channels. Uphold and develop whole-process people's democracy, promote the openness and standardization of power operation, let the people supervise power, let power operate in the sunshine, form a mechanism for discovering and correcting mistakes and errors, and ensure that the people's right to democratic supervision is implemented across the entire chain, in all aspects, and with full coverage. Connect the various links of democratic election, democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision, and through channels such as people's congress supervision, CPPCC democratic supervision, and public opinion supervision, guarantee the people's right to sustained participation in daily political life, so that the wishes and opinions of the masses have entry points, handling, responses, and safeguards.
From the cave dwelling in Yangjialing to the road of the new era's examination, the "Cave Dwelling Dialogue" transcends time and space, and the topic it left behind remains fresh with each reading. On the new journey, our Party must stimulate the driving force of supervision, consciously accept people's supervision, keep supervision channels open, unify and connect the external constraint of people's supervision with the internal consciousness of self-revolution, and with the tenacity and perseverance of being forever on the road, escape the historical cyclical pattern of order and chaos, rise and decline, and continuously open up new realms of Party governance, Party revitalization, and Party strengthening.
Return to TopBy: 吕文斌
Energy security and safety bear on the national economy and the people's livelihood, and the energy revolution and new quality productive forces are internally interconnected and mutually dependent. The "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Developing New Quality Productive Forces" puts forward clear requirements for "actively advancing the energy revolution," providing fundamental guidance for coordinating high-quality energy development and high-level energy security on the new journey. It is necessary to fully understand the important significance, basic logic, and practical path of the energy revolution, to shape the momentum of development through the transformation of energy, and to build momentum and empower the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces and the advancement of Chinese modernization.
The Important Significance of the Energy Revolution in the Progress of Human Civilization
Every major advance in human civilization is often accompanied by the replacement of primary energy sources and the transformation of energy development and utilization technologies. "Drilling wood to make fire" initiated the first energy revolution, bringing the energy system into the "age of firewood" and propelling human society into agricultural civilization. The invention of the steam engine initiated the second energy revolution, bringing the energy system into the "age of coal," where machines replaced manual labor, giving rise to the first industrial revolution and ushering human society into industrial civilization. The invention of the internal combustion engine and the widespread application of electricity initiated the third energy revolution, bringing the energy system into the "age of oil and electricity," giving rise to the second industrial revolution and pushing industrial civilization to a highly developed stage. History has repeatedly proven that changes in energy are often the forerunners of changes in civilization; whoever masters advanced energy technologies will gain the initiative in the transformation of productive forces.
The new round of energy revolution focuses on global sustainable development and will push human society from industrial civilization toward ecological civilization. The long-term, high-intensity development and utilization of fossil energy has not only brought deep concerns about the gradual depletion of resources, but has also caused serious damage to the ecological environment and global challenges such as climate change, and has become a focal point of a series of geopolitical conflicts and major-power games, making it difficult to support the sustainable development of humanity and the continued progress of civilization. Since the 1980s and 1990s, driven by the response to climate change and the international oil crises, and against the backdrop of accelerated breakthroughs in the new round of global scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, a new round of energy revolution, characterized mainly by green and low-carbon development and marked chiefly by the close integration of new energy and digital-intelligent technologies, has flourished and will push the energy system gradually into a brand-new stage dominated by green, low-carbon, sustainable non-fossil energy. "Actively advancing the energy revolution" is a major strategic choice made by the Party Central Committee against the backdrop of the accelerated evolution of changes unseen in a century, the interweaving of the scientific and technological revolution and major-power games, the deep reshaping of the global energy supply and demand pattern, and the accelerated pace of the green and low-carbon energy transition.
The Basic Logic of China's Active Advancement of the Energy Revolution
Actively advancing the energy revolution is a strategic choice based on the present and oriented toward the long term, and its basic logic can be understood from three dimensions.
First, the energy revolution is an inevitable choice for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality. China has made a solemn commitment to the world to strive to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, and the transition period from carbon peak to carbon neutrality is far shorter than that of major developed countries, making the task of emission reduction unprecedentedly heavy and the time unprecedentedly tight. Under the "dual carbon" goals, energy is the main battlefield for emission reduction. Carbon emissions from China's energy activities account for more than 80 percent of total social emissions, of which the power industry accounts for over 40 percent, and the root of the contradiction lies in the fact that the energy structure dominated by fossil energy has not yet undergone a fundamental transformation. Over the past decade or more, China's coal and oil consumption have increased by 15 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Although more than 95 percent of coal-fired power units nationwide have completed ultra-low emission retrofits and end-of-pipe treatment has achieved notable results, the structural high-carbon problem cannot be solved at its root. It must also be recognized that China's rigid energy demand will continue to grow over the medium and long term, and the deepening advancement of new industrialization and urbanization will bring additional increments in energy use; simply reducing energy consumption to advance emission reduction is neither realistic nor feasible. Only by covering new demand through the large-scale development of clean energy, replacing the stock of fossil energy, and reducing carbon at the source is the only way forward for the green and low-carbon energy transition.
Second, the energy revolution is the safe foundation for developing new quality productive forces. Internationally, regional conflicts are intertwined and superimposed, geopolitical games continue to heat up, the politicization and weaponization of energy are becoming increasingly prominent, global energy market volatility is intensifying, and the uncertainty and instability of external supply are rising significantly. Domestically, the accelerated development of new quality productive forces is giving rise to strong energy demand; the construction of new infrastructure such as the national integrated computing network and the new generation of information and communication networks is accelerating; and the scale of electricity consumption by emerging industries such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and new energy vehicles is rapidly expanding. In 2025, the total electricity consumption of national computing centers reached 170 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 1.6 percent of total social electricity consumption, of which the computing electricity consumption of the eight national hub nodes of the national integrated computing network grew at an average annual rate of about 39.5 percent over the past three years, far higher than the average growth rate of total social electricity consumption; the annual electricity consumption of the national charging and battery-swapping service industry exceeded 102 billion kilowatt-hours, with a growth rate of 48.8 percent. The transformation of industry toward high-end, intelligent, and green development places higher standards on the safe and stable supply of energy. Under the dual pressures from home and abroad, only by advancing the energy revolution in depth and continuously enhancing the capacity for domestic energy self-sufficiency can we firmly hold the energy rice bowl in our own hands and build a solid safety guarantee for the development of new quality productive forces.
Third, the energy revolution is a key source of power for technological innovation and industrial development. At present, the global green and low-carbon transition continues to advance in depth, and green and low-carbon energy technologies have passed the cost inflection point and possess the conditions for large-scale commercialization. According to statistics from the International Renewable Energy Agency, from 2010 to 2025, the levelized cost of electricity for photovoltaics and onshore wind power fell by 89 percent and 71 percent, respectively. Among newly built renewable energy power generation projects globally in 2025, more than 90 percent had costs lower than fossil energy power stations, and the market competitiveness of clean energy has significantly increased. The International Energy Agency projects that total global energy investment will reach 3.4 trillion US dollars in 2026, of which 2.2 trillion US dollars will flow to clean energy fields such as wind power, photovoltaics, energy storage, and hydrogen energy, and the energy track has become a strategic high ground for countries to seize the initiative in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. In this competition, China's technologies in photovoltaics, wind power, and power batteries have entered the forefront of the world, becoming a new calling card of "Made in China," with new energy products sold to more than 200 countries and regions around the world. The energy industry chain is long, highly interconnected, and strongly driving; from upstream key mineral development and equipment manufacturing to downstream green electricity application and integrated services, every link is incubating new technologies, new business forms, and new jobs, opening broad space for the growth of new quality productive forces. This is the high ground of international industrial competition; whoever seizes the initiative first will grasp the upper hand.
The Practical Path for Actively Advancing the Energy Revolution
To actively advance the energy revolution, it is necessary to devise new strategies and pool joint efforts around the "four revolutions and one cooperation," attach great importance to energy security, and actively yet steadily advance the energy transition.
To advance the energy supply and consumption revolution, the key lies in accelerating the construction of a new-type power system, a new-type heating system, and a new-type fuel and raw material system. The new-type power system should anchor the goal of initial completion by 2030 with non-fossil energy power generation accounting for 50 percent, and implement the requirements of "clean and low-carbon, safe and abundant, economical and efficient, coordinated supply and demand, and flexible and intelligent." The new-type heating system should focus on promoting the green transformation of heat sources, with coastal areas carrying out nuclear waste heat heating and building demonstration projects of "co-production and co-delivery of water and heat." The new-type fuel and raw material system should rationally lay out green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol, and promote hydrogen-powered heavy trucks, green ammonia and methanol marine fuels, and sustainable aviation fuels.
To give full play to the driving role of the energy technology revolution, it is necessary to simultaneously consolidate the leading advantage and open up future tracks. Strengthen the layout of key technologies such as perovskite tandem cells and all-solid-state batteries, intensify research on the circular recovery of key metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths, concentrate efforts on developing new energy storage technologies with low cost, long life, and high safety, and develop advanced nuclear fission energy in an orderly manner. Leverage the advantages of the new nationwide system for mobilizing resources, prospectively cultivate future industries such as long-duration energy storage, electricity-based fuels, and controlled nuclear fusion, and transform technological advantages into industrial superiority.
Better leverage the accelerator role of the energy institutional revolution, and focus on building a market mechanism and governance system compatible with the new-type energy system. Accelerate the construction of a multi-level unified power market system covering electric energy, ancillary services, capacity, and green electricity, improve the price formation and cost transmission mechanisms, and coordinate the realization of multiple goals such as promoting competition, ensuring security, advancing the transition, and stabilizing prices. Fully implement and enforce the Energy Law, accelerate the construction of a modern new-type energy governance mechanism, clarify the boundary between government and market, promote a better combination of an effective market and a well-functioning government, and provide solid legal support and institutional guarantees for the energy transition.
Deepen international cooperation in all aspects, and while handling our own affairs well, take the lead in guiding the global energy transition process. Build a green Belt and Road Initiative with high quality, advance in-depth cooperation in the "six-in-one" dimensions of products, equipment, technology, standards, solutions, and services, help underdeveloped countries improve energy accessibility, strive to help more people without electricity gain access to green electricity, and promote the improvement of the global energy governance system with Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions.
Build a solid bottom-line defense for energy security, and strengthen the construction of reserve capacity and emergency prevention and control mechanisms. Consolidate the foundation of energy security reserves, improve the petroleum reserve system in which government and corporate social responsibility reserves complement each other, and steadily expand the scale of reserves; enhance natural gas storage and peak-shaving capacity and build a multi-level gas storage facility system; strengthen the reserve of flexible coal production capacity and coordinate the reserve of coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas production capacity and technology. Build a solid defense line for the safe operation of energy, establish a guarantee mechanism with enterprises as the main body, the market operating steadily, and the government providing the bottom-line support, improve forecasting, early warning, and tiered emergency response, enhance the protection capability of key infrastructure, and ensure reliable oil and gas supply and resilient and orderly power supply.
(The author is the Director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission)
Return to TopBy: 王玉
The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes building a high-standard pilot zone for "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation. In August 2026, the Ministry of Commerce and six other departments issued the Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Expansion and Upgrading of Commodity Consumption, proposing to leverage the role of platforms such as "Silk Road E-commerce" international cooperation to expand import channels. This year marks the 10th anniversary of "Silk Road E-commerce" international cooperation. As we move toward the next decade, how to transform intergovernmental cooperation into economic and trade exchanges in which enterprises can participate and consumers can benefit is a practical question that must be answered in further expanding "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation.
"Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation is intergovernmental e-commerce cooperation carried out by China with partner countries under the framework of jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative. Through memorandums of cooperation, policy dialogue, and business matchmaking, it provides coordination and services for enterprises' cross-border operations. At present, China has signed e-commerce cooperation memorandums with 38 countries across five continents, and related cooperation has cumulatively helped more than 80,000 small and medium-sized merchants in partner countries "get on platforms and sell globally." In recent years, the cooperation has shown new characteristics: in scope, on the basis of bilateral mechanisms, it has expanded to multilateral regional cooperation such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China-ASEAN, and China-Central Asia; in content, it has extended from trade promotion to institutional exploration and industrial services. Expanding and deepening "Silk Road E-commerce" international cooperation requires sustained efforts in three areas: rule alignment, transaction services, and industrial connectivity.
Deepen rule alignment.
Cross-border transactions involve institutional arrangements such as electronic authentication, product standards, data rules, and consumer protection. When rules in different markets are not aligned, enterprises may face repeated certification, repeated declaration, and higher compliance costs. An individual enterprise can adjust its mode of operation, but it is difficult for it to resolve differences between different regulatory systems on its own. "Silk Road E-commerce" relies on intergovernmental policy communication to transform the institutional obstacles faced by individual enterprises into public problems that can be jointly consulted and resolved. The 2025 cooperation progress released by the Ministry of Commerce shows that the Shanghai "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation pilot zone has formed and promoted 12 institutional innovation achievements, including cross-border mutual recognition of digital identities. This shows that bottlenecks in real transactions can become entry points for institutional innovation. Rule alignment does not mean lowering regulatory standards; on the basis of respecting the regulatory requirements of each country, it reduces unnecessary repeated verification through mutual recognition, standard compatibility, and data interoperability.
The effectiveness of rule alignment must ultimately be reflected in conveniences that enterprises can use. In March 2026, the Guiding Opinions on Better Serving the Real Economy and Promoting the High-Quality Development of E-commerce, issued by the Ministry of Commerce and five other departments, proposed promoting the selective expansion of "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation pilot zones and building a number of "Silk Road E-commerce" public service carriers. Public services play the functions of rule interpretation, application guidance, and problem feedback in this process. Around electronic authentication, electronic documents, and data compliance, providing clear rule guidance, handling procedures, and professional consultation can reduce the cost for small and medium-sized enterprises to understand and adapt to different market rules; bringing issues frequently raised by enterprises into bilateral communication and pilot exploration helps mature practices move from individual pilots to more regions and enterprises.
Improve transaction services.
Improved institutional conditions do not mean that every business entity possesses cross-border transaction capabilities. Network access does not mean enterprises can operate or consumers can pay. When platform onboarding, product display, payment settlement, and customer service lack coordination, market connections may remain at the level of display and inquiry. The "Silk Road E-commerce" platform incorporates capacity building into cooperation, focusing on helping business entities master the knowledge and skills needed for actual transactions. Combining training with the platform's actual business, local payment habits, and operating rules effectively reduces the disconnect of having facilities but not knowing how to use them, and having products but finding it difficult to close deals.
Transaction services must also cover the entire process from transaction to delivery. Warehousing, trunk transportation, customs clearance, last-mile delivery, and returns and exchanges involve multiple entities; convenience at a single link does not mean smoothness throughout. Overseas warehouses can move inventory and service nodes forward, coordination between transportation and delivery helps stabilize delivery, and logistics platforms can share order, inventory, and transportation status information. Small and medium-sized enterprises find it difficult to build an entire service network on their own, so the focus of cooperation lies in promoting effective connection between professional institutions and business entities. By relying on key cooperation cities and public service carriers to integrate relevant resources, with professional institutions providing services such as operations, payment, warehousing and distribution according to contract, and clarifying fee standards and responsibility boundaries, the cost for enterprises to search for service providers item by item can be reduced.
Promote industrial connectivity.
The deepening of "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation is also reflected in whether commodity trading can extend into sustained production and supply collaboration. Intergovernmental cooperation builds communication channels, digital platforms provide demand information, but it is still production enterprises that truly turn demand into products. The supporting systems and collaborative production capacity of domestic industrial belts provide a foundation for Chinese and foreign enterprises to carry out industrial collaboration. Information such as orders, searches, and evaluations can help enterprises understand consumption habits, quality requirements, and service needs in different markets, but only by entering research and development design, production and manufacturing, and inventory management can they form offering products that meet market demand (形成可销对路的供给, xing cheng ke xiao dui lu de gong ji - "form, can, sell, correct, road, supply"). Relying on cooperation mechanisms to organize sustained connectivity between domestic industrial belts, partner country purchasers, platforms, and professional institutions is significant not only for facilitating a negotiation or an order, but also for forming collaboration around product improvement, quality management, and after-sales service. Only by combining these links with brand cultivation can enterprises reduce their dependence on pure price competition.
Industrial connectivity should also reflect two-way cooperation. The Ministry of Commerce also announced that platforms and localities have established nearly 200 online and offline national pavilions, and e-commerce platforms have established more than 60 overseas direct-purchase and direct-supply bases, providing channels for quality goods from partner countries to enter the Chinese market and also helping enrich the choices of domestic consumers. National pavilions and the "Silk Road Cloud Products" series of promotional activities can both display products and bring consumer feedback back to places of origin, helping local producers improve quality, packaging, and supply arrangements. On the basis of commercial feasibility, procurement cooperation can also extend to processing and packaging, brand cultivation, and local talent training, enabling enterprises in partner countries not only to sell goods but also to participate in more production and service links. Domestic enterprises, through cooperation with partner country enterprises, can improve product design, flexible production, and localized services. By combining China's manufacturing advantages with China's market opportunities, and enabling enterprises on both sides to form stable supply-demand relationships through sustained cooperation, "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation can cease to be merely an expansion of transaction channels and gradually become an industrial bond promoting common development.
Return to TopBy: 陈东恒
The Long March was a declaration, a propaganda team, and a seeder, and it was also a touchstone for the Party to test and identify leading cadres and reshape the leadership system in a life-and-death predicament. The test of enduring extreme hardships (艰苦卓绝, jian ku zhuo jue - "hard, bitter, extraordinary, resolute") not only proclaimed revolutionary propositions, armed the masses, and sowed scientific truth, but also built a leading cadre examination system with the core logic of "identifying cadres on the battlefield, discerning original aspirations in times of crisis, and deciding appointments and removals based on actual performance," with seeking truth from facts as the foundation, political loyalty as the root, struggle performance as the baseline, the mass standpoint as the background, and dynamic inspection as the key, achieving a comprehensive examination of political stance, ideals and convictions, execution capability, purpose consciousness, and discipline and character, forging a backbone force that is firm in conviction, politically loyal, determined to fight and win (敢打必胜, gan da bi sheng - "dare to fight, must win"), seeking truth and being pragmatic (求真务实, qiu zhen wu shi - "seek truth, be pragmatic"), uniting for the benefit of the people (团结为民, tuan jie wei min - "unite for the people"), and responsible and capable of action.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has prominent orientation; it is necessary to uphold the Party managing cadres and the organization selecting personnel
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a vivid practice of the Party exploring a scientific mechanism for selecting and employing personnel under extremely difficult conditions. This expedition was not only a great military strategic shift but also a screening of our army's leading cadre corps. In this great examination, our Party not only relied on self-revolution to complete the rectification of its own construction, but also forcefully corrected deviations in cadre policy, washing out and refining an outstanding group of leaders and leading cadres.
During the period before and after the Long March, Bo Gu and Li De, disregarding China's actual conditions, mechanically copied the instructions of the Communist International and implemented erroneous cadre policies. Cadre appointments and removals were dictated by the Communist International's advisers, replacing collective leadership with personal dictatorship, using sectarianism to attack and exclude dissidents, rejecting worker-peasant cadres with practical combat experience, and arbitrarily dismissing and criticizing commanders who held differing opinions. The failure of the Fifth Counter-Encirclement Campaign and the severe losses in the early stage of the Long March were closely related to errors in personnel selection. After the Battle of the Xiang River, the Party Central Committee began to achieve autonomy in cadre selection and employment; high-level appointments and removals, the deployment of division and regiment cadres, and frontline promotions were no longer subject to the Communist International, and cadres were no longer mechanically judged by book theories and Communist International directives. From the high-level central leadership down to the division and regiment grassroots, cadre work was discussed collectively by Party committees and the Political Bureau, fully listening to the opinions of frontline commanders, party branches, and soldiers, with major and complex personnel issues resolved collectively, avoiding errors caused by individual one-sided judgment. The Zunyi Conference resolved the most urgent organizational and military problems facing the Party, ended the rule of "Left" dogmatist errors within the Central Committee, and in fact established Comrade Mao Zedong's leadership position in the Party Central Committee and the Red Army.
Chairman Xi emphasizes, "We are a Party that manages cadres, and the organization selects personnel." The Long March not only screened out thoroughgoing revolutionaries and revolutionary ranks, but also screened out the Party's correct ideological line, organizational line, and military line, and moreover constructed for the Party and the military's cadre corps construction a set of fundamental institutions suited to national and military conditions, tested by history, and influential to this day. On the road ahead, it is necessary to combine the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities, uphold the principle of the Party managing cadres, and implement the responsibility system of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Give full play to the role of Party committee leadership and political organs, strictly select and employ personnel for the Party and the people in accordance with principles, policies, regulations, and procedures, select and use well leading cadres who are loyal, clean, and responsible, and ensure that the gun barrel is always in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the Party.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has strong political character; it is necessary to strictly uphold the political standard
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a severe test of the political stance and line identification of leading cadres amid arduous exploration. This expedition was not only a physical struggle against heaven and earth, a physiological challenge to limits, but also a screening of ideals, convictions, and political beliefs. Those with wavering beliefs, weak will, and fear of hardship and death were eliminated; revolutionary idealists, revolutionary heroes, and revolutionary optimists were ultimately retained.
The enduring extreme hardships struggle practice during the Long March period was the most hard-core and most impartial assessment yardstick. All identification standards were closely tied to the core goal of revolutionary survival, grounded in the concrete implementation of life-and-death struggle, and precisely distinguished qualified cadres, speculative cadres, and erroneous cadres. Mao Zedong said: "Our military strength once reached 300,000 before the Long March; because of mistakes, it later fell to fewer than 30,000, less than one-tenth. What matters is not wavering in difficult times. Which is stronger, 30,000 or 300,000? Because lessons were learned, a force of fewer than 30,000 is stronger than 300,000." The Long March, amid arduous tests, screened out those who deserted, fled, or even betrayed due to wavering beliefs. It profoundly demonstrates that identifying cadres must place the political standard first, and select and employ well those leading cadres who are loyal to the Party and firm in stance at major tests and historical turning points.
After the victory of the Long March, Mao Zedong, based on his personal experience, deeply felt the urgency of political construction in the cadre corps, made theoretical summaries of cadre issues, systematically expounded the line of appointing only the worthy (任人唯贤, ren ren wei xian - "appoint people based on merit") and the policy of possessing both moral character and ability (德才兼备, de cai jian bei - "possess both virtue and talent"), proposed that "politics is primary, is first," and placed "virtue" first, elevating practical experience into systematic theory and constructing the theoretical framework for the Party's cadre corps construction.
Chairman Xi has repeatedly made important expositions on the "political standard," pointing out that strengthening the military must first be strong politically, and political strength is the most fundamental strength; emphasizing that in selecting and appointing cadres, the political standard must be placed first. The Long March was an extremely severe political examination concerning survival and extinction, testing the Party, testing the military, and testing everyone's beliefs. It tells us that firm ideals and convictions are the spiritual pillar for overcoming all difficulties; it is necessary to put ideals and convictions at the forefront, weeding out the inferior and keeping the best (去粗取精, qu cu qu jing - "weed out the coarse, keep the essence"), eliminating the false and preserving the true (去伪存真, qu wei cun zhen - "remove the false, preserve the true"), and "illuminating the mind and seeing one's nature"; political discipline is an important guarantee for unity and cohesion; it is necessary to strictly enforce political discipline, take strict adherence to discipline and rules as the first criterion for judging behavior, and resolutely identify and purge careerists and speculators; political integrity is the primary virtue of leading cadres; it is necessary to prominently examine the political loyalty, political resolve, political responsibility, political capability, and political self-discipline of leading cadres, ensuring that in political loyalty there is "no admixture of any impurities" and "no moisture whatsoever."
Testing and identifying leading cadres has distinct combat character; it is necessary to uphold the standard of combat effectiveness
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a great practice of testing the quality of cadres through survival-and-death trials, distinguishing the brave and worthy through battlefield performance, and tempering the cadre corps through responsibility in crisis. Under the screening of cruel warfare, the Red Army, based on the core needs of military struggle, upheld the standard of combat effectiveness, understood affairs, recognized people, and employed generals, laying a solid talent foundation for the victory of the Long March.
Being able to "step forward" at critical moments tests and identifies the mission responsibility of acting immediately upon receiving orders (闻令而动, wen ling er dong - "move upon receiving orders") and daring to take responsibility. Throughout the Long March, the Red Army was under enemy pursuit and interception, facing life-and-death challenges every day; leading cadres directly undertook military tasks such as commanding operations, charging to break through the enemy, covering transfers, and emergency breakout, and only those skilled in both planning and fighting (谋战善战, mou zhan shan zhan - "plan war, excel at war") and capable of leading troops to victory could be competent in their posts and shoulder their missions. Being able to "hold the line" in the face of difficulties tests and identifies the ability to tackle dangerous shoals and not fear sacrifice in attacking hard points. Only those who charge to the front in every major and fierce battle, dare to gnaw the hardest bones, and fight the most rampant enemies can become rare generals. Being able to "withstand" heavy pressure and adversity tests and identifies the tenacious character of rock-solid conviction and striving under pressure. After the Zunyi Conference, the Zhaxi reorganization, anchored on the real needs of actual combat, implemented organizational adjustments of sending cadres down, with ranks able to rise and fall; division commanders became regiment commanders, regiment commanders became battalion commanders, and organ cadres were sent down to combat companies, using the cruel adversity of war as a whetstone to temper the behavioral performance of not being discouraged by demotion, not retreating in the face of danger, and daring to bear sacrifice.
Chairman Xi repeatedly requires the military to be able to fight and win battles, firmly establishing combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard. The Long March, amid the test of blood and fire, reversed the malpractice of dogmatist and sectarian personnel selection, tempered and cultivated a large number of revolutionary backbones with both military and political excellence in the practice of struggle, effectively filled the gap in combat talent during the Long March, guaranteed the smooth completion of key strategic tasks, and provided a solid talent guarantee for the final victory. On the road ahead, it is necessary to firmly establish combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard, uphold the clear employment orientation of "selecting generals for war, recognizing people through war," take the ability to fight and win battles as the starting point and endpoint of talent work, uphold the principle of cultivating whatever talents war needs, and precisely identify commanders who have the enemy in their minds, strategy in their hearts, command in their hands, and dare to charge at critical moments.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has broad mass character; it is necessary to uphold the mass line
The history of testing and identifying leading cadres during the Long March is a history of the Party upholding the mass line to strengthen cadre corps construction. This expedition was not only a major military victory achieved by the Party leading the Red Army, but also a successful application of the Party's mass line in cadre corps construction. Cadres who, under extremely difficult conditions, still kept the masses in their hearts, relied on the masses, and served the masses were truly qualified cadres; those who were divorced from the masses and harmed the interests of the masses were ultimately eliminated by history.
The Long March passed through more than 10 ethnic minority areas including Miao, Yi, Tibetan, and Hui, where ethnic estrangement and cultural differences were prominent, and the masses had little understanding of the Red Army, even fearing it due to reactionary Kuomintang propaganda. Senior generals such as Liu Bocheng took the initiative to go deep into villages to publicize the Party's policies and help ethnic minorities solve practical problems; the "Yi-Hai Alliance," the "Miao Company," and the silk banner "Hui and Han Brothers as Close as One Family" converged into the surging torrent of the Long March. Facing the extremely harsh living environment, leading cadres led by example, took the lead in strictly observing the "Three Main Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention," did not take a single needle or thread from the masses, and helped the masses solve livelihood difficulties. After Mao Zedong stayed overnight in Shixiangzi, he paid the landlord 3 copper coins as room and board. Three female Red Army soldiers lodged at the home of Xu Jiexiu, an elderly woman in Shazhou Village, Rucheng County, Hunan; when leaving, they cut in half the only quilt they had and left half for the elderly woman. Only by placing the masses at the very center of their hearts can cadres connect with the masses, win over the masses, and become good generals and great talents. The rapidly changing enemy situation and extremely harsh environment of the Long March directly tested the mass organization capability of leading cadres. Behind war miracles that challenged human limits, such as skillfully crossing the Jinsha River, forcibly crossing the Dadu River, and seizing the Luding Bridge by flight, lay the efforts of leading cadres at all levels to go deep among the masses, mobilize the masses, and rally the masses. Only by integrating with the masses and organizing the masses can leading cadres unite the masses and become commanders capable of handling affairs independently.
Chairman Xi repeatedly emphasizes that the mass line is the lifeline and fundamental working line of our Party, and an important heirloom for our Party to maintain eternal youthful vitality and combat effectiveness, requiring leading cadres at all levels to establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, and to create achievements that stand up to practice and historical testing, truly benefit the people, and gain public recognition. The Long March demonstrates that the mass line is the scientific way to test and identify leading cadres. The stance toward the masses, the actions of serving the masses, the ability to mobilize the masses, and the skill of organizing the masses together constitute an effective screening method. On the road ahead, it is necessary to uphold the mass line, dare to give the masses the first right to judge the identification of leading cadres, and use the eyes of the masses to identify the quality of leading cadres; uphold the inclusion of mass evaluation in the closed loop of cadre assessment, regularly collect genuine feedback from the masses, and take mass satisfaction and the effectiveness of mass work as important bases for cadre promotion, demotion, retention, and removal; uphold the mass work capability as the core capability of leading cadres, incorporating it into learning and training, practical tempering, and growth and progress.
Testing and identifying leading cadres has complex dynamic character; it is necessary to uphold a comprehensive, historical, and dialectical viewpoint
The Long March created a history of long-term mobile warfare rarely seen in the world, becoming a model for multi-dimensional dynamic testing and identification of leading cadres. In the mobile warfare environment, the ideals and convictions, political quality, will and character, psychological resilience, and military talent of leading cadres received the strictest, deepest, and most authentic display and testing.
The Long March was a "perspective mirror" for testing and identifying the political stance and moral conduct of leading cadres. After the Battle of the Xiang River, the broad masses of Red Army commanders and fighters realized that dogmatists such as Wang Ming and Bo Gu were unable to shoulder the heavy responsibility of leading the Chinese revolution, and Mao Zedong's propositions were gradually understood and accepted by more people. The stance of many leading cadres also underwent a transformation from wrong to correct, from wavering to firm. Wang Jiaxiang had been influenced by Wang Ming to exclude Mao Zedong, but at the Zunyi Conference he firmly supported Mao Zedong's correct propositions.
The Long March was a "drill ground" for testing and identifying the military command capability of leading cadres. At the Zunyi Conference, Mao Zedong was co-opted as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, but due to erroneous intelligence, the Tucheng battle suffered a setback, and he once faced a crisis of trust. Thereafter, relying on flexible, calm, and decisive command, Mao Zedong led the Red Army to one victory after another. It was precisely because of repeated testing in continuous combat and long-term tracking that Mao Zedong's political wisdom and military talent were fully displayed, and his leadership position was ultimately recognized by the entire Party and the entire army. The Long March was accompanied by multiple large-scale organizational restructuring, institutional reorganization, and cadre deployment; every organizational change was simultaneously embedded in the process of cadre screening, inspection, and appointment, achieving the effect of one restructuring, one round of inspection, and one batch of adjustments, testing the moral conduct of leading cadres and forming a virtuous cycle of leading cadres being able to rise and fall.
Chairman Xi profoundly pointed out, "To employ people properly, it is necessary to adhere to a comprehensive, historical, and dialectical view of cadres, paying attention to consistent performance and all work." The Long March marched, fought, and reorganized all the way, completing high-intensity, all-round screening of leading cadres in a dynamic environment, not only preserving the most elite backbone forces for the Party and the Red Army, but also identifying and cultivating a large number of leading backbones with both moral character and ability for the subsequent Chinese revolution. On the road ahead, it is necessary to uphold the standard of practice, looking not only at the performance of leading cadres in peacetime and favorable circumstances, but also at their actions in wartime and adversity, with special attention to testing and identifying them on the front lines of major struggles and in arduous and complex environments; establish a normalized, tracking-style dynamic inspection mechanism, not replacing comprehensive understanding and comprehensive evaluation with a single assessment, a single victory or defeat, or a momentary performance; uphold an overall perspective and integration into the whole, observing the overall situation concept and obedience consciousness of leading cadres in organizational adjustments where they can rise and fall, and screening and forging backbones who can view the overall situation and withstand pressure.
(The author is a researcher at the Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military Research Center)
Return to TopBy: 陈兵
Digital virtual humans are moving from technical concepts to broad industrial applications. From virtual idols and digital anchors to financial customer service and medical guidance, digital virtual humans have been deployed in multiple fields. At the same time, problems such as "face-matching" celebrities, deepfake fraud, improper use of the images of the deceased, and inducing minors to become addicted are happening from time to time (时有发生, shi you fa sheng - "time, have, occur"), arousing widespread public concern.
A digital virtual human is a virtual digital image that uses technologies such as graphics, digital image processing, or artificial intelligence, driven by real humans or by computation, to simulate human appearance and possess voice, behavior, interactive capabilities, or personality traits. At present, digital virtual humans have been widely applied in scenarios such as entertainment, e-commerce, and education. Their operation process covers multiple links including image modeling, data processing, content generation, and information dissemination, involving multiple subjects such as technical supporters, service providers, service users, and dissemination platforms. The legal relationships are relatively complex, and legal risks mainly exist in the following aspects.
First, the risk of infringement of personality rights and interests. Using another person's portrait, voice, or behavioral habits without authorization to create a digital virtual human may infringe upon the natural person's right to portrait and right to voice. From judicial practice, some courts have already clarified that the protection of a natural person's personality rights extends to their virtual image, holding that unauthorized creation and use of a natural person's virtual image through AI technology may constitute infringement of personality rights such as the right to name and the right to portrait; the scope of protection of a natural person's voice rights may also extend to artificially intelligence-synthesized voices. The problem of improper use of the image of the deceased is also relatively prominent. Without the consent of the deceased's close relatives, using digital technology to generate the image of the deceased for commercial or entertainment purposes may infringe upon the lawful rights and interests of the deceased's close relatives. Second, the risk of data security and personal information protection. The operation of digital virtual humans relies on massive amounts of data, including user interaction data as well as sensitive personal information such as biometric information and whereabouts information of the natural persons being imitated. During the collection, training, and use of these data, there are hidden dangers of excessive collection, leakage, or abuse. Especially in scenarios such as medical health and financial customer service, if the user's financial information and health data obtained by virtual humans are not well protected, they may pose a threat to the user's personal and property safety. The data processing chain of digital virtual humans is long and involves many participating subjects. The traditional "informed consent" framework is difficult to cover effectively and requires more refined governance rules. Third, the risk of content security. The generated content of digital virtual humans is highly realistic and rapidly disseminable, and may be used to generate and disseminate false information, commit online fraud, defamation, and other acts, with social harm that may far exceed that of traditional false information. In professional fields such as medical care and finance, using digital virtual humans to conduct diagnosis and consultation or recommend stocks may mislead users and even endanger the safety of people's lives and property. Fourth, the risk of special group protection and ethics. For minors, emotionally interactive virtual humans may induce irrational consumption and excessive emotional dependence, interfering with their real-world social interaction and personality development; for the elderly, digital virtual humans may become a new tool for fraud.
In recent years, China has successively issued regulations in the field of artificial intelligence governance, including the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services, the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, and the Measures for the Labeling of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Synthetic Content. The Supreme People's Court has also issued opinions on disputes involving artificial intelligence, and the institutional framework for digital virtual human governance is gradually taking shape. In April this year, the Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) was published, further extending governance rules to the specific scenario of digital virtual humans. How to regulate the innovative development of digital virtual humans on the track of the rule of law has become an important topic in social governance.
Refine the legal norms for digital virtual human governance.
At present, the normative basis concerning digital virtual humans is scattered across laws such as the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law, and the Personal Information Protection Law, as well as multiple departmental rules, and there is still room for improvement in the articulation and coordination among these norms. The Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) makes specific provisions on using sensitive personal information for modeling without consent, the use of the image of the deceased, and full-process labeling, refining the personality rights protection rules of the Civil Code in the digital virtual human scenario. On this basis, governance experience scattered across different norms can be further integrated so that rules on personality rights protection, data governance, and content control for digital virtual humans are mutually articulated in the system and consistent in application. Issues such as the legal status of digital virtual humans, the ownership of rights in generated content, and the allocation of liability for harm caused by algorithmic decision-making also need to be gradually clarified in subsequent legislative processes in the field of artificial intelligence. At the same time, judicial practice is gradually forming adjudication rules. In September this year, the Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Lawfully Adjudicating Cases Involving Artificial Intelligence Disputes issued by the Supreme People's Court made provisions on the determination of infringement for acts such as using artificial intelligence without consent to generate virtual digital images identifiable with a specific natural person or imitating another person's voice. In the next step, guiding cases can be published to further unify the application of the "identifiability" standard, clarify the rules for determining liability when platforms substantially participate in the generation of infringing content through algorithms, and make the rules formed in individual case adjudication clearer and more stable.
Build a coordinated and efficient regulatory mechanism.
The digital virtual human industry involves multiple departments, including cyberspace administration, industry and information technology, public security, and market regulation. The service chain is long and involves many participating subjects, and the effectiveness of regulation depends on information sharing and law enforcement coordination among departments. The Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) establishes a framework in which the national cyberspace administration department is responsible for overall coordination, and relevant departments such as the State Council's telecommunications department are responsible for supervision and administration according to their respective duties. It also connects with existing regulatory mechanisms such as algorithm filing and security assessment, which is conducive to reducing institutional operating costs and improving regulatory efficiency. On this basis, combined with factors such as the application scenarios, interaction depth, and scope of influence of digital virtual humans, a risk-graded and category-based management approach can be explored. For scenarios directly related to life, health, and property safety, such as medical diagnosis and financial transactions, stricter access management and full-process supervision should be implemented; for scenarios such as entertainment and ordinary customer service, space should be reserved for industrial innovation on the basis of compliance guidance.
Further strengthen technical compliance.
In the field of digital virtual humans, technical compliance means embedding the requirements imposed on digital virtual humans by laws, administrative regulations, and technical standards into the operation process of the service system through technical solutions, so that normative constraints automatically take effect in the service provision link. In terms of content labeling, the Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) requires that, from the start of the service, service providers, service users, and service providers that provide network information content dissemination services shall continuously display a prominent prompt label containing the words "digital human" throughout the display area, and comply with the relevant provisions of the state on labeling artificial intelligence-generated synthetic content. This requirement is connected with the technical solution combining explicit labeling and implicit labeling established by the Measures for the Labeling of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Synthetic Content, and needs to be further refined and implemented in the service scenarios of continuous interaction of digital virtual humans, ensuring that users can clearly identify their technical attributes during interaction. In terms of minor protection, the Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) prohibits providing minors with virtual intimate relationship services such as virtual relatives and virtual companions, and prohibits inducing minors to become addicted. These requirements can be implemented in the service system through technical measures such as user age identification, usage duration limits, and content filtering. In terms of deepfake prevention, the research, development, and application of digital virtual human detection technology should be promoted to provide technical means for identifying synthetic content, so that legal requirements are stably implemented in digital virtual human services through technical design.
Strengthen international rule-making and exchange and cooperation.
Emerging topics such as the regulation of generative artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence ethics norms are key contents of China's foreign-related rule of law development. The technology and applications of digital virtual humans cross national borders, and differences in rules among different countries can easily lead to conflicts in cross-border services regarding the determination of personality rights, the allocation of tort liability, and data jurisdiction. Therefore, it is necessary not only to adapt to the realities of cross-border application of digital virtual humans at the level of domestic law and improve the extraterritorial application of relevant rules, but also to strengthen coordination and cooperation among countries at the level of rules. The Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services (Draft for Comments) explicitly proposes actively participating in international rule-making and exchange and cooperation. China has accumulated certain experience in the industrial practice and rule exploration of digital virtual humans. It can rely on various multilateral platforms to conduct exchange and cooperation on experience formed in digital virtual human governance, such as full-process labeling and category-based management, while also studying the articulation of specific rules such as personality rights protection, data jurisdiction, and tort liability allocation in cross-border services of digital virtual humans, so as to create a favorable rule environment for the global development of China's digital virtual human industry.
(The author is Vice Dean of the Law School of Nankai University)
Return to TopBy: 袁建辉
The people's congress system is the fundamental political system of our country. The people's congress and its standing committee performing their duties in accordance with the law is an important form of realizing the people being the masters of the country. As important components of the state power organs, the special committees and the working committees are both important vehicles supporting the people's congress in performing its duties in accordance with the law. According to the provisions of the Organic Law of the Local People's Congresses and Local People's Governments of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Organic Law on Local Governments), the people's congresses of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, autonomous prefectures, and cities divided into districts may, as needed, establish special committees such as the Legislative Affairs Committee, the Finance and Economy Committee, and the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee. The same law also stipulates that the standing committee shall, in light of work needs, establish working offices and working bodies such as the Legislative Affairs Working Committee, the Budget Working Committee, and the Deputies' Affairs Working Committee. The "working bodies" here mainly refer to the working committees. At present, the requirements for the professionalization, standardization, and refinement of people's congress work are constantly increasing. Accurately grasping the functional positioning and responsibility boundaries of the special committees and the working committees, and promoting the two to play a synergistic role, is of great significance for improving the quality and effectiveness of local people's congress work and for upholding, improving, and operating the people's congress system well.
Since the establishment of standing committees of local people's congresses at and above the county level in 1979, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Organic Law on Local Governments, people's congresses at the provincial, municipal, and county levels have successively established special committees, and standing committees of people's congresses at all levels have established working committees in light of work needs. After more than 40 years of development and improvement, a working architecture system for people's congresses and their standing committees that connects the upper and lower levels and covers all levels has gradually taken shape, promoting the people's congress system to become more mature and more well-defined. Judging from local practice, at the provincial level, corresponding special committees and working committees are generally established around the work needs of legislation, supervision, and deputies' affairs, basically achieving functional linkage and work connectivity. At the level of cities divided into districts, corresponding bodies are generally established with reference to the provincial architecture, with names and functional divisions generally maintaining consistency with the provincial level, and some localities making differentiated adjustments in light of regional industrial characteristics. At the county level, special committees such as the Legislative Affairs, Supervision and Judicial Committee, the Finance and Economy Committee, and the Social Development Committee, as well as a number of working committees, are often established. The specific establishment of special committees and working committees at all levels is determined by each locality in light of the actual needs and work priorities of its own administrative region. This method of establishment not only implements the institutional setup requirements of streamlining, consolidation, competence, and efficiency, but also can adapt to the actual work needs of different levels and different localities.
The special committees and the working committees both belong to the people's congress work operation system, but they differ in legal status, personnel composition, and functions, powers, and responsibilities. They are two types of duty-performing subjects with different positioning and complementary functions. First, from the perspective of legal status, the special committees are the permanent special working bodies of the people's congress. They are responsible to the people's congress at the corresponding level in accordance with the law, accept the leadership of the standing committee of the people's congress at the corresponding level during the recess period, deliberate matters in accordance with the principles of collectively exercising powers and the minority submitting to the majority, and have statutory duties such as examining bills, proposing bills, and carrying out supervision. Their duty-performing conduct is statutory, professional, and regular. The working committees are working bodies of the standing committee of the people's congress. They are subordinate to the standing committee, are not directly responsible to the people's congress at the corresponding level, do not independently exercise deliberative powers such as proposing bills, examining, and voting, and provide support for the standing committee of the people's congress and the special committees to perform their duties in accordance with the law. Second, from the perspective of personnel allocation, the members of the special committees are composed of chairpersons, vice chairpersons, and members, nominated by the presidium of the people's congress at the corresponding level and approved by vote at a session of the people's congress. They must have the status of deputies to the people's congress at the corresponding level. The members of the working committees are nominated by the meeting of chairpersons and appointed or removed by vote at a session of the standing committee of the people's congress, without the hard requirement of deputy status. In practice, various localities act in light of local conditions. In some localities, the working committees only have a director and deputy directors, while in other localities, members are allocated with reference to the architecture of the special committees. Third, from the perspective of functions, powers, and responsibilities in performing duties, the statutory functions and powers of the special committees are relatively clear, mainly focusing on work such as investigation and inspection, examination and deliberation, and handling of suggestions. They may, in accordance with the law, propose relevant bills to the people's congress at the corresponding level and its standing committee, carry out special investigations in fields such as the economy, the rule of law, and people's livelihood, and assist the standing committee of the people's congress in exercising functions and powers such as legislation, supervision, and decision on major matters. The working committees mainly undertake routine work such as drafting documents, liaison and coordination, and organization of activities in accordance with the deployment requirements of the standing committee of the people's congress and the meeting of chairpersons, focusing on implementation and execution, support and guarantee. They are important executive vehicles for the implementation of the people's congress's duty performance.
In the practice of local people's congress work, because the names of the special committees and the working committees are similar and their business overlaps to a certain extent, problems such as blurred responsibility boundaries and insufficiently smooth work connectivity can easily arise. To promote the improvement of quality and effectiveness of the work of the two, it is necessary to strengthen overall coordination, straighten out working mechanisms, and form a duty-performing pattern in which each performs its own functions, connectivity is orderly, and coordination is efficient.
First, clarify the division of labor and boundaries to ensure that statutory functions and powers are exercised in accordance with the law. The examination power, bill proposal power, and supervision power of the special committees are statutory duties with clear statutory and procedural requirements, and must be collectively exercised by the special committees in accordance with the law. The working committees can provide good service and support, but cannot replace the special committees in making examination opinions or forming bills. This is the basic requirement for performing duties in accordance with the law. All localities should fix the duty-performing process and clarify the boundaries of powers and responsibilities through institutional mechanisms. Work of a statutory nature involving bill examination, approval of supervision reports, demonstration of major matters, and deliberation and voting shall be uniformly carried out in the name of the special committees, with plenary meetings of the special committees convened for collective discussion; for routine and support work such as investigation and visits, event preparation, and liaison and supervision, the working committees generally take the lead in implementation. At the same time, an annual duty performance plan system should be established to separately clarify the deliberation tasks of the special committees and the support matters of the working committees, so as to ensure from the source of the work that statutory functions and powers are exercised in accordance with the law and that service and support are in place without being absent.
Second, strengthen information sharing and promote the effective connectivity of the duty-performing chain. When the special committees carry out examination and propose bills, they need to grasp the situation and public opinion demands from the grassroots frontline; in investigation and visits, contacting deputies, and serving the masses, the working committees can directly understand the specific problems in economic and social operation and the actual difficulties of the masses. Only when the information channels between the two are unimpeded can the examination of the special committees be closer to reality and more targeted, and can the investigation results of the working committees fully play their role. A regular joint meeting system can be established, with office meetings of the special committees and the working committees held regularly to coordinate the arrangement of key work, study and judge major duty-performing matters, and coordinate difficult points and bottlenecks. At the same time, the sharing mechanism for investigation results, public sentiment and public opinion, and data and materials should be improved. The grassroots situations and public opinion demands collected by the working committees going down to the frontline serve as important bases for the special committees' examination, research, and bill drafting; the examination opinions and deployment requirements formed by the special committees are promptly handed over to the working committees for detailed decomposition and supervision of implementation, forming a complete closed loop of duty performance.
Third, strengthen overall coordination and enhance the overall effectiveness of duty performance. Although the special committees and the working committees have different duties, they jointly serve the common goal of the people's congress performing its duties in accordance with the law. As the tasks of people's congress work become increasingly heavy and the fields continue to expand, the requirements for professionalization and coordination in legislation, supervision, and deputies' affairs work are getting higher and higher. It is necessary to establish the concept of "one chessboard" and strengthen overall planning and overall coordination. At the planning stage of key work such as annual legislation, supervision, discussion and decision on major matters, and deputies' activities, the deliberation tasks of the special committees and the corresponding support responsibilities of the working committees should be clarified simultaneously, so that tasks are deployed together, forces are coordinated together, and the process is advanced together. For work tasks that cross fields and departments and involve multiple special committees or working committees, the working office of the standing committee of the people's congress may, in accordance with the work requirements of the standing committee, coordinate and determine the lead department, clarify the cooperating units and the work deadline, and promote the orderly development of the work. At the same time, the duty performance evaluation mechanism should be improved. For the special committees, the evaluation focuses on the quality of their deliberation and the pertinence and operability of their examination opinions; for the working committees, the evaluation focuses on their level of service and support and the effectiveness of coordination and implementation. The evaluation results are used as an important reference for improving work and for evaluation and commendation. Through overall coordination and overall linkage, the professional deliberation advantages of the special committees and the service and support advantages of the working committees are better combined, forming an overall effectiveness that promotes the high-quality development of people's congress work.
Return to TopBy: 洪银兴
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "High-quality development requires new theories of productive forces to guide it, and new quality productive forces have already taken shape in practice and demonstrated a powerful driving and supporting force for high-quality development, requiring us to summarize and generalize them theoretically so as to guide new development practice." Three years after the scientific proposition of new quality productive forces was put forward, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces." This is a scientific guidance and standardization of actions for developing new quality productive forces, based on the theoretical innovation achievements and practical experience of new quality productive forces. The significance of developing new quality productive forces lies in promoting industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation, especially in using disruptive technologies and frontier technologies to give rise to new industries, new models, and new drivers of growth, involving the transformation of new science and technology—new qualitative states—new forms of business. In practice, it is necessary to build an innovation ecosystem for developing new quality productive forces based on the transformation in these three aspects.
The Scientific and Technological "Qualitative State" of New Quality Productive Forces
New quality productive forces are an advanced qualitative state of productive forces in which innovation plays a leading role, breaking free from traditional economic growth models and paths of productive forces development, characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, and conforming to the new development philosophy. When studying the qualitative state of new quality productive forces, it is necessary to accurately judge the role played by the leap and optimized combination of various innovation factors in improving total factor productivity. The characteristic of new quality productive forces is innovation. The concept of innovation was first proposed by Schumpeter. He believed that innovation is a process of "creative destruction," in which new technologies, new products, or new organizational forms, while replacing old technologies and industrial structures, also create new industries and economic structures. The leap in the qualitative state of productive forces embodied by new quality productive forces is prominently manifested in the following three aspects.
First, the leap in the qualitative state of the labor force factor. In the past, people generally defined the three elements of productive forces as labor, means of labor, and objects of labor. New quality productive forces take the leap of laborers, means of labor, objects of labor, and their optimized combination as their basic connotation. Here, labor is changed to laborers because developing new quality productive forces is not a general labor process but an innovation process. In the innovation process, what is more important is the laborer, not labor. Developing new quality productive forces places requirements for qualitative improvement on laborers: complex laborers who provide knowledge, technology, and management factors play a decisive role in developing new quality productive forces. Talent becomes the first element of innovation. Under the conditions of the digital economy, the content of direct labor has undergone qualitative changes, manifested in laborers using data collected from various internet platforms and digital and intelligent equipment, processing data according to certain algorithms, and forming new data as a factor of production. Innovation is more complex and more valuable than general labor. As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, as a new generation of general-purpose technology, it is widely penetrating the digital-intelligent production and exchange process, and is revolutionizing the industrial system, becoming a new driver for high-quality economic development. Since it is a general-purpose technology, it requires various types of complex laborers to learn and master general-purpose knowledge. The application of general-purpose technology in specialized fields also needs to match the technical requirements of those specialized fields. As for simple laborers, simple labor is labor that can be performed without education and training. But in the era of the digital-intelligent economy, simple laborers are not those who do not need training; rather, they are laborers with relatively lower levels of education and training, whose skills also need to be upgraded through education and training. In the era of machine-based large industry, simple laborers mainly served machines; in the era of the digital economy and intelligent economy, some laborers must control modern tools and systems such as robots and drones. This confirms Marx's judgment at the time: "The nature of large-scale industry determines the change of labor, the variation of functions, and the all-round mobility of the worker."
Second, the leap in the qualitative state of the means of labor. The means of production include the means of labor and the objects of labor. Among them, the means of labor are the measure of the level of productive forces in each economic era. The new quality productive forces of each era are embodied in the breakthrough improvement and widespread application of the means of labor. The means of labor in the era of machine-based large industry mainly involved machinery and equipment. The creative destruction of the means of labor in the current digital-intelligent era is that the means of labor of the era of industrial civilization are replaced by digital platforms and intelligent systems. With the development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and large models, smartphones, internet platforms, cloud computing, drones, intelligent sensors, automated assembly lines, and industrial robots have become new types of means of labor. The industries that provide these new modes of production and means of labor have also become carriers of new quality productive forces. The means of labor relying on artificial intelligence have automatic learning functions that humans cannot match. At the current stage, whether digital platforms and intelligent systems are used, and the advanced level of these platforms and systems, can to a large extent reflect the innovation capability of industries and enterprises.
Objects of labor usually refer to the material means that are processed and transformed in the labor process, including natural resources such as energy, raw materials, and land. In the current new quality productive forces, the creative destruction of objects of labor is prominently manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, the creative destruction of objects of labor by green productive forces; on the other hand, the creative destruction of objects of labor by digital productive forces. Entering the digital-intelligent era, data has become a key factor of production, and in many production scenarios, data collection and processing have become objects of labor. Unlike other material objects of labor, in many innovation scenarios, powerful computing power and scientific algorithms collect and process data to form data and its products as advanced factors of production. For data to become a factor in a specific production and innovation process, it needs to be processed and refined as an object of labor.
Third, "digital-intelligent economy + green economy" has become the comprehensive qualitative state of current new quality productive forces. American scholar Jeremy Rifkin, in The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, defined the third industrial revolution as the combination of internet technology and renewable energy. The comprehensive qualitative state of new quality productive forces can be grasped from the two aspects of the digital-intelligent economy and the green economy.
On the one hand, the digital-intelligent economy is the combination of the digital economy and the intelligent economy. The new technologies, new energy, and new industries of new quality productive forces at the current stage are all inseparable from the digital economy. The reason the digital economy has become the representative qualitative state of new quality productive forces is mainly that it contains three entirely new elements: first, data has become a key factor of production; second, computing power has become a new driving force after thermal power, electric power, and network power; third, algorithms have become a new method of modern science and technology. These three aspects empower various industries to produce the effects of new quality productive forces. The more sufficient and accurate the data, the more powerful the computing power; the more advanced the algorithms, the more cutting-edge the digital technology; the larger the scale of digital platforms and the wider their application, the greater the role of the new quality productive forces of the digital economy. At present, the role of the new quality productive forces of the digital economy still has much room to play. Whether it is digital industrialization or industrial digitalization, there are both modern technological applications and exploration of new-generation frontier technologies. Therefore, developing the digital economy has requirements for iterative upgrading: artificial intelligence is a new stage of the digital economy, a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and the corresponding intelligent economy has become a new economic form.
On the other hand, green productive forces are an important aspect of new quality productive forces. Green development is the background color of high-quality development, and new quality productive forces are themselves green productive forces. The harmonious coexistence of man and nature is built on the foundation of green development. Green productive forces involve not only new energy and the energy revolution it brings, but also the ecological benefits generated by green technologies, as well as the development and utilization of renewable materials. From the perspective of energy, although fossil energy is still the energy foundation of various industries to this day, it has already shown obvious unsustainability. Green productive forces involve new energy and the energy revolution it brings. The new energy revolution is not only about discovering and developing new energy, but also involves the application of new energy, which is an extension of the energy revolution.
The Industrial "Form of Business" of New Quality Productive Forces
The development of new quality productive forces originates from scientific and technological innovation, and its ultimate goal is industrial innovation, that is, building a modern industrial system. This gives rise to the transformation of new quality productive forces from "qualitative state" to "form of business." According to modern competition theory, the competitiveness of countries and regions is manifested as industrial competitiveness, and the enhancement of industrial competitiveness depends on scientific and technological innovation. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed: "It is necessary to promptly apply the achievements of scientific and technological innovation to specific industries and industrial chains, transform and upgrade traditional industries, cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, plan and build future industries, and improve the modern industrial system."
From the perspective of the path of industrial innovation, first, traditional industries are broad in scope and large in scale, with advantages in scale, supporting facilities, and leading advantages in some fields. Traditional industries are not synonymous with sunset industries or low-end industries as opposed to new quality productive forces. Their traditional nature refers to meeting traditional needs, and by no means implies that their technological foundation is traditional. Only when their technological foundation transforms toward digitalization, intelligence, and greening can they enter the modern industrial system. This is the transformation of the "qualitative state" of new quality productive forces in the field of traditional industries to the "form of business." This means that there is great space for developing new quality productive forces in the field of traditional industries, and they should not be easily abandoned.
Second, from the perspective of cultivating national industrial competitiveness, what is more important in the transformation from "qualitative state" to "form of business" is cultivating future industries and strengthening strategic emerging industries. The Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made arrangements for this: focusing on developing productive forces characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, strengthening institutional supply for new fields and new tracks, establishing a growth investment mechanism for future industries, using the upgrading of national standards to lead the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries, and promoting the concentration of various advanced production factors toward the development of new quality productive forces.
Future industries are emerging industries in the embryonic stage of the industrial life cycle, representing the development direction of scientific and technological innovation and emerging industries. They require forward-looking deployment and cultivation. The future industries that need attention at the current stage mainly include the metaverse, brain-computer interfaces, quantum information, humanoid robots, generative artificial intelligence, life sciences, biomanufacturing, future displays, future networks, new energy storage, and other fields. Facing the high uncertainty, long investment return period, and high risk of future industries, it is necessary to establish a growth investment mechanism for future industries.
Cultivating and strengthening strategic emerging industries is in fact the "realization" of future industries. When future industries enter a relatively mature stage and their technologies and products are accepted by the market and produced on a large scale, they become current strategic emerging industries. Strategic emerging industries are industries based on major technological breakthroughs and major development needs, which have a significant leading and driving role for the overall economic and social situation and long-term development. This is "developing strategic emerging industries with high technological content, strong market competitiveness, great driving effect, and good economic benefits, and truly implementing scientific and technological innovation in industrial development." The strategic emerging industries identified in the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China include "building a number of new growth engines such as new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, and green environmental protection."
Third, there is actually a question of switching tracks in the transformation from scientific and technological qualitative state to industrial form of business. Developing new quality productive forces requires accurately identifying the trends of scientific and technological change, daring to seize new opportunities and new tracks, breaking the path dependence on existing industries and mature technological routes, and relying on frontier science and technology to achieve surpassing others by taking a different route or catching up quickly (弯道超车, wan dao chao che - "bend the curve, overtake") and even "overtaking by changing tracks." The development of China's new energy vehicles is a typical example. In the field of traditional fuel vehicles, Chinese automakers could only remain in a following position. By switching tracks, on the new track of electrified, intelligent, and green vehicles, they quickly formed new advantages in international competition. At present, artificial intelligence has become a new form of business. Digital industrialization has entered the stage of artificial intelligence industrialization, that is, "'artificial intelligence +' science and technology, industry, consumption, people's livelihood, governance, global cooperation, etc." China has abundant data resources, a complete industrial system, broad application scenarios, and huge market space. Promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation has become a new growth point for developing new quality productive forces.
Finally, the transformation from scientific and technological qualitative state to new industrial forms of business requires the docking of the industrial chain with the innovation chain. This is "to take cultivating leading industries with core competitiveness as the main direction of attack, and deploy the innovation chain around the industrial chain." The characteristic of modern industrial division of labor is intra-product division of labor; the production links of the same product are distributed among different enterprises, forming an industrial chain and supply chain. Industrial innovation requires innovation in every link of the industrial chain, and at every stage of the industrial chain, the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation is needed, including the integration of basic research and applied research, to solve the problem of high-level technology supply in relevant industrial chain links. The blockage in the circulation of the industrial chain lies in the existence of "bottleneck" links in technology. The "bottleneck" links become the main direction of attack for industrial innovation. At the same time, making breakthrough progress in key links of the industrial chain and producing key core technologies with independent intellectual property rights can promote the entire industrial chain to move up to the middle and high end of the value chain. In addition, innovation in industrial forms of business cannot ignore innovation in the forms of business of the service industry and its role.
The Innovation Ecosystem for Developing New Quality Productive Forces
The innovation of developing new quality productive forces is in essence the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation. Various scientific and technological innovation resources are integrated through certain relations of production. Whether it is the scientific and technological qualitative state or the industrialized form of business, it is necessary to attract and gather innovation factors, remove the blockages and sticking points in the transformation of disruptive and frontier technologies into new industries, and promote the industrialization innovation of new technologies.
First, in the context of the digital-intelligent economy, data, computing power, and algorithms have become core factors of production. Among them, data formed on the basis of computing power and algorithms has become a key factor of production, and it is necessary to improve the relations of production around data. It is necessary to confirm the property rights of data and establish a new type of property rights system compatible with the digital economy. Establish a market for data factors, and promote market access and sharing of data factors. Make full use of the platforms and technologies of the digital economy to improve the market economy system. Various innovation factors are optimally combined according to their respective supply and demand conditions and their contribution weights to productive forces. Further improve the institutional mechanisms for distribution according to factors, and promote the optimal combination of factors of new quality productive forces.
Second, coordinate the relationship between the government and the market. New quality productive forces are cultivated and driven jointly by the government's "visible hand" and the market's "invisible hand." New quality productive forces require both the government's forward-looking planning and guidance and scientific policy support, and the adjustment of market mechanisms, but the boundaries of their respective roles need to be clearly distinguished. The role of the government should be to do some things and not do others. The so-called "doing some things" means, first, focusing on supporting basic research in the innovation qualitative state, doing a good job in integrating basic research institutions and R&D platforms, creating an atmosphere for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and building collaborative innovation platforms for industry, academia, and research. Second, in terms of form-of-business innovation, formulate and implement industrial policies that support innovation in industrial forms of business, promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and realize the transformation from "qualitative state" to "form of business." Aim at the next generation of science and technology and industry for upgrading and transformation; implement the strategy of replacing old industries with new, high-tech ones (腾笼换鸟, teng long huan niao - "empty the cage, change the bird"), freeing up space to develop emerging industries. The focus of work should be placed on optimizing the market environment, correcting market failures, and regulating the order of competition. The so-called "not doing some things" is key to breaking the dilemma of "homogenized" development of high-tech parks. It is strictly forbidden to engage in vicious investment attraction, blindly "follow the trend" in launching projects, or recklessly "burn money" in the name of developing new quality productive forces.
As for the role of the market, developing new quality productive forces mainly still depends on the role of the market. Fair competition and property rights incentives are the institutional driving force for developing new quality productive forces. In addition, in the scientific and technological qualitative state, venture capital and technology finance should invest early and invest small, cultivating disruptive new technologies of strategic emerging industries and future industries ahead of time. In innovation in industrial forms of business, industrial innovation and the corresponding venture capital investment are themselves a process of market selection. In particular, filling technology gaps on the industrial chain is even more a matter of market selection. Special attention should be paid to the fact that, compared with investing early and investing small in the qualitative-state innovation stage, what is more important in the form-of-business innovation stage is investing in hard technology and investing for the long term. Correspondingly, it is necessary to improve the capital market and give full play to financial capital, attracting and cultivating patient capital.
Third, coordinate and advance the integrated reform of the institutional mechanisms for education, science and technology, and talent. Talent is the first element of innovation and also the first element for developing new quality productive forces. Education, science and technology, and talent are the basic and strategic support for forming new quality productive forces. This is both the responsibility of the government and the responsibility of the market. The focus is on the docking of the talent chain with the innovation chain. The key to the docking of the talent chain with the innovation chain lies in cultivating and building talents with insight and leadership for strategic emerging industries and future industries, prominently manifested in two types of talent: strategic scientists and technology entrepreneurs. The key to the talent strategy for forming new quality productive forces is to accelerate the building of a national strategic talent force and stimulate the market value of knowledge, technology, and talent.
Finally, attach importance to the role of technology entrepreneurs. In the innovation ecosystem, enterprises are the main body of innovation, and the foundation of their initiative is entrepreneurs. In developing new quality productive forces, the entrepreneur factor undergoes a leap in qualitative state. The entrepreneurs produced in the era of industrial civilization were prominent for their innovative spirit. Entering the era of the digital and intelligent economy, it is not enough for entrepreneurs to have only an innovative spirit; they also need a scientific and technological vision, that is, technology entrepreneurs with "innovative spirit + scientific and technological vision." Entrepreneurs who lead innovation in different eras will also iterate. The creative destruction of innovation for entrepreneurs lies in the fact that later entrepreneurs may innovate by changing tracks. Much experience shows that innovation does not depend on the history of the enterprise, nor on the scale of the enterprise, but on the enterprise's innovation track and the entrepreneur's scientific and technological vision. Small and micro enterprises and even individual innovators may achieve success in innovation in one leap.
(The author is the former Party Secretary of Nanjing University)
Return to TopBy: 中国华电集团有限公司总经理、党组副书记 徐树彪
Upholding the centralized, unified leadership of the Party Central Committee is one of the core connotations of the Fourteen Commitments (十四个坚持) of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, and is the key to our Party maintaining strong political leadership, ideological guidance, mass organization, and social appeal. As an important material and political foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics, state-owned enterprises must unwaveringly uphold the centralized, unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, steadfastly carry the Party's leadership through every process and link of making state-owned enterprises stronger, better, and larger, better serve the overall work of the Party and the state, serve high-quality economic and social development, accelerate the building of world-class enterprises, and contribute greater strength to Chinese modernization.
Uphold the Party's leadership and strive to be the most trustworthy pillar of the Party and the state.
State-owned enterprises are the main carriers of the national economy, an important pillar and relying force for our Party in governing and rejuvenating the country. They bear on the consolidation of the dominant position of public ownership, bear on our Party's governing position and governing capacity, and bear on our country's socialist system. They must be guaranteed by the strong leadership of the Party.
Since the National Conference on Party Building in State-Owned Enterprises (hereinafter referred to as the National SOE Party Building Conference) was held, China Huadian has always adhered to the general principle of making steady progress while pursuing advancement (稳中求进, wen zhong qiu jin - "stable, middle, seek, advance"), with total assets exceeding 1.3 trillion yuan, total installed power generation capacity reaching 285 million kilowatts, being rated Grade A in the annual business performance assessment of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council for 14 consecutive years, and ranking among the Fortune Global 500 for 15 consecutive years.
State-owned enterprises resolutely implement the Party Central Committee's major decisions and arrangements on economic work, and effectively act as the "stabilizer" of the national economy. Firmly grasp high-quality development as the primary task, deeply understand the dialectical unity of speed and quality, maintain a reasonable scale growth rate while paying more attention to the efficiency of growth and structural optimization, and promote the transformation of economic development from scale-and-speed type to quality-and-efficiency type, from extensive growth to intensive growth. Firmly grasp the new development philosophy as the guiding principle, promote changes in the quality, efficiency, and drivers of economic development, and achieve higher-quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable, and safer development. Firmly grasp the vision goal of world-class enterprises, and in accordance with the requirements of "excellent products, outstanding brands, leading innovation, and modern governance," seize the important strategic opportunity period of comprehensively building a great modern socialist country, complete the transformation from "big" to "strong" and from "strong" to "world-class," and shape global competitive advantages.
Uphold the Party's leadership and strive to be doers in building a Beautiful China.
Adhering to the Party's overall leadership over ecological civilization construction is the fundamental guarantee for China's ecological civilization construction. State-owned enterprises must become the main force and vanguard of ecological civilization construction, and make greater contributions to advancing ecological civilization construction and the building of a Beautiful China.
Since the National SOE Party Building Conference was held, China Huadian has unswervingly followed the path of ecological priority and green development, carried ecological and environmental protection requirements through the entire process of energy development and construction, increased efforts to develop clean energy, and fought hard to win the battle against pollution. The proportion of domestic clean energy installed capacity has reached 62.3%. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, emissions of soot, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides per ten thousand yuan of output value decreased by 16.3%, 19.4%, and 23.7% respectively compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, and more than 220,000 mu of desertification control and ecological restoration tasks were completed.
State-owned enterprises firmly establish and practice the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," implement the "dual carbon" goals, strictly implement the Ecological and Environmental Code of the People's Republic of China, and coordinately promote carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and growth, building a beautiful homeland where humanity and nature coexist harmoniously with greater efforts. Strive to accelerate the green transformation of development modes, fully leverage the leading role of state-owned enterprises in green and low-carbon development, green standard formulation, green technology innovation, and green supply chain construction, implement a dual control system on total carbon emissions and carbon intensity, promote green transformation in economic development and achieve greater development in green transformation. Strive to advance the battle against pollution, adhere to environmental protection for the people, coordinate the integrated protection and systematic governance of mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, grasslands, and deserts, actively participate in ecological and environmental protection in key regions such as the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Yellow River Basin, and demonstrate responsibility in the battles for blue skies, clear waters, and clean soil. Strive to practice green and low-carbon lifestyles, enhance the awareness of thrift and ecological and environmental protection among all employees, advocate simple, moderate, green, low-carbon, civilized, and healthy lifestyles and consumption patterns, and form a vivid situation in which all employees jointly build and share a Beautiful China.
Uphold the Party's leadership and strive to be the main force in building a strong energy country.
Energy security is a comprehensive and strategic issue bearing on the country's economic and social development, and is crucial to the country's prosperity and development, the improvement of people's lives, and long-term social stability. State-owned enterprises, especially central energy enterprises, are the "ballast stone" for ensuring national energy security and the "vanguard" of the energy revolution, and must be able to step up, hold steady, and win at critical moments.
Since the National SOE Party Building Conference was held, China Huadian has kept in mind that energy guarantee and security are "matters of national importance" that must never be ignored for a moment, bravely shouldered the mission of central enterprises, shouldered the responsibility of ensuring supply, and held the bottom line of ensuring power generation, heating supply, and people's livelihoods. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, it completed with high quality the phased tasks of the "three-machine linkage" transformation and large-scale equipment renewal, added 10.64 million kilowatts of peak-shaving capacity, and greatly improved its energy supply guarantee capacity.
State-owned enterprises always bear in mind "matters of national importance," thoroughly implement the new energy security strategy of "four revolutions and one cooperation," unswervingly promote carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and help build a strong energy country. Enhance the "gold content" of energy supply, implement a new generation of coal power transformation and upgrading, promote the intelligent, green, and integrated development of traditional industries, and improve the complementarity, mutual assistance, and security resilience of the power system. Enhance the "green content" of the energy structure, implement a ten-year doubling action for non-fossil energy, strengthen the complementary development of multiple types of new energy, the intensive and composite use of space, and integrated aggregation operation, and help the national new energy power generation share reach 30% by 2030. Enhance the "innovation content" of the energy industry, actively and orderly develop solar energy, silicon energy, hydrogen energy, and nuclear fusion energy, deploy green fuel production capacity such as biomass natural gas and green ammonia and green methanol in light of local conditions, and promote the upgrading of the energy industry foundation and the modernization of the industrial chain.
Uphold the Party's leadership and strive to be the national team for high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology.
State-owned enterprises are a key force for innovation-driven development. They must adhere to the Party's overall leadership over scientific and technological innovation work, bravely taking on heavy responsibilities (勇挑重担, yong tiao zhong dan - "brave, shoulder, heavy, burden") and daring to lead the charge, and bravely serve as the "source" of original technologies and the "chain leader" of modern industrial chains.
Since the National SOE Party Building Conference was held, China Huadian has deeply implemented the innovation-driven development strategy, built a "pagoda-type" innovation system, strengthened research on key core technologies, released the "Huadian Zhi" large model to empower digital and intelligent transformation, took the lead in developing and iteratively upgrading the "Huadian Rui" series of independently controllable power industry control software, achieved a breakthrough in "bottleneck" technology in independent maintenance of gas turbines, with 1 achievement winning the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and 10 achievements winning the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
State-owned enterprises seize the historic opportunity of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, comprehensively enhance independent innovation capabilities, seize the commanding heights of scientific and technological development, and continuously foster new quality productive forces. Gather innovation elements at a high level, improve the working mechanism for talent cultivation, introduction, use, and reasonable flow, stimulate the vitality of production factors such as labor, knowledge, technology, management, capital, and data, and enable all kinds of advanced and high-quality production factors to flow smoothly toward the development of new quality productive forces. Build an innovation ecosystem at a high level, strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, promote the systematic and coordinated development of scientific and technological innovation forces, factor allocation, and talent teams, carry forward the spirit of scientists, and give sufficient tolerance and support to scientific and technological innovation activities. Promote the transformation of achievements with high efficiency, driven by serving national strategies, and promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation.
Uphold the Party's leadership and strive to be the vanguard in serving Chinese modernization.
State-owned enterprises must adhere to the Party's overall leadership over deepening reform, make good use of reform as the key move, and continuously solve development problems and consolidate development advantages.
Since the National SOE Party Building Conference was held, China Huadian has solidly advanced the three-year action for SOE reform and the action to deepen and upgrade SOE reform, fully implemented the "two adherences in all respects," promoted the integration of Party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance, improved the authorization management of the board of directors to the management layer, continuously released reform dividends, and continuously enhanced the endogenous momentum of the enterprise. It has been rated Grade A in the assessment of key reform tasks of central enterprises by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council for 5 consecutive years, was rated as a model enterprise for corporate governance of state-owned enterprises by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and its board of directors has been rated excellent in assessment for 5 consecutive years.
State-owned enterprises thoroughly implement the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements on deepening the reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises, always maintain political sobriety in running state-owned enterprises well, highlight strategic missions, focus on main responsibilities and main businesses, unswervingly deepen the reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises, make state-owned enterprises and state-owned capital stronger, better, and larger, continuously enhance core functions and improve core competitiveness, and better play the leading role of the state-owned economy. Adhere to improving efficiency through reform, improve the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics, improve the corporate governance mechanism with legally defined rights and responsibilities, coordinated operation, and effective checks and balances, and accelerate the forging of modern new state-owned enterprises with new development modes, new corporate governance, new operating mechanisms, and new layout structures. Adhere to increasing vitality through reform, deepen the implementation of the reform of the three systems, deeply implement the tenure-based and contract-based management of management layer members, deepen the structural reform of "investing in people," and fully stimulate the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of cadres and employees in working hard to start and carry out a business (干事创业, gan shi chuang ye - "do, affairs, create, enterprise"). Adhere to strengthening advantages through reform, focus on the institutional and mechanism obstacles restricting the high-quality development of enterprises, grasp key points, make up for shortcomings, and strengthen weak links, continuously improve the modernization level of the enterprise governance system and governance capacity, and strive to strengthen the unique competitive advantages that can continuously create value.
Return to Top"Oil and energy construction is of great significance to our country. As a major manufacturing country, China must develop the real economy, and the energy rice bowl must be held firmly in our own hands." In October 2021, when General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected Shengli Oilfield, he stressed the need to intensify exploration and development efforts, consolidate the domestic production base, and improve self-sufficiency capacity. Over the past five years, Shengli Oilfield has borne in mind the earnest instructions, kept the "greatest concerns of the state" in mind, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implemented the new development philosophy, firmly implemented the "Four Revolutions and One Cooperation" new energy security strategy, integrated into Sinopec's new industrial pattern of "one foundation, two wings, three chains, and four innovations," coordinated the promotion of the high-quality integrated development of the three major industries of oil and gas, new energy, and green low-carbon development, built a new energy system featuring multi-energy complementarity and clean and efficient supply, and contributed to holding the energy rice bowl firmly and building a strong energy country.
Focus on solving the core demand for oil and gas, and consolidate the resource foundation for holding the energy rice bowl firmly.
Energy security concerns the overall economic and social development, and solving the core demand for oil and gas is a major mission and task for oil and energy enterprises. Shengli Oilfield has anchored onto the goal of "sustainable resources, stable crude oil production, rapid natural gas growth, and improved quality and efficiency," and implemented ten major projects including conventional resource exploration, conventional development and stable production, and natural gas breakthroughs. Adhering to "basing on the entire region, conquering the deep layers, placing equal emphasis on conventional and unconventional resources, and promoting coordinated advancement," the exploration field has continuously expanded to deep and ultra-deep layers. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, four new oilfields—Mahaidong, Xinxing, Xinhe, and Xinfeng—were discovered, and the newly added proved, controlled, and predicted oil reserves at three levels have maintained more than 100 million tons each for three consecutive years, ushering in a new round of reserve growth peak. With increasing economically recoverable reserves as the core, Shengli Oilfield has planned and promoted "seven production growth points" including offshore, western, low-permeability, heavy oil, shale oil, chemical flooding, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). After six years of stable crude oil production, it has maintained an "upward arrow" for three consecutive years. In particular, the exploration and development of Shengli Jiyang shale oil achieved a major strategic breakthrough, with evaluated resources reaching 10.52 billion tons. The Xinxing Oilfield has proved reserves exceeding 140 million tons, becoming China's first shale oilfield with proved geological reserves reaching the hundred-million-ton level that has passed the review and filing of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Annual shale oil production increased from 32,000 tons in 2021 to 700,000 tons in 2025, with cumulative oil production exceeding 2 million tons. In July 2026, the Shengli Jiyang Shale Oil National Demonstration Zone successfully passed acceptance inspection. Three modern new-type oil and gas storage facilities—Yong 21 Gas Storage, Dongying Crude Oil Storage, and Dongying Commercial Storage—were built to high standards, with strategic reserves expanded and upgraded, effectively enhancing regional emergency supply resilience.
Accelerate clean and efficient development, and cultivate a green foundation for holding the energy rice bowl firmly.
Promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of energy is an inherent requirement for promoting high-quality energy development and achieving high-level energy security. Shengli Oilfield has proactively conformed to the green and low-carbon trend, actively implemented the "dual carbon" strategy, and improved the quality of energy supply, utilization efficiency, and carbon reduction levels. Promote the energy consumption revolution. Shengli Oilfield has anchored onto the construction path of "green electricity—green heat—green oilfield," coordinated the comprehensive development of "wind, solar, heat, hydrogen, and storage," and accelerated the promotion of green energy substitution and zero-carbon oilfield area construction. A cumulative total of 259 new energy projects have been put into operation, with photovoltaic power generation installed capacity reaching 660 megawatts and clean heat supply reaching 3.52 million gigajoules, helping Sinopec form a situation where three parties are in a position of strength and balance (三足鼎立, san zu ding li - "three, legs, tripod, stand") among oil, gas, and new energy. An innovative "source-grid-load-storage" smart energy management and control platform and a "source-use-storage-linked" clean heat energy system were constructed, promoting multi-energy balance and mutual support, efficient source-load coupling, friendly consumption of new energy, and flexible transformation of production methods. The proportion of green electricity in oil and gas production electricity consumption has increased to 26%. The "source-grid-load-storage" integrated energy system and the "source-use-storage-linked" clean heat energy system were respectively rated as one of the top ten landmark achievements in national oil and gas exploration and development in 2023 and 2025. Adhering to equal emphasis on carbon reduction and carbon utilization, and dual efforts in oil displacement and carbon reduction, led by breakthroughs in the full-chain CCUS technology, Shengli Oilfield has laid out and built "four million-ton" demonstration projects including low-concentration carbon dioxide capture and utilization at the Shengli Oilfield coal-fired power plant, promoting the industrialized development of CCUS. In 2023, at the ministerial meeting of the global Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), the Shengli Oilfield million-ton CCUS project passed the forum's flagship project certification.
Deepen the integration of science, industry, finance, and innovation, and build the power engine for holding the energy rice bowl firmly.
Scientific and technological innovation is the core element for accelerating energy transformation and developing new quality productive forces in the energy sector. Shengli Oilfield has resolutely implemented the innovation-driven development strategy, adhered to industry posing questions and science and technology answering them, continuously sorted out the list of "bottleneck" technologies, undertaken a cumulative total of 30 national major projects (topics) during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, won 111 awards at or above the provincial and ministerial level, led 12 national major science and technology special projects in the past two years, and this year has taken the lead in undertaking three of Sinopec's first batch of major science-industry-finance-innovation integration projects in shale oil, CCUS, and new energy, continuously empowering high-quality industrial development with major technological breakthroughs and helping Sinopec build itself into a leading enterprise in science-industry-finance-innovation integration. New breakthroughs have been achieved in shale oil exploration and development theory and technology. Innovative theoretical understanding of shale oil enrichment in continental faulted lacustrine basins—"salinization and early generation, inorganic control of reservoirs, source-reservoir integration, and facies sealing and fault control"—was proposed, the "reservoir-fracture-pressure" ternary storage and permeability theoretical understanding was explored and formed, six key technologies including three-dimensional development and efficient balanced fracturing and a "large army group combat" model of geological-engineering integration were developed, with average predicted oil production per single well exceeding 43,000 tons, single-well investment reduced by 60%, land use reduced by 30%, and well construction cycle shortened by 40%, blazing an independent innovation path. New progress has been made in the full-chain CCUS technology. The theory of high-pressure miscible carbon dioxide flooding and storage was innovatively proposed, million-ton carbon dioxide supercharging and conveying pumps and 40-megapascal high-pressure dense-phase carbon dioxide injection pumps were independently developed, and a full-industry-chain innovation system covering "capture, transportation, oil displacement, and storage" was constructed, supporting the construction of China's first 100-kilometer carbon dioxide long-distance pipeline and the first million-ton full-chain CCUS demonstration project. New results have been achieved in the application of technologies for greatly enhancing oil recovery. The application of chemical flooding technology has achieved "three major leaps"—from medium-high temperature to high temperature, from light oil to heavy oil, and from onshore to offshore—liberating 320 million tons of reserves; breaking the traditional industry understanding that "water injection pressure cannot exceed formation fracture pressure," adapting to different types of low-permeability reservoirs, and innovating the technical models of "advanced pressure flooding, three-dimensional pressure flooding, and differentiated pressure flooding," with cumulative additional oil production exceeding 1.6 million tons. The independently developed "new-type deformable viscoelastic particle oil displacement agent technology for enhancing oil recovery" won the gold medal at the 50th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions, and the "annual million-ton carbon dioxide capture, pipeline transportation, and storage key equipment" won the "Special Innovation Award" at the 51st Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions, as well as the exhibition's highest award, the jury's "Special Commendation Gold Medal."
Strengthen the guidance of Party building, and gather solid strength for holding the energy rice bowl firmly.
Adhering to the Party's leadership and strengthening Party building are the "roots" and "soul" of state-owned enterprises. Shengli Oilfield adheres to leading high-quality development with high-quality Party building, unremittingly uses the Party's innovative theories to consolidate the soul and unite the heart, and strictly implements the "first agenda item" system. It pays attention to shaping the workforce with the petroleum spirit, regularly carries out the "passing on the petroleum spirit from generation to generation" roving publicity and lecture activities, promotes the new-era Shengli values of "patriotism, entrepreneurship, innovation, and openness," carries forward the ten great traditions of Shengli Oilfield such as "I dedicate oil to the motherland" and "resources are limited, innovation is unlimited," holds the "Moving Shengli" and moral model selection activities, guides cadres and employees to inherit and carry forward the revolutionary spirit of the older generation of petroleum workers, always maintain the red heritage and fighting sentiment of petroleum workers, and transforms the conviction of petroleum workers' hearts toward the Party into practical actions for holding the energy rice bowl firmly.
On the new journey, central enterprises must fully understand the responsibilities and missions they bear, better serve the overall work of the Party and the state, serve high-quality economic and social development, serve the guarantee and improvement of people's livelihoods, bravely assume social responsibilities, and contribute greater strength to Chinese modernization. Shengli Oilfield will thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, focus on the theme and central task of Sinopec's promotion of high-quality development through a second entrepreneurship, unite and strive with the attitude of "second entrepreneurship, striving with me," and continuously write new chapters of struggle on the new journey.
(Party Committee of Shengli Petroleum Administration Bureau Co., Ltd., Sinopec)
Return to TopBy: 王先正
At present, the "six networks" construction requires infrastructure to upgrade from "each operating its own network" to "multi-network coordination." In transportation, the "one network, four modernizations" lists "integrated convergence" as a key path to enhancing transport service efficiency. The new round of state-owned enterprise reform requires reshaping the value-creation model of traditional assets with new quality productive forces. Jiangsu Communications Holding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiangsu Jiaokong), which bears primary responsibility for transportation infrastructure, must evolve its past linear capabilities of "financing, construction, and operation" into ecological capabilities of "linking, matching, and governance," find its proper position within the coordinated framework of the national "six networks" construction, and achieve a leap in its level of capability by serving the national strategy.
Enhance the strategic framework through "systematicness," achieving a structural reshaping from "building networks" to "integrating networks." The national "six networks" construction spans multiple systems, entities, and standards, each with its own accounts and rhythms, requiring a systematic structural framework capable of accommodating differences, connecting levels, and activating linkages. "Systematicness" begins with structure and functions each occupying their proper place. Jiangsu Jiaokong actively undertakes functions directly related to transportation within the national layout, deeply expands the unique operational scenarios of transportation enterprises, and fully taps the advantages of physical assets, data assets, and user assets. Infrastructure carries physical connectivity, digital computing power coordinates computational decision-making, transportation energy provides power support, modern logistics connects circulation and delivery, commercial services drive the realization of circular value, and air-space intelligent connectivity achieves sensing, transmission, and dispatch. The "six major sectors" that have grown out of actual enterprise operations each occupy their proper place (各就其位, ge ju qi wei - "each, take, its, position") and interlock with one another, realizing the transformation of national strategic momentum into enterprise operational driving force. "Systematicness" is achieved through the interconnection of trusted data. The mutual empowerment of the "six major sectors" presupposes data connectivity. A trusted data space with traceable sources, comparable standards, and controllable circulation makes cross-network intelligent dispatch and collaborative decision-making technically feasible. Jiangsu Jiaokong has independently developed an integrated digital foundation of "cloud, network, data, and mapping," proactively undertaking the construction and operation of the province's transportation industry trusted data space, targeting key areas such as highways, railways, waterways, and aviation, driven by application scenarios, based on data resources, and supported by trusted technologies, continuously aggregating 78 categories of multi-source data including transportation infrastructure and transport operations, laying a solid data foundation for the "six major sectors" to move from interconnection to integration. "Systematicness" culminates in the mutual support and integration of diverse scenarios. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangsu Jiaokong used road-domain space to carry energy production capacity and transportation load to absorb green electricity, implementing 101 transportation-energy integration projects including the Xianrenshan Service Area on the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway, the Haitai Yangtze River Tunnel, and the Jianxing Expressway, achieving the successful grid connection and power generation of the first computing-power-coordinated transportation-energy integration project on the entire line. Over the next five years, it will also fully implement the simultaneous planning, simultaneous design, simultaneous construction, and simultaneous commissioning of clean energy facilities and main projects on 2,700 kilometers of newly built and expanded expressways, avoiding from the source the temporal mismatches and resource waste caused by separate construction and later-stage connection.
Guide the industrial layout through "value," achieving a reconstruction of driving force from "traffic flow" to "retention." Jiangsu Jiaokong embeds the renewal of traditional industries, the expansion of emerging industries, and the cultivation of future industries into a more complete industrial pedigree, laying out a "3+3+X" modern industrial system, forming an industrial pattern of echelon succession and symbiotic prosperity. Core leading industries are the foundation for value accumulation, focusing on tapping existing potential and increasing efficiency. As a complex industrial ecosystem, the mutual support of the "six major sectors" requires stable cash flow support, reliable operational capability accumulation, and a sustainable capital circulation mechanism. Core leading industries such as transportation infrastructure, industrial finance, and the transportation industry constitute the operational foundation of the integrated ecosystem. In transportation infrastructure, Jiangsu Jiaokong coordinates road network investment and operation with coordinated development of road-domain resources, completing cumulative transportation infrastructure investment of 604.4 billion yuan; in industrial finance, it focuses on business directions such as financial leasing, commercial factoring, and asset management, smoothing the cycle of "resource capitalization, asset capitalization, capital securitization, and fund leveraging"; in the transportation industry, it promotes strengthening, supplementing, and extending the chains of construction and maintenance, materials, energy, digital, and commerce, with non-bridge-and-road business profit contribution exceeding 60% during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, ensuring that integration has a foundation, circulation has guarantees, and expansion has space. Emerging pillar industries are the "chessboard" for value expansion, focusing on seeking incremental breakthroughs. The linked development of the "six major sectors" requires emerging pillar industries to serve as the relay of growth, converting synergistic efficiency into sustainable industrial increments. For Jiangsu Jiaokong, the low-altitude economy outputs full-chain operations from airspace planning to flight management services, promoting the gradual expansion of drone applications to the four major scenarios of construction, maintenance, operation, and management across the province's 3,000 kilometers of airworthy road sections, exploring the construction of a low-altitude intelligent connectivity network for the Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River, with drone inspection successfully exported westward to Xinjiang and other regions; smart logistics promotes a networked model from hub layout to trunk-and-branch connection, establishing a four-in-one modern logistics industrial system of "network cargo platform + logistics stations + green dedicated lines + open ecosystem," with tiered deployment of hub warehouses, regional warehouses, and front-end warehouses as "three-tier stations," effectively reducing overall social logistics costs; it tackles the full chain of research and development, testing, production, and application, upgrading edge intelligent devices such as drone intelligent cloud boxes, and accelerating the construction of a product matrix covering the full construction and maintenance cycle. Future cultivated industries are the "compass" for value exploration, focusing on winning the initiative on variables. Jiangsu Jiaokong reshapes transportation service and operational scenarios with embodied intelligence, with the "bridge-tunnel intelligent dog" agent achieving unmanned high-precision inspection of bridges and tunnels, and the Douzhuang Service Area building a "fully robotic" demonstration service area; seizing the industrial entry point, competing for key links when the industrial chain has not yet taken shape and value distribution has not yet been finalized, Jiangsu Jiaokong uses commercial aerospace to lay out the integrated application of air-space information, actively cultivating commercial aerospace-related business forms such as deep application of BeiDou, satellite remote sensing and telemetry, "space-based computing," and air-space integrated supporting industries; seizing the ecological entry point, competing for the dominant role when platform rules are still being formulated and collaboration networks are still expanding, Jiangsu Jiaokong reshapes the transportation energy supply system with hydrogen energy and new energy storage, steadily advancing small-scale trials of integrated "production, storage, transportation, and refueling" comprehensive energy stations, with future industries jointly forming new tracks toward the blue ocean.
Shape a new development landscape through "innovativeness," achieving a mechanism reconstruction from "exclusive enjoyment" to "shared enjoyment." The "six major sectors" involve multiple aspects, multiple resource elements, and multiple participating entities, requiring a set of operating rules that do not depend on external driving forces, allowing resources to be dispatched across sectors, capabilities to be reused across entities, and benefits to be shared across links. Joint platform construction turns closed "territories" into open bases. Jiangsu Jiaokong, following the concept of "operational thinking + platform economy," uses digital intelligent operation platforms and green low-carbon platforms to coordinate computing power algorithm dispatch, carbon asset management, and green electricity supply; uses commercial service platforms, smart logistics platforms, and low-altitude economy platforms to build a commercial monetization network covering transport services and scenario operations; uses industrial incubation platforms to integrate massive scenarios and real data as test carriers for frontier technologies and startups, allowing platforms to synergize into momentum and creating a new transportation industry landscape that is open, symbiotic, digitally intelligent, and green and low-carbon. Joint incremental creation turns synergistic benefits into fair returns. Jiangsu Jiaokong, with data rights confirmation as the premise, contribution measurement as the yardstick, and benefit sharing as the destination, explores the establishment of mechanisms for identifying, evaluating, and distributing increments from cross-network synergy, allowing synergistic outcomes such as road network traffic flow, green electricity absorption, computing power dispatch, and logistics fulfillment to be rights-confirmed, quantifiable, and distributable, enabling all parties to shift from "each guarding its own turf" to "jointly creating increments" and from "each calculating its own accounts" to "jointly sharing dividends," forming a virtuous mechanism of joint incremental creation, fair sharing, and circular regeneration. Jiangsu Jiaokong led the formulation of the implementation plan for the "four-port linkage" multimodal transport logistics system, using the information port to centrally aggregate data on highway distribution, vessel dynamics, empty container dispatch, and port customs clearance, allowing the resources contributed, links undertaken, and rights ceded by all parties in coordination to be converted into measurable data facts, realizing the distribution of incremental benefits according to contribution and the fulfillment of commitments according to agreement. Joint ecological governance turns scattered rules into common standards. By establishing a mutually recognized operational framework, coordination costs are reduced from "case-by-case negotiation" to "automatic triggering," enabling coordination to shift from relying on administrative promotion to relying on institutional operation. Taking the Jiangsu Province Low-Altitude Flight Service Center as an example, Jiangsu Jiaokong actively coordinates multiple entities including public security and emergency response, implementing a provincial-level platform for integrated management of manned and unmanned aircraft in low-altitude airspace, where all parties complete the full process of approval, flight, and supervision according to common rules, transforming airspace originally under different management entities from "nine dragons governing the water" to "one airspace, multiple parties," with the platform recording an average of over 100,000 flight sorties per day and serving over 70,000 users.
(The author is Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Jiangsu Communications Holding Co., Ltd.)
Return to TopBy: 胡泳
Many people have had this experience: they only meant to watch a few minutes of short videos, yet their fingers keep swiping upward again and again; dozens of minutes or even hours pass, and they can no longer clearly remember what they have watched, yet they still find it very hard to stop. A subtler change occurs after leaving the phone: opening a book, they can barely read a few pages before wanting to check messages; faced with a long article, they quickly want to know "what exactly is it trying to say," and cannot resist having AI summarize it; if a question has not been answered within a few minutes, their patience begins to plummet sharply. This shows that something has gone wrong with our attention.
Our Attention Predicament
I once wrote a guidebook titled Helping Children Put Down Their Phones. In the discussion about the phone-based childhood and the generation reshaped by screens, I pointed out that the brain's operation involves two kinds of attention: automatic attention and directed attention.
Automatic attention is a kind of attention that arises spontaneously without requiring extra effort, and is usually triggered automatically when we interact with things that are easily engaging and highly stimulating (such as algorithmically recommended short videos, social media feeds, and so on). Directed attention is a state of deep concentration that requires psychological effort and overcoming distraction to maintain, and is usually used in scenarios that demand cognitive resources, such as reading long texts, deep thinking, and solving complex problems.
Clearly, under the bombardment of the internet and smartphone algorithms, it is not only adolescents but also many adults who, by over-relying on automatic attention, have seen their directed attention capacity decline, thereby giving rise to the distraction and anxiety of the digital age. One prominent question is: are short videos causing people to lose the capacity for deep thinking?
This question easily slides toward two extremes. One view regards short videos as the culprit that damages attention and even "makes people stupid"; the other view holds that short videos are merely a new form of information, and that people's worries are just the moral panic that occurs every time a new medium appears. The issue truly worth discussing may lie between the two: short videos may not directly destroy people's thinking ability, but if a medium occupies a large amount of time every day and repeatedly requires us to attend, judge, and react in a certain way, will it gradually change our habits of how we think?
Why Do We Always Want to See the Next One
We first need to change the way we view short videos. Short videos cannot be understood only in the literal sense—that is, as videos that are relatively short. We need to realize that algorithmic recommendation, infinite scrolling, full-screen viewing, rapid editing, and instant feedback combine to constitute a special information environment. This environment rarely requires the viewer to wait for a long time: if this one is not attractive, swipe away immediately; if the next one is not good, swipe away again; within dozens of seconds or even a few seconds, completely different images, sounds, people, and emotions may appear. What the medium provides here is not only content, but also prescribes a rhythm for using the content.
One of the most powerful aspects of short videos is that "the next one" is never known in advance. Each swipe may bring ordinary content, or may suddenly produce an extremely interesting or surprising, infuriating, or delightful video. This uncertainty bears similarities to what behavioral science calls "variable ratio reinforcement": the reward does not appear every time, and it is not known when it will appear. Precisely for this reason, people are more likely to keep repeating the same action.
Neuroscience research on dopamine also reminds us that dopamine is not simply equivalent to "pleasure." It is closely related to reward expectation, learning, and action motivation. Research on reward prediction error has found that when the actual reward received exceeds expectations, the brain uses this discrepancy to update its assessment of the behavior and its potential returns. The information stream of short videos constantly creates the possibility that "the next one may be better," so viewing forms a continuous process of "expectation—outcome—re-expectation."
This also explains a seemingly strange phenomenon: sometimes we do not feel that what we are watching is particularly good, yet we still keep scrolling. What sustains the behavior is no longer entirely "liking," but also "wanting" the possible stimulation that may appear next. This is where the connection to deep thinking arises. Deep thinking usually cannot provide instant rewards continuously. Reading a difficult book, understanding a complex concept, or writing a long article often requires going through a period without obvious returns. You may read ten pages and still be confused, think for half an hour without an answer, or write two thousand words only to find at the end that the direction was wrong.
If a media experience repeatedly trains us to expect faster stimulation, more frequent changes, and more immediate feedback, then what truly changes may, first of all, not be "intelligence," but rather our tolerance for the phases of waiting, difficulty, and low stimulation in cognitive activity.
What Is Attention Practicing
Deep thinking also has a basic condition: sustained attention.
Traditional linear reading requires attention to advance step by step over a relatively stable object. One concept needs to be connected to preceding concepts, one argument needs to retain the premises established earlier, and a full-length novel even requires the reader to maintain the relationships among characters, plot, and background across several hundred pages.
What short videos train, however, is another way of attending.
Rapid editing, jump cuts, high-density visual stimulation, subtitles, music, and emotional hooks constantly compete for the viewer's attention. Every time a new stimulus appears, attention needs to be redirected. Over a long period of time (久而久之, jiu er jiu zhi - "long time, and then, long time"), we may become increasingly accustomed to quickly discovering new stimuli, while remaining on a single object for a sustained period becomes more difficult. Objectively speaking, both of these abilities are themselves important. Rapid scanning, quick recognition, and flexible switching can even be an advantage in a highly information-dense environment. The problem is that the brain is plastic: frequently used cognitive modes may become more skilled and more automatic.
So, when you pick up your phone, you need to ask yourself: what exactly is my attention practicing every day?
Can We Still Remember the Relationships Among Fragments?
Deep thinking also cannot do without memory.
Thinking about a complex problem requires retaining information acquired at different times and establishing connections among it. Understanding is not simply knowing more facts, but being able to know why one fact is related to another.
The way short videos organize information poses a special challenge to this process. After one video ends, the next may immediately enter a completely different character, place, theme, and mood. In one second the viewer is watching international politics, in the next second may enter cooking, and in the next, pets, disease knowledge, or celebrity gossip. The brain constantly establishes new contexts and constantly leaves the context it has just established. The result is that we gain a very familiar feeling: having watched a great deal, yet being unable to say what we have watched.
We may remember a particular striking number, a memorable quote, a face, or some intense emotion, yet forget what background it came from, what the evidence was, and what qualifications surrounded it before and after. This is the "fragmentation" of memory. It does not constitute a special type of memory, but rather means that salient information may be encoded relatively strongly, while the background, relationships, and continuous context among pieces of information may not receive equally full processing.
And deep thinking occurs precisely in relationships. It requires people to refrain, for the moment, from rushing toward the next stimulus, and instead to linger among the information already at hand: what is the basis for this judgment? Does another fact contradict it? Is there another explanation for this matter? Could my original judgment possibly be wrong?
What are called cognitive habits are precisely formed through this kind of day-to-day practice: when faced with complex problems, do we habitually analyze deeply or quickly reach conclusions; when faced with different information, can we establish sustained and coherent connections; after forming a judgment, are we still willing to reflect on and test our own judgment.
The Real Danger Facing Deep Thinking
The question of "whether scrolling through short videos affects deep thinking" cannot be simply answered "yes" or "no." Current research is not sufficient to prove that as long as one scrolls through short videos over the long term, one will definitely lose the capacity for deep thinking. People's cognition is simultaneously influenced by education, reading, work, social interaction, sleep, exercise, and a great many other activities.
What truly warrants vigilance is a cognitive mode gradually becoming our default mode. When boredom arises, are we increasingly naturally seeking stimulation? When understanding requires time, are we increasingly quickly exiting? When a problem cannot be explained clearly within dozens of seconds, are we increasingly inclined to accept a short, vivid, and certain answer? When faced with conflicting information, do we still have the patience to hold it all in our minds at once, rather than immediately choosing the conclusion that best fits our existing position?
Deep thinking is not some kind of "ability" fixedly stored in the brain. It is at the same time a cognitive habit that requires repeated practice: being willing to linger, being able to tolerate temporary incomprehension, connecting scattered pieces of information, allowing the question to continue existing before reaching a conclusion, and re-examining one's judgment after forming it.
From this perspective, short videos actually place a more everyday question before us: as our fingers become increasingly accustomed to swiping upward, are we still leaving the brain enough time not to swipe away?
(The author is an executive council member of the Chinese Communication Association and a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University.)
Return to TopBy: 顾伯冲
Not long ago, I ran into an old friend whom I had not seen for many years and who devotes himself wholeheartedly to scholarship. Meeting again after a long separation (久别重逢, jiu bie chong feng - "long time, separate, again, meet"), we chatted at leisure and were filled with countless emotions (感慨万千, gan kai wan qian - "feel, express, ten thousand, various"). When the conversation turned to the age of artificial intelligence, I suddenly noticed a hint of ease and relief in his brow and in his words: now that AI serves as an assistant, there is no need to spend all day in the library leafing through weighty classics, nor to burn the midnight oil night after night — much knowledge and many drafts can be generated in an instant. He also said that scholars of old who bumped into trees in the forest while walking and reading were admirable; if people still bumped into trees today, they would truly make others laugh their heads off. In his view, AI has cast off the heavy shackles on scholarship, learning can finally say goodbye to the tedium of deep thought or intense contemplation (苦思冥想, ku si ming xiang - "bitter, think, dark, imagine"), and the acquisition of knowledge has become easy and convenient.
After hearing this, I fell into deep thought for a long while. This old friend's sentiment is also the mindset of many people today. With the explosive development of AI technology, an unprecedented (前所未有, qian suo wei you - "before, ever, not, have") transformation is sweeping in, profoundly changing every aspect of human society, including the conditions under which scholars pursue learning. In daily life, we see everywhere that from literature retrieval, text summarization, sentence translation, and organization of viewpoints to comparison of historical materials, framework construction, and polishing of papers, all kinds of AI tools can almost take on most of the basic work in academic research. At the same time, AI has also penetrated comprehensively into office work, creative work, and other scenarios — one need only input a command to quickly generate copy, solve difficult problems, and produce a complete plan. As an important production tool of the digital age, AI is a dividend of the times that technological progress has brought to the whole of society. This efficient and convenient experience has given wings to many people's advance toward the depth and breadth of knowledge, but it has also allowed some people to gradually grow accustomed to "stretching out a hand for results," to become lax and slothful at heart, treating AI as a "master key" and discarding the normal state of scholarship that involves poring over books and delving deep into research, believing that technology can replace all the hard work of learning and thinking.
Needless to say, with regard to the "intermediary" nature of AI, we are fortunate to have encountered the age of artificial intelligence. After all, the progress of human civilization has always been accompanied by the making and invention of tools, and the capability and degree of development of tools are also an important marker and embodiment of the degree of human civilization. However, the essence of artificial intelligence is to integrate existing data and replicate existing experience, and it has a strong tool-like attribute. But a tool is, after all, a tool — no matter how vast the database, its capacity is still finite. AI can provide standardized articles and can give standard answers, but the richness of human nature, the authenticity of emotions, and the warmth of words all require people to perceive and supplement them through deep reading and thinking — this AI cannot replace. Moreover, higher-order wisdom such as a person's taste, judgment, courage, discernment, and intuition simply cannot be encoded. If one relies solely on AI's ready-made results and skips the stages of hard thinking, hard reading, and hard practice, it may seem to save time and effort, but in reality it is the lazy growth of thought, and one ultimately degenerates into a "knowledge porter" who only receives answers and cannot think independently. In that case, thinking becomes homogenized and creation becomes assembly-line work, and what we lose then is not only individual distinctiveness, but also the endless and continuous vitality (生生不息, sheng sheng bu xi - "birth, birth, not, cease") of a society's innovation.
This gives rise to the following question: in an age when AI can "read on our behalf, analyze on our behalf, and think on our behalf," do we still need slow reading, close reading, and thorough reading? Have traditional ways of learning and thinking already become outdated? Amid the tide of technological iteration, re-clarifying the original meaning of thinking and reshaping the way we learn is a required course for everyone in this era. Of course, the answer is self-evident or obvious without needing words (不言而喻, bu yan er yu - "not, speak, yet, understand"). However convenient AI may be in a thousand ways, the "painstaking effort" of scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge can never be replaced. In a certain sense, the true meaning of learning has never been limited to knowing the final answer; it lies even more in the confusion, deliberation, review, and sedimentation of the process of exploration. One must understand that the most valuable thing in learning and work is not the final standard answer, but the groping, trial and error, and review. To skip these "troublesome steps" is to actively weaken one's abilities of discernment, judgment, and creation.
AI was born to empower learning and improve efficiency, not to replace learning and dissolve hard work. Scholarship is like carving jade — what matters is accumulating bit by bit over a long period (日积月累, ri ji yue lei - "day, accumulate, month, pile up") and sustained, long-term effort. Gazing across the long river of history and looking far and wide, which of the great masters, literary giants, and eminent scholars who made major achievements in academia did not accompany their life's journey with diligence: Leonardo da Vinci was able to create world-famous paintings such as The Last Supper because in his youth he had the foundation of painting eggs; Shakespeare was able to make the characters in his plays utter words that are meaningful and thought-provoking (意味隽永, yi wei juan yong - "meaning, long-lasting, profound, eternal") and full of wit and humor (妙趣横生, miao qu heng sheng - "wonderful, interest, sideways, arise") because in his early years he accumulated an astonishing vocabulary, which scholars estimate at about 20,000 words; Huang Kan treated Shuowen Jiezi as his daily lesson, repeatedly punctuating, reading, and annotating it, and it was precisely by relying on this solid foundation that he ultimately became a master of Chinese classical studies. Under the wave of intelligence, we can use AI to broaden the boundaries of knowledge, make up for shortcomings in cognition, and optimize learning methods, saving time and energy spent on mechanical repetition — but we must never use this as an excuse to give up deep thinking, shed the tenacity of research, or discard the original heart of diligent study, and we must shift the focus of lifelong learning from "knowledge acquisition" to "shaping of thought," so as to preserve one's human subjectivity. Only this kind of day-after-day reading, repeated and repeated research, and accumulated sedimentation over time can become genuine learning and real ability that is internalizing knowledge or values within oneself (内化于心, nei hua yu xin - "inside, transform, at, heart") and manifested in action — a life experience that intelligent algorithms can never replicate.
Of course, we are not demonizing AI, still less do we need to resist technological progress. AI technology will continue to iterate and evolve, and the capabilities of tools will keep improving, but the hard work of study and thinking can never be abandoned. We should use intelligent technology to empower learning, while at the same time holding fast to the resolve for focused and painstaking research, consolidating the foundation through down-to-earth hard study, and seeking true knowledge and true scriptures amid the changes of the times.
Return to TopBy: 杨梅
At the scene of the Munao Zongge festival
In recent times, Munao Zongge, a national-level intangible cultural heritage folk music-and-dance work originating from Dehong, Yunnan, has sparked a phenomenal wave of viral dissemination across the entire internet. Many netizens came to know this work through short videos: Munao Zongge March, originally limited to performances in local festival ceremonies, moved from being a niche local accompaniment piece into the view of hundreds of millions through short videos. This round of popularity did not rely on commercial marketing or celebrity hype; it began with short videos of the festival scene casually shot by netizens, which had only 420,000 views. As various forms of secondary creation fermented, according to statistics from the Dehong Prefecture culture and tourism department, as of September 2, 2026, the topic's total online playback volume exceeded 10 billion, with Douyin topic playback surpassing 7.3 billion; it also went abroad, garnering a large amount of imitation and dissemination on overseas social platforms. AI arrangement and cover performances broadened the channels of dissemination, but looking past the bustling surface of the billion-level traffic, what truly unlocks the inheritance code behind this intangible cultural heritage's breakout lies not in technological packaging or online gimmicks, but in the cultural foundation and artistic craftsmanship accumulated through decades of sedimentation and the continuous deep cultivation by literary and artistic workers from different backgrounds.
"Munao Zongge" is rooted in the soil of millennia-old folk customs on the frontier, carrying the spiritual sustenance of the people's prayers for blessings, striving, joyful unity, and solidarity; it is an intangible cultural heritage treasure of profound depth and solemn ceremony. In the 1990s, Munao Zongge March was formally completed, serving the ceremonial rituals of local traditional festivals for a long time, passed down through offline performances and passing on knowledge orally and through personal demonstration (口传心授, kou chuan xin shou - "mouth, transmit; heart, teach"). Constrained by limitations of time, space, and dissemination carriers, a large number of local intangible cultural heritage works are kept hidden away from the public eye (藏在深闺, cang zai shen gui - "hide, in; deep, boudoir"); this is not because they lack cultural value, but because they lack the fine polishing passed down from generation to generation and artistic transformation suited to the times, making it difficult to form fine works recognized and resonated with by the general public. This is also a common ailment in the living inheritance of many traditional folk customs.
The core code behind Munao Zongge's ability to break through regional limitations and achieve billion-level dissemination lies in the deep cultivation and inheritance carried out by literary and artistic workers from different backgrounds who, based on the original source, jointly created in relay, and made sustained, long-term effort. The maturation of the work is a complete chain of artistic relay: Shi Legan, based on traditional musical material, created the march version of Munao Zongge, preserving the majestic and profound spiritual core of festival culture; Zhen Zhen continued by writing lyrics, giving the originally instrumental melody a text that could be sung and resonated with; Yuan Zhiping, a first-class actor of the Yunnan Provincial Song and Dance Theater, innovatively choreographed a male group knife-dance segment based on the original music, adding wings of online dissemination to the work.
Online, there is often the playful quip of "half-hour quick choreography," and many netizens easily confuse this performance version with the original collective dance steps of Munao Zongge. In the traditional Munao Zongge, ten thousand people dance together, with dance steps that are uniform and consistent in appearance or action (整齐划一, zheng qi hua yi - "neat, even; draw, one"), closely following the beat and advancing forward; the men hold long knives, symbolizing pioneering a new path or field (开山辟路, kai shan pi lu - "open, mountain; hack, road") and defending the homeland. The moving forward with unstoppable momentum (一往无前, yi wang wu qian - "one, go; no, front") steps symbolize only advancing, never retreating, trampling down thorns. The male group knife dance choreographed by Yuan Zhiping extracts the traditional knife-dance techniques of the Jingpo people and has been praised as showing strong character or spirit through a single stroke (一刀见风骨, yi dao jian feng gu - "one, knife; see, wind, bone") and a performance so powerful it moves the entire land (一舞动山河, yi wu dong shan he - "one, dance; move, mountain, river"), completing an artistic sublimation on the basis of respecting the original culture, fully displaying the beauty of masculine strength. Many netizens were initially attracted precisely by this segment that combines traditional heritage with modern aesthetics. The march melody born in 1991, lyrics suited to the times, plus the ten-thousand-person collective dance and Yuan Zhiping's group knife-dance creation — the combined efforts of multiple parties produced this fine work. The work preserves the solemn core of traditional ritual while adapting to the scenes of mass dissemination, creating the infectious power of ten thousand people dancing together with magnificent momentum. Subsequent arrangement optimization and online secondary creation only empowered dissemination and never departed from the folk origin.
The work moves the vast audience not only because the melody suits dissemination, but also because of its weighty spiritual power. The music, lyrics, and dance are highly integrated, reflecting the spiritual character of courage, resoluteness, diligence, and simplicity — virtues inherited in an unbroken line from China's fine traditional culture. The grand ten-thousand-person collective dance is magnificent and vast; the knife dance of Yuan Zhiping's team is vigorous and powerful; music, text, and dance echo each other, forming a full artistic appeal. It is precisely this inheritance method of staying rooted in the source and polishing through multi-party relay that gives Munao Zongge a lasting vitality distinct from ordinary online hot topics. Its rhythm is sonorous and suited to collective performance; its melody is spirited, its lyrics simple, carrying the cultural memory of the frontier. At a time when the public thirsts for uplifting and positive spiritual nourishment, this work rooted in the soil, with backbone and warmth, moves the broad community of netizens; many stop to watch, imitate, and learn, feeling the surging passion within the melody and dance steps. This confirms the law of the living inheritance of folk art: what truly breaks out and spreads in intangible cultural heritage relies not on momentary traffic, but on long-term refinement into fine works.
Digital media is merely an amplifier of dissemination, not the fundamental reason for the breakout. Short videos lowered the threshold for public re-creation, allowing the folk custom that had been sedimented for decades to quickly reach younger groups. But most online hot topics are fleeting; the reason Munao Zongge's popularity has continued to rise is that it possesses a solid folk heritage and carefully polished artistic quality, with strong cultural carrying capacity. This popularity has also nourished local culture in reverse. Munao Zongge has greatly enhanced the national recognition of the Dehong Munao Zongge Festival; large numbers of tourists have rushed to the frontier for immersive festival experiences, transforming online traffic into offline cultural-tourism vitality and inheritance effectiveness, allowing the ancient intangible cultural heritage to truly come alive and be passed on.
In the process of whole-population co-creation, this inheritance code has been sustained. Professional creators uphold cultural authenticity and refine with meticulous care; ordinary audiences, moved by the work, spontaneously perform and disseminate it. The public's affection is recognition of quality folk culture, turning niche local intangible cultural heritage into a cultural treasure shared, guarded, and enjoyed by all. At the same time, dissemination also brings real tests. The fragmented extraction of short videos easily strips away the complete folk-custom context, and some traffic-driven adaptations weaken the cultural heritage. Traffic can assist inheritance, but it cannot replace inheritance. Bustle lacking reverence and deep cultivation is, after all, only a brief carnival.
Looking back at the journey of Munao Zongge from local ceremonial accompaniment to a billion-level cultural fine work, its rise to fame was not accidental, but the inevitable result of generations of literary and artistic people rooting themselves in the frontier, revering tradition, and polishing fine works. Looking to the future, the demonstrative value of Munao Zongge is not limited to being an online hot topic. As the whole-network popularity continues to ferment, it can be foreseen that the local cultural-tourism market will welcome a new round of warming, and the Munao Zongge Festival will attract more tourists from all over to experience the spectacle of ten thousand people dancing together. But popularity does not equal long-term dividends; one must guard against the alienation of traffic and avoid entertainment-oriented dilution of the cultural source. How to transform online traffic into offline cultural-tourism experiences and inheritance effectiveness, achieving the shift from "sudden fame" to "lasting fame," is a topic requiring sustained reflection.
The living inheritance of traditional intangible cultural heritage is not static preservation or rigid adherence, but a growth process rooted in the source, advancing steadily with the times (与时俱进, yu shi ju jin - "with, time; together, advance"), and refined generation by generation. The breakout of Munao Zongge enlightens us that the best inheritance of folk art is to deeply cultivate local heritage with professional craftsmanship, respond to public needs with sincere works, and extend cultural vitality through continuous polishing. Only by holding fast to the source, settling the mind to polish, and connecting with the times and the hearts of the people can traditional folk customs step out of the countryside, enter the public eye, and achieve long-lasting transmission.
Return to TopBy: 彭先觉
Peng Xianjue is an expert in atomic nuclear physics and nuclear energy. He was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1999. He has served as Director of the Science and Technology Committee of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, Director of the National Magnetic Confinement Fusion Expert Committee, and Vice President of the Chinese Nuclear Society. He has long been engaged in theoretical research and design of nuclear weapons, making important contributions to bringing China's nuclear weapons design level into the world's advanced ranks on major indicators. In 2008, he originally proposed the concept of the Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid reactor (Z-FFR). He has won 4 first prizes, 2 second prizes, and 2 third prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
Energy is the most important material foundation for human survival and development. Obtaining clean, economical, convenient, and sustainable energy is an important goal that countries around the world are striving to achieve. Among future energy sources, the development and application of fusion energy has particularly important significance. China has included the development of fusion energy science and technology in its national long-term planning and the 15th Five-Year Plan, striving to grasp the fate of future energy in its own hands.
Basic Principles of Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear energy includes nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fission is the splitting of one heavy atomic nucleus into two or more medium-mass atomic nuclei, while nuclear fusion is the combination of two light atomic nuclei into one heavier atomic nucleus. Whether fission or fusion, the energy source is the mass deficit that occurs before and after the nuclear reaction. According to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence relation, this mass conversion contains enormous energy.
The conditions for nuclear fusion to occur are very stringent, mainly because there is a strong Coulomb repulsion force between atomic nuclei. The nuclei participating in the reaction must have sufficient kinetic energy to approach each other, thereby having the opportunity to undergo a fusion reaction. Generally, only light nuclei with small atomic numbers have a relatively high probability of undergoing such reactions. For example, the fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen, is the easiest to occur and is also the focus of scientists' research. The main method to increase the probability of fusion reactions is to heat the deuterium-tritium fuel to temperatures of over one hundred million degrees. At this time, the fuel is in a plasma state, and a large number of atomic nuclei increase reaction opportunities through random collisions, so nuclear fusion reactions are also called thermonuclear reactions. The well-known thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) all derive their names from this.
For a fusion energy system, we are first concerned with the energy gain issue. The ratio of the energy released by fusion to the energy input from outside is usually called the fusion scientific gain. Furthermore, the ratio of the electrical energy output from fusion to the electrical energy input from outside is called the fusion engineering gain. There is also a vivid concept called "ignition," just like a match lighting a torch. It refers to the state in which, after external auxiliary means are withdrawn, the system temperature is maintained or continues to rise solely by the energy released by thermonuclear reactions, and the fusion reaction is sustained by itself. For example, the well-known U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved a historic breakthrough in "ignition" at the end of 2022, with a fusion scientific gain reaching 1.5.
Main Technical Routes for Controlled Nuclear Fusion
The main approaches to achieving artificial controlled nuclear fusion on Earth are inertial confinement fusion and magnetic confinement fusion. There are also some approaches that lie between the two, namely the so-called magneto-inertial confinement, but they can be classified into the former two categories according to their main characteristics.
First is inertial confinement fusion. Inertial confinement fusion uses the energy provided by a driver to implode and compress a target pellet containing deuterium-tritium fuel, causing it to reach high temperature and high density and thereby enter a state of ignition and self-sustaining combustion. Due to the constraint of the inertia of high-speed centripetal motion, the fuel releases sufficient energy before it has time to fly apart significantly, and the entire process is completed on a nanosecond timescale. Inertial confinement fusion operates in a pulsed manner, with each target pellet's energy release equivalent to a miniature hydrogen bomb explosion. By controlling the scale and frequency of energy release, and through the design of the target chamber and blanket, safe quasi-continuous operation of the system can be achieved. Our research shows that to achieve gigajoule-level fusion energy release, the driver must deliver more than 10 megajoules of energy to the target pellet in about 10 nanoseconds. Currently, only Z-pinch electromagnetic drivers and lasers possess this capability. Laser fusion technology is mainly applied to weapons physics and high-energy-density physics research and, in principle, does not support energy applications. The Z-pinch driver technology is simple, low-cost, energy-sufficient, highly efficient in conversion, and has the potential for repetitive-frequency long-life operation. It is more suitable for development into a fusion-fission hybrid energy source, enhancing overall competitiveness.
The basic physics of inertial confinement fusion is the same as the hydrogen bomb process, with relatively complete theoretical descriptions and high confidence in numerical simulations. This has been proven by hydrogen bomb tests, NIF facility experiments, and a large number of laboratory decomposition experiments. We have carried out innovative design and optimization of targets for energy application purposes, and the feasibility of energy application is expected to be verified on an electromagnetically driven large scientific facility to be built around 2030. If this goal is achieved, it will greatly enhance the international community's confidence in the development of fusion energy. Aiming at energy application goals, we are accelerating the development of Z-pinch drivers with repetitive-frequency operation capability, which may drive a 200-megawatt-class fusion unit. According to this concept, 12 fusion units combined can form a million-kilowatt-class pure fusion power plant, but such a plant would find it difficult to achieve tritium self-sufficiency and would be costly, making it not a competitive energy system.
Second is magnetic confinement fusion. Magnetic confinement fusion uses external means to heat low-density deuterium-tritium plasma to high temperatures, while using magnetic fields to confine the plasma. Its original intention is to achieve sustained fusion nuclear reaction energy release. We know that charged particles move along magnetic field lines in a magnetic field. If the magnetic field lines form closed loops, woven into a magnetic cage, then high-energy charged particles will not come into contact with the container wall, and the system may operate continuously. Compared with inertial confinement, magnetically confined plasma has lower density and longer confinement time, but similar temperature. Regardless of the fusion method, the product of plasma density, confinement time, and plasma temperature—the so-called fusion triple product—must meet certain requirements to achieve fusion gain.
Magnetic confinement fusion research has long been in an open state, with full international cooperation and exchange, and relatively obvious progress. After China joined the ITER program, the level of magnetic confinement fusion research has been qualitatively improved, already entering the world's first tier, and China holds a leading position in long-pulse operation of non-deuterium-tritium plasma, ITER procurement package tasks, and fusion engineering construction.
Overall, magnetic confinement fusion technology is very complex, and steady-state operation control of burning plasma is very difficult. Artificial intelligence may help reduce the probability of major plasma disruptions, but it cannot completely eliminate such events. Considering that the thermal and mechanical properties of plasma-facing materials will seriously degrade under long-term irradiation by high-energy neutrons, superimposing major plasma disruption events at this time will bring unbearable thermal and mechanical impacts to the first wall and divertor.
Nuclear Fusion as a Future Energy Source Still Faces Multiple Constraints
Among known energy types, nuclear fusion can be said to be the ideal energy source in the minds of the vast majority of people. We often see statements in popular science articles such as: the energy released by fusion of deuterium in one liter of seawater is equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline; fusion energy is inexhaustible and unlimited. The premise of such statements is the commercial application of deuterium-deuterium fusion. It is now clear that deuterium-tritium fusion is the easiest to achieve, but the deuterium-tritium system still faces great challenges in developing into a mature fusion energy source in the short term. From the perspective of energy balance, we have studied the burning problem of the deuterium-deuterium system. The conclusion is that the energy provided externally to maintain continuous burning of the system is far greater than the energy released by fusion, so it is difficult to make it into an energy source. Therefore, fusion energy can only burn deuterium-tritium, and the energy supply time of pure fusion actually depends on the economically obtainable reserves of lithium and beryllium on Earth.
The energy supply time of lithium is on the order of hundreds to thousands of years. The lithium isotope lithium-6 can produce tritium through reaction with neutrons. High-energy neutrons reacting with beryllium can increase the number of neutrons, improving tritium production efficiency. The resource reserves of metallic beryllium are only about 85,000 tons, which cannot support large-scale development of fusion energy. In principle, lead can replace beryllium, but this would bring more serious challenges to tritium self-sufficiency. Proven reserves of metallic lithium are about 37 million tons, with each ton containing 27 petajoules of fusion energy (1 peta = 10^15). In 2024, the total global primary energy supply was 592 exajoules (1 exa = 10^18). Since fusion mainly supplies energy through power generation, assuming a thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency of 1/3, the energy supply time of metallic lithium is about 500 years. Considering that more lithium resources may be discovered in the future, the energy supply time of lithium is on the order of hundreds to thousands of years.
Fusion reactors have not yet formed a closed technical loop, and commercialization carries great uncertainty. Currently, the main achievements in controlled nuclear fusion are concentrated in the field of plasma physics. A magnetic confinement fusion scientific gain greater than 1 is expected to be experimentally confirmed in the 2030s, and the scientific issues of deuterium-tritium burning plasma physics still require in-depth research. Subsequently, it is also necessary to break through a fusion engineering gain greater than 1. Whether tritium can achieve self-sufficiency is currently undetermined, because experimental data on real blanket structures are very scarce, and the impact of high-temperature tritium permeation is also difficult to assess at present. The development of radiation-resistant materials for fusion reactors under high-energy neutron irradiation, as desired, is progressing slowly and may become a bottleneck for long-term operation. Blanket heat exchange research is still very preliminary, lacking relevant test benches and facilities. Overall, breakthroughs are urgently needed in the above key areas, and only final integrated verification can form a closed technical loop.
Fusion reactors face serious challenges in availability and economy. Magnetic confinement fusion reactors represented by ITER are highly complex. For future commercial fusion reactors, consideration must be given to the reliability, availability, maintainability, and inspectability (RAMI) of long-term system operation, as well as economics. Some foreign companies claim fusion commercialization by 2035, which is highly misleading. By 2035, it may be possible to build a device with a certain scale of energy release that can demonstrate short-term power generation, but its fusion gain and annual effective utilization hours will certainly not meet commercial power generation requirements. In addition, a fusion reactor with one million kilowatts of electrical power, whether magnetically confined or inertially confined, would have construction costs on the order of 100 billion yuan, five times that of an indigenous third-generation pressurized water reactor. It is estimated that, following existing technical paths, doubling the installed capacity of fusion reactors can only achieve a cost reduction of 2%–8%, far lower than the 24% learning rate of photovoltaic power stations. The early-stage cost reduction of fusion reactors is extremely slow, and there is no possibility of large-scale expansion in the short term. If there is no disruptive technological breakthrough, in the foreseeable future, for example by 2060, fusion reactors will most likely be unable to compete economically with fission reactors.
The safety and radioactivity of fusion reactors need careful handling. Compared with fission reactors, fusion reactors have better inherent safety, will not have core meltdown accidents, and will not produce long-lived radioactive nuclides. However, fusion reactor operation involves large amounts of tritium, which is highly radioactive, and environmental emissions need to be strictly controlled. In addition, high-energy neutrons and structural materials will inevitably undergo activation reactions, producing large quantities of products with half-lives ranging from several years to several decades. The total loading of various materials in the fusion reactor blanket is on the order of thousands of tons, an order of magnitude higher than that of fission reactors, and these materials also need careful handling after removal.
The Way Out for Fusion Energy Application Lies in the Combination of Fusion and Fission
Fusion and fission both belong to nuclear energy; they share the same origin and complement each other. The first-load tritium required for fusion usually needs to be produced by fission reactors. If a fusion reactor cannot achieve tritium self-sufficiency and there is a shortfall during operation, then dedicated fission reactors would also need to be equipped to produce tritium. The development of fusion reactor materials, lithium enrichment, radioactive waste treatment, and the installation and construction of fusion reactor main machines all heavily depend on the facilities and skills accumulated by the nuclear industry over the long term. Therefore, some believe that the way out for fusion energy application lies in the deep combination of fusion and fission. The Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid system can give full play to the respective advantages of fusion and fission, maximizing strengths and avoiding weaknesses, and can form an energy solution with comprehensive competitiveness.
The Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid reactor (Z-FFR) system consists of a fusion unit with 200 MW of fusion power and a deep subcritical blanket. High-energy fusion neutrons induce fission in the blanket, achieving energy amplification and neutron multiplication. The blanket energy amplification factor is greater than 10, and the tritium breeding ratio can reach 1.2. Since the scale of fusion energy release is reduced by a factor of 10, the economy is greatly improved, and the irradiation damage to structural materials from high-energy neutrons is greatly alleviated. Due to the relatively high tritium breeding ratio, while achieving tritium self-sufficiency, it can also produce about 1 kilogram of additional tritium per year.
Some people worry that the introduction of fission into the hybrid reactor will produce long-lived radioactive nuclides and that it is not a clean energy source. In fact, we can adopt a "dry method" for the nuclear fuel cycle and put all nuclides with half-lives of more than 10 years back into the blanket for incineration, while other shorter-lived nuclides can be extracted for medical or industrial applications. Compared with pure fusion reactors, the amount of radioactive material requiring treatment is basically equivalent, and it will not cause adverse impacts on the environment.
The hybrid reactor is divided into a ground level and an underground level, with strict physical isolation between the two levels. The driver is placed on the ground level, covering an area of about 10,000 square meters. The nuclear-related parts are located in the underground level, including the target chamber, blanket, target replacement mechanism, target and RTL assembly room, refueling mechanism, "simple dry method" processing room, and power generation system.
To date, Z-FFR has completed relatively comprehensive and in-depth theoretical research and partial experimental research, achieving a closed loop from physics to technology. No fundamental or insurmountable obstacles at the engineering or materials level have been found, and work on the engineering verification and demonstration stage can be advanced. According to relevant research concepts, efforts are being made to achieve commercial application around 2040.
The main advantages of the Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid reactor are as follows. First, inherent safety. The hybrid reactor is in a deep subcritical state. Combined with an advanced passive residual heat removal system, it can eliminate criticality safety accidents and ensure residual heat safety. Tritium-related operations are arranged underground, ensuring that no tritium leakage occurs. Based on the above safety characteristics, the hybrid reactor can be built close to cities, forming a safer and more reliable distributed energy pattern. Second, economy and efficiency. The construction cost of a one-million-kilowatt hybrid reactor power plant is about 20 billion yuan, comparable to an indigenous third-generation pressurized water reactor. The use of combined heat and power can further improve energy utilization efficiency and improve economics. Third, efficient resource utilization. With the support of high-energy neutrons, the utilization rate of uranium and thorium resources can exceed 90%. Based on the estimate that a one-million-kilowatt hybrid reactor power plant consumes about 1 ton of uranium and 350 kilograms of natural lithium per year, the uranium and lithium resources on Earth's land can provide energy for all of humanity for tens of thousands of years. Fourth, flexibility and compatibility. The system can make full use of spent fuel from thermal reactors and depleted uranium, and can strongly support the rapid development of third-generation thermal reactors. Since the output electrical power can be rapidly and greatly adjusted, it is easy to form an efficient intelligent energy system with renewable energy.
In summary, the ideal future energy source should be an efficient intelligent energy system formed by the combination of nuclear energy and renewable energy. Nuclear energy is expected to assume the role of base-load power in the future energy system and provide support for achieving a power generation share of about 20% by 2060. At the same time, fusion energy is still in the key stage of moving from scientific verification to engineering verification. It is neither appropriate to underestimate its long-term value nor to make overly optimistic judgments divorced from the technological stage and resource constraints. A more prudent path is to continue to advance diversified explorations such as magnetic confinement, inertial confinement, and especially the Z-pinch fusion-fission hybrid reactor, while giving full play to the respective advantages of fission energy and renewable energy, forming a safe, clean, economical, and sustainable combined energy system. There is no single answer to the energy transition, and the future energy landscape is also unlikely to be one in which a single technology "dominates the world." Only by adhering to scientific demonstration, engineering verification, and prudent decision-making, and by enhancing independent innovation capabilities through open cooperation, can we grasp the fate of future energy in our own hands.
Return to TopBy: 万劲波
Scientific and technological innovation is an inexhaustible driving force for the progress of human civilization. Building a strong science and technology nation requires both hard scientific and technological strength and cultural soft power. At present, the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is profoundly changing the way humanity produces and lives and the pattern of world development, and scientific and technological strength and innovation capacity are increasingly becoming the core competitiveness of countries, underpinned by innovation culture and innovation ecosystems. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that we must persist in cultivating an innovation culture, inherit the innovative genes of China's excellent traditional culture, create a favorable environment that encourages exploration and tolerates failure, and make advocating science and pursuing innovation becoming a widespread trend (蔚然成风, wei ran cheng feng - "weeds, naturally, become, wind") throughout society.
Innovation culture generally refers to the cultural forms related to scientific, technological, engineering, and industrial innovation activities, embodied centrally in the values, institutional norms, behavioral patterns, and environmental atmosphere of society, organizations, and groups regarding innovation, reflecting their values and beliefs, cognitions and attitudes, behavioral norms and habits, and social climate regarding innovation. These innovation-related value concepts and behavioral patterns are passed down from generation to generation through social learning and practice, influencing people imperceptibly (潜移默化, qian yi mo hua - "subtly, move, silently, transform") the action choices of individuals and groups.
In terms of content composition, innovation culture absorbs the spiritual cores of the scientific spirit and the spirit of scientists, the spirit of craftsmanship and the spirit of engineers, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit and the spirit of educators. The scientific spirit seeks truth and novelty, is rational and critical, and is the epistemological foundation for humanity to explore the unknown and pursue truth; the spirit of craftsmanship is striving for perfection (精益求精, jing yi qiu jing - "refine, seek, excellence"), focuses on quality, and is the practical guarantee for polishing creative ideas into reliable products; the entrepreneurial spirit dares to take risks and is good at pioneering, and is the driving engine for transforming scientific and technological achievements into real productive forces and new quality productive forces; the spirit of educators is willingly serving as a stepping stone for others (甘为人梯, gan wei ren ti - "willingly, be, person, ladder"), enlightening wisdom and nourishing hearts, allowing innovation to be passed on from generation to generation. These spirits each have their own emphasis and support each other, and running through them are the national spirit centered on patriotism, the spirit of the times centered on reform and innovation, the people-centered value orientation, the systematic concept following harmony between humanity and nature (天人合一, tian ren he yi - "heaven, man, combine, one") and harmonious coexistence, the cultural character marked by firmness and perseverance, constantly striving for self-improvement (自强不息, zi qiang bu xi - "self, strengthen, not, rest"), investigating things to attain knowledge (格物致知, ge wu zhi zhi - "investigate, things, extend, knowledge"), and applying knowledge to practical affairs (经世致用, jing shi zhi yong - "govern, world, extend, use"), the value orientation of self-confidence and self-reliance, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, problem orientation, striving upward and toward goodness, and embracing the world, as well as the inner pursuit of lasting love for and persistence in the cause of innovation.
In terms of hierarchical structure, innovation culture includes the levels of concepts, institutions, behavior, and environment. Concepts and value identification are the soul of innovation culture, norms and institutional arrangements are the guarantee of innovation culture, behavior and daily practice are the external manifestation of innovation culture, and environment and atmosphere are the ecological soil on which innovation culture depends for survival. Innovation incentives without institutional backing easily become mere slogans; innovation seeds lacking ecological cultivation find it difficult to grow into towering trees. The Chinese nation has possessed rich innovative cultural genes since ancient times: the enterprising spirit of "if one can make things new today, make them new every day, and make them new again," the wisdom of change in "although Zhou was an old state, its mission was to be renewed," the dialectical thinking of "when things are exhausted, they change; when they change, they become unobstructed; when they become unobstructed, they endure," and the humanistic spirit of "the world is for all," "striving for the highest good," and "embracing all things with great virtue"... all of these are sedimented in China's excellent traditional culture. To build a solid foundation of innovation culture for a strong science and technology nation, we must both trace the origins of Chinese civilization, deepen the historical heritage of China's excellent traditional culture, and inherit the outstanding innovativeness of Chinese civilization; and face modernization, face the world, and face the future, shaping the contemporary character of innovation culture through openness and cooperation, developing a socialist culture that is national, scientific, and popular, and cultivating an innovation culture suited to building a strong science and technology nation.
In terms of cultural characteristics, the innovative genes in China's excellent traditional culture are continuously transformed in contemporary innovation practice, forming several distinct qualities. These qualities share common features with the innovation cultures of various countries, but also have distinctive characteristics based on our own cultural traditions. First, seeking truth and being pragmatic, advocating science, pursuing excellence, valuing long-term scientific accumulation and the value of practical application, and insisting that innovation does not ask about background and heroes do not ask about origin; second, loving and persevering, daring to be the first, being brave in exploration, respecting the objective law that innovation "has only one chance in ten of success," and encouraging researchers to boldly enter "no-man's lands" and take on "tough bones"; third, self-confidence and self-reliance, upholding the subjectivity of Chinese culture, advancing high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology, building an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy and social sciences, and making innovation culture an important core of China's excellent traditional culture; fourth, openness and inclusiveness, encouraging bold trial and error, tolerating failure in exploration, breaking innovation boundaries through open collaboration, and sparking innovation through mutual learning among civilizations; fifth, inheritance and innovation, respecting historical traditions, persisting in carrying forward the past to open up the future (继往开来, ji wang kai lai - "continue, past, open, future"), achieving the goals of not forgetting the original, absorbing from the outside, and facing the future, and continuing the innovative cultural lineage of China's excellent traditional culture through creative transformation and innovative development. Among these, seeking truth and being pragmatic is the foundation, loving and persevering is the driving force, self-confidence and self-reliance is the backbone, openness and inclusiveness is the ecology, and inheritance and innovation is the path.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made arrangements for strengthening the popularization of science and technology, cultivating innovation culture, carrying forward the spirit of scientists, solidly advancing the building of a strong cultural nation, inheriting and carrying forward Chinese culture, and enhancing the communication power and influence of Chinese civilization. To build a strong science and technology nation and a strong cultural nation by 2035, we must both continuously produce major original and disruptive scientific and technological achievements and enhance hard scientific and technological strength, and continuously cultivate innovation culture, stimulate the cultural innovation and creative vitality of the entire nation, enhance the national cultural soft power and the international influence of Chinese culture, so that original scientific and technological ideas continue to emerge, innovative talents continue to grow, and scientific and technological progress better benefits the people. Building and practicing innovation culture requires the joint efforts of the scientific and technological community and the whole society: vigorously carrying forward the spirit of scientists, encouraging the vast number of researchers to have lofty ambitions (志存高远, zhi cun gao yuan - "will, exist, high, far"), love the country and dedicate themselves, and commit to innovation, while strengthening research integrity and the construction of work style and academic atmosphere, and promoting the formation of a clean and upright research ecology; continuously creating a social atmosphere that respects labor, respects knowledge, respects talent, and respects creation. When the scientific spirit, the spirit of craftsmanship, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the spirit of educators are widely promoted, innovation will no longer be just the cause of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and educators, but will become the common value pursuit of the entire nation and the whole society.
First, strengthen value guidance and make advocating innovation a social consensus.
Thought is the forerunner of action. To cultivate innovation culture, we must first address the issues of value orientation and ideological concepts. Promote the forward shift of innovation culture cultivation, deepen the reform of science education in primary and secondary schools, let scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and educators enter the classroom, and stimulate the innovative enthusiasm of young people. Tell innovation stories well through documentaries, converged media, thematic exhibitions, and other forms, enhance the influence and appeal of innovation culture, and let the whole society truly recognize the value of innovation, respect the laws of innovation, and honor innovative figures. To carry forward the scientific spirit, the spirit of craftsmanship, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the spirit of educators is to ensure that those who dare to innovate and delight in creating are respected, while establishing the concept of "everyone participates in innovation," so that "innovation does not ask about background and heroes do not ask about origin" is implemented, and the innovative wisdom hidden among hundreds of millions of people is fully released and innovative forces fully surge.
Second, improve institutional arrangements and perfect the institutional mechanisms supporting comprehensive innovation.
Institutions are the guarantee. To build an innovation culture, we must transform value identification and moral norms into institutional arrangements and rely on innovation-friendly institutional mechanisms to protect innovative enthusiasm. Continue to deepen the reform of the scientific and technological evaluation system, accelerate the "breaking of the four onlys," strengthen the orientation toward innovation capability, quality, effectiveness, and contribution, and make "value creation and value realization" the main theme of innovation. Continue to deepen the governance of "hats" in the scientific and educational community, and prevent simply determining salary and treatment or allocating innovation resources based on titles and honors. Strengthen research integrity building, rectify prominent problems in work style and academic atmosphere with stricter standards and more concrete measures, severely punish academic misconduct, and create a clean and upright research ecology. Improve the fault-tolerance and error-correction mechanism: basic research and frontier exploration should tolerate failure, while engineering development and product delivery must hold the bottom line of quality and safety responsibility. Strictly protect intellectual property rights, maintain a fair and competitive market environment, improve incentive and distribution mechanisms, let innovation and creation receive reasonable returns, and send a clear signal to society that "innovators get more, and those with higher skills get more."
Third, strengthen reform pilot demonstrations and cultivate an innovation-friendly micro-ecology.
The foundation of innovation lies in talent, and the behavioral state of research personnel directly reflects the effectiveness of innovation culture building at the institutional level. We can rely on national strategic scientific and technological forces to advance pilot reforms in innovation culture building, implement value guidance and institutional arrangements in institutional governance practice, and ensure that when researchers act according to advocated values, they can receive support and protection. To encourage original exploration, we must provide stable support and long evaluation cycles for high-value, high-risk exploration; to advocate collaborative tackling of key problems, we must fairly recognize the contributions of researchers in different departments and positions; to value talent cultivation, we must fully recognize educational efforts and support young talents in taking on major roles and playing leading parts; to tolerate failure in exploration, we must clarify the standards and procedures for exemption from liability when due diligence is exercised. Through sustained and fair institutional implementation, let the vast number of researchers truly feel that truth-seeking exploration is supported, actual contributions are recognized, and due-diligence exploration is protected, forming stable institutional expectations, which then precipitate into innovation culture.
Fourth, advance open collaboration and build an open innovation ecosystem with global competitiveness.
International cooperation is an important bond for scientific and technological innovation. Cultivating an open and inclusive innovation culture and creating a world-class research environment are inherent requirements for building an innovation ecosystem with global competitiveness and are also an indispensable cultural cornerstone for building a strong science and technology nation. The Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative provide important conceptual guidance for our country's participation in global governance, international cooperation, and the promotion of building a community with a shared future for mankind, with science, technology, and culture as important carriers. Uphold the subjectivity of Chinese culture, actively integrate into the global innovation network, and actively explore new channels and new models of international scientific and technological cooperation. Strengthen scientific and technological and people-to-people exchanges, and build a solid foundation of public opinion for international scientific and technological cooperation. Actively take the lead in initiating, organizing, and joining international big science plans and big science projects, build open and collaborative innovation scenarios, connect global innovation resources, and promote high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology through high-level open cooperation in science and technology. Deeply participate in global science and technology governance, support the establishment of and participation in international science and technology organizations, support various entities in broadly publicizing Chinese propositions and Chinese solutions, and enhance our country's voice and influence in the formulation of international science and technology rules and standards.
(The author is a researcher at the Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Return to TopBy: 陆杰华
Empty-nest elderly generally refers to elderly people who have no children or whose children do not live together with them in the same village (household). Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that by the end of 2021, the national population aged 60 and above was approximately 270 million; a 2021 sample survey showed that among the national population aged 60 and above, empty-nest elderly accounted for 59.7 percent. From this it can be estimated that China has approximately 160 million empty-nest elderly. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly states the need to "strengthen care and assistance for elderly people living alone at advanced ages and empty-nest elderly." Facing an empty-nest elderly group that is large in scale and continuously growing, filling the shortcomings in elderly care services for empty-nest elderly and solving the problem of elderly care for those living alone are urgent needs for improving the basic elderly care service system and responding to the new trend of socialized elderly care.
Serving the empty-nest elderly group well so that they can enjoy elderly care with peace of mind and dignity has multiple practical significances. First, strengthening the social safety net for people's livelihoods (筑牢民生兜底底线, zhu lao min sheng dou di di xian - "build, firm; people's livelihood, bottom, bottom line"), demonstrating the original aspiration of development for the people. Empty-nest elderly are a key group among the elderly population that concentrates risks, has weak safeguards, and is emotionally fragile; living alone exposes them to multiple difficulties such as safety hazards, lack of care, and spiritual isolation. Doing a good job in care and assistance for empty-nest elderly, precisely responding to their demands for daily care, safety protection, and spiritual comfort, and effectively safeguarding the basic rights and interests of hundreds of millions of elderly people are key measures for practicing the people-centered development philosophy, filling shortcomings in livelihood safeguards, and enhancing the people's sense of gain and happiness. Second, consolidating the foundation of social governance and maintaining social harmony and stability. The empty-nest elderly group of over 100 million is a typical social form formed in the process of China's population aging and continuous urbanization, and the level of their elderly care service safeguards is directly related to the quality and effectiveness of grassroots social governance. Improving the elderly care service system for empty-nest elderly, effectively resolving safety risks in elderly care for those living alone, and alleviating the real anxieties of the elderly group can prevent hidden dangers in elderly society governance, cultivate a social ethos of filial piety and respect for the elderly, and promote the formation of a good social atmosphere of intergenerational harmony and mutual assistance and friendship. Third, serving the overall national development strategy and helping implement the national strategy of actively responding to population aging. Elderly care for empty-nest elderly is a key and difficult point in China's elderly work. Doing this work well can further improve the tiered and categorized basic elderly care service system, optimize the governance structure of elderly society, offset the governance pressure brought by deep aging, promote China's elderly undertakings to achieve precise quality improvement and improving quality and increasing efficiency (提质增效, ti zhi zeng xiao - "raise, quality; increase, efficiency") on the basis of inclusive bottom-line safeguards, and build a solid livelihood support for the long-term balanced development of the population.
As the degree of empty-nesting among the elderly group continues to deepen, compounded by characteristics such as upgrading demands and urban-rural differentiation among the empty-nest elderly group, the current elderly care service safeguards still have stage-specific governance shortcomings. First, the adaptability of precise assistance mechanisms is insufficient, making it difficult to cope with the safety risks of living alone. Facing the continuously growing elderly group living alone, at advanced ages, with disabilities, and with cognitive impairment, some regions still mainly rely on routine inclusive visits, differentiated assistance measures for high-risk empty-nest elderly are not detailed enough, and the dynamic monitoring system for home safety inspections, emergency rescue, and daily guardianship is not sufficiently complete, making it difficult to effectively prevent elderly care safety hazards such as accidents while living alone and sudden illnesses. Second, the allocation of urban and rural elderly care resources is unbalanced, making it difficult to adapt to the differentiated elderly care pattern. Urban empty-nest elderly have relatively stable social security and medical safeguards, but old residential communities have weak elderly care supporting facilities, and problems of spiritual loneliness and emotional deficiency are prominent; rural empty-nest elderly are mostly a passively left-behind group formed by the outflow of the labor force for work, with limited income levels, insufficient grassroots medical and daytime care resources, mainly relying on mutual neighborhood assistance, and there are obvious shortcomings in the coverage of professional elderly care services. Third, the iteration of service supply lags behind, making it difficult to match the new demand for quality elderly care. At present, a certain number of empty-nest elderly have the real anxiety that no one will rescue them in the event of a sudden accident. Along with changes in the concepts of the new generation of elderly people, in addition to basic daily care, empty-nest elderly place more importance on health management, sustained psychological companionship, and opportunities for social participation, so as to alleviate the loneliness brought by living alone. At present, grassroots elderly care facilities have relatively single functions, channels for social forces to participate are still insufficient, existing services mostly focus on basic care such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation, and the supply of exclusive services such as emotional comfort and routine companionship for the state of living alone is insufficient, making it difficult to adapt to the personalized and quality-oriented elderly care demands of empty-nest elderly. Facing the above governance challenges, it is necessary to adhere to a systematic approach, strengthen overall policy implementation, and transform top-level design into peace of mind and dignity that hundreds of millions of empty-nest elderly can access at their doorsteps.
Establish and improve precise assistance mechanisms. In response to the prominent problems of absent children, lack of companionship, high sudden risks, and imprecise bottom-line safeguards for empty-nest elderly, establish a guardianship system adapted to the characteristics of living alone. First, establish a special survey ledger for empty-nest elderly to achieve full coverage of the group living alone. Break through the traditional scope of assistance for extremely poor elderly people, bring all elderly people living alone at advanced ages, with disabilities, or with serious illnesses whose children live in other places into key management, establish exclusive information lists based on the frequency of children's return visits, the duration of living alone, and physical risks, and precisely identify the high-risk group living alone. Second, implement differentiated assistance based on risk grading and living-alone grading. For high-risk empty-nest elderly who live alone for a long time and have no relatives nearby to care for them, increase the frequency of visits, focus on carrying out home safety hazard inspections, medication safety checks, and physical condition monitoring, and fill the shortcoming of lack of guardianship; for ordinary empty-nest elderly, routinely carry out warm visits and promptly grasp changes in their living-alone circumstances. Third, build a smart guardianship system for empty-nest elderly living alone to fill the gap in emergency response. Equip empty-nest elderly with smart devices such as emergency call, human body sensing, and fall alarm systems, open up the linkage channel among communities, grid workers, children in other places, and medical institutions, solve the core pain points that no one discovers or rescues empty-nest elderly in time in the event of sudden illness or accidental injury, and truly make elderly care while living alone more reassuring and more secure.
Optimize the allocation of differentiated urban and rural resources. Based on the differentiated characteristics of different causes, different pain points, and different safeguard foundations between urban and rural empty-nest elderly, implementing policies based on specific categories (分类施策, fen lei shi ce - "classify, policy, implement") and precisely filling weaknesses, narrow the elderly care gap between urban and rural empty-nest elderly groups. First, focus on the problem of loneliness of urban empty-nest elderly living alone and strengthen spiritual and dignity safeguards. In view of the characteristics that urban empty-nest elderly have sufficient safeguards but children live in separate households and lack daily companionship, rely on the renovation of old residential communities to improve community elderly care supporting facilities, routinely carry out cultural and sports activities exclusively for empty-nest elderly, psychological counseling, and neighborhood companionship services, and solve the dignified elderly care problem of urban empty-nest elderly who are "free from material worries but spiritually lonely." Second, focus on the problem of weak safeguards for rural left-behind empty-nest elderly and consolidate the bottom line of basic dignified elderly care. In view of the current situation of outflow of rural young and middle-aged people, passive left-behind of the elderly, low income, and lack of professional care, increase special investment in elderly care for rural empty-nest elderly, solidly implement family doctor home follow-up visits, chronic disease management, and mobile care services, replace the single model of mutual neighborhood assistance, enable rural empty-nest elderly to bid farewell to extensive elderly care, and enjoy basic, standardized, and dignified elderly care services. Third, establish an urban-rural mutual assistance mechanism for empty-nest elderly care to promote balanced and dignified elderly care. Relying on pairing of township elderly care stations and social worker sinking assistance, promote the tilt of high-quality urban health care and psychological care resources toward rural empty-nest elderly groups, precisely fill the shortcomings in spiritual care and professional care for rural empty-nest elderly, and enable over 100 million urban and rural empty-nest elderly to enjoy dignified elderly care services adapted to their own actual conditions.
Iterate and upgrade exclusive diversified service supply. Closely following the new demands of empty-nest elderly for no companionship, longing for companionship, emphasis on quality, and emphasis on dignity, promote the upgrading of elderly care services from "survival care" to "dignity and decency." First, expand the list of exclusive quality services for empty-nest elderly. On top of basic meal assistance and cleaning assistance services, focus on adding services adapted to the group living alone such as home rehabilitation, chronic disease management, regular companionship, and psychological comfort, specifically alleviate the problems of anxiety and emotional deficiency of empty-nest elderly living alone, and respond to their core demands for quality elderly care and dignified elderly care. Second, standardize the development of the new industry of companionship for those living alone. Face squarely the real predicament that empty-nest elderly have no one to care for them and no one to support them, standardize and support the new companionship industry, establish service standards, fee norms, and regulatory mechanisms, provide professional and routine companionship assistance for empty-nest elderly, and fill the service gap caused by the absence of children. Third, build exclusive social participation platforms for empty-nest elderly. Specifically solve the problems of empty-nest elderly being closed off, living alone, and lacking social interaction, rely on community elderly care positions to open exclusive exchange activities, interest classes, and neighborhood gatherings, help this group step out of their living-alone spaces and integrate into community life, continuously enhance the sense of gain, dignity, and happiness of empty-nest elderly, and truly realize reassuring, dignified, and warm home-based elderly care.
(The author is a Wu Yuzhang Senior Chair Professor at Renmin University of China and Vice President of the China Population Association)
Return to TopBy: 林瑜胜
The building of agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief capacity bears on national food security and the stable supply of important agricultural products, and is an important safeguard for advancing the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The grassroots level is the first line of defense against natural disasters, and the work of strengthening the grassroots and consolidating the foundation must never be relaxed." "It is necessary to improve agricultural infrastructure, ensure the quality of high-standard farmland construction, promote agricultural water conservation and efficiency gains, strengthen weather forecasting and disaster monitoring and early warning, and enhance the capacity for agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief." This provides the fundamental guidance for building a solid grassroots foundation for agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief and for safeguarding the bottom line of agricultural production safety. The grassroots level directly faces farmland plots and dispersed farming entities, and is the "last kilometer" for agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief measures to achieve practical results and effectiveness (落地见效, luo di jian xiao - "land, fall; see, effect"). Building this frontline position strong is of great significance for holding the bottom line of food security and agricultural production safety.
After years of sustained construction, the capacity for grassroots agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief in our country is improving steadily (稳步提升, wen bu ti sheng - "steady, step; rise, lift"). First, the monitoring and early warning system has been continuously improved, providing more solid support for risk pre-positioning and prevention and control. Our country has continued to push the three-dimensional monitoring network for agricultural disasters down to the grassroots level, extending meteorological, hydrological, and crop pest and disease monitoring stations to townships, villages, and village groups, and continuously expanding the coverage of grassroots risk monitoring. In parallel, a multi-channel early warning dissemination system has been built, including broadcasting, village loudspeakers, and mobile terminal push notifications, continuously improving the accuracy of agricultural disaster trend assessment and short-term forecasting, and promoting the deep embedding of short-term and imminent warning services into the entire production chain of plowing, sowing, management, and harvesting, leaving a sufficient pre-warning window for farming scheduling, field risk avoidance, and farmer evacuation, and continuously improving the capacity for source-level prevention and control before disasters. Second, the engineering system for disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief has been continuously improved, and the hardware foundation for farmland disaster resistance has been continuously consolidated. Key projects such as high-standard farmland construction, renovation of large and medium-sized irrigation districts, and upgrading of field drought-resistant and drainage facilities have been continuously advanced, systematically optimizing the regional farmland irrigation and drainage support system, effectively resolving prominent problems such as poor drainage and insufficient drought resistance capacity of traditional farmland, comprehensively enhancing the comprehensive defense capacity of farmland against floods, drought, waterlogging, and soil waterlogging, effectively coping with conventional meteorological disaster attacks, greatly reducing the risk of large-area crop damage and production reduction, and building a solid hardware foundation for stable agricultural production and supply. Third, the coordinated emergency response system has gradually taken shape, and the efficiency of grassroots disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief disposal has been steadily improving. All localities have continuously improved cross-departmental emergency linkage mechanisms, smoothed the three-level emergency response chain at the county, township, and village levels, accelerated the building of a grassroots disaster relief material reserve and allocation network, and continuously expanded the coverage of agricultural insurance and enriched the categories of coverage. Social disaster relief forces have been actively cultivated, guiding agricultural machinery professional cooperatives and agricultural socialized service organizations to participate in emergency rescue and disaster relief, rush harvesting and rush planting, and post-disaster production recovery, gradually building a diversified co-governance pattern led by the government, linked by departments, and participated in by society, and comprehensively strengthening grassroots agricultural emergency response and post-disaster support capacity.
It should also be noted that, under the influence of global climate change, extreme weather is frequent and sudden, compounded by the deep transformation of agricultural production models and rural population structure, and the capacity for grassroots agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief still has the following shortcomings that are not adapted to the new situation, new risks, and new requirements. First, the level of adaptation of risk early warning needs to be improved. The existing monitoring system is mainly based on general meteorological monitoring, with monitoring stations mostly located in market towns and along main roads, while monitoring coverage in remote mountainous areas and scattered farmland is relatively limited, and dedicated early warning services tailored to crop growth rhythms and key farming seasons still need to be improved. At the same time, the practical effectiveness of early warning information dissemination needs to be strengthened, the closed-loop mechanism for end-stage transmission is not yet sound enough, the conversion of early warning effectiveness into farmers' risk avoidance actions is insufficient, and there is still room for improvement in refined disaster prevention and control in some local areas. Second, the quality and effectiveness of comprehensive management and maintenance of disaster prevention projects need to be improved. The coverage of grassroots agricultural disaster prevention infrastructure continues to expand, but routine operation, management, and maintenance work lags relatively behind; some irrigation and drainage and drought-resistant and waterlogging-drainage facilities have problems such as unclear management and maintenance responsibilities and unstable operation and maintenance guarantees, and the service effectiveness of facilities is gradually weakening. The design standards of existing projects are mostly adapted to conventional disaster scenarios, and the carrying capacity for coping with extreme weather and other extraordinary disasters can still be further enhanced. Third, the overall effectiveness of coordinated linkage needs to be activated. The detailed implementation measures for grassroots disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief linkage mechanisms are insufficient, and the level of institutionalization of inter-departmental responsibility articulation, resource coordination, and coordinated disposal still needs to be improved. The channels for participation of social forces and market-based services are relatively fragmented, new-type business entities have not yet been deeply integrated into routine disaster prevention work, grassroots practical talent reserves are relatively weak, and the coordinated prevention and control force for coping with compound and chain-type disasters still needs to be continuously consolidated. In the face of the above shortcomings, governance capacity needs to be continuously improved.
Focus on improving the quality of end-stage early warning and build a risk prevention and control system with full-coverage implementation.
First, optimize the grassroots monitoring layout and fill the shortcomings in risk perception. Focusing on monitoring-weak areas such as remote mountainous regions, hilly plots, and scattered farmland, scientifically intensify the deployment of agriculture-specific monitoring stations and micro-sensing devices, fill the blind spots in local small-scale disaster monitoring, strengthen the dynamic capture capability for high-frequency agricultural disasters such as short-duration heavy rainfall, hail, frost, and field waterlogging, and consolidate the hardware foundation for precise early warning. Second, customize agricultural scenario early warning products and improve the precision of early warning adaptation. Based on different crop categories, farming time nodes, and planting models, develop differentiated professional agricultural early warning service products, change the problem of disconnection between general meteorological early warning and agricultural production, carry out special early warning services for key farming seasons such as spring plowing and autumn harvest, and achieve disaster early warning that fits actual field production. Third, consolidate the responsibility for implementing end-stage early warning and open up the closed loop of implementation. Improve the working mechanism of "call-response, transmission, implementation, and follow-up visit" for early warning, clarify the job responsibilities of village-level disaster information officers, establish key early warning ledgers for new-type business entities, left-behind farmers, and the elderly and vulnerable groups, consolidate the rigid responsibility for delivering early warning to households and individuals, promote the transformation of early warning information from "effective delivery" to "effective risk avoidance," and effectively build the first line of defense for agricultural pre-disaster prevention and control.
Focus on improving the efficiency of project management and maintenance and build a long-term and stable disaster prevention support system.
First, clarify the graded management and maintenance primary responsibility and solve the problem of absent management and maintenance. Establish a graded management and maintenance mechanism with township-level coordination, village and community-level implementation, and participation of business entities, refine the responsibility list for management and maintenance of high-standard farmland, irrigation and drainage channels, and drought-resistant and waterlogging-drainage facilities, refine the responsibilities for facility operation and maintenance, hidden danger investigation, and routine maintenance to specific posts and specific persons, and put an end to the idling of management and maintenance responsibilities. Second, improve the routine funding guarantee mechanism and consolidate the foundation for operation and maintenance guarantees. Integrate various funds such as agriculture-related special funds, farmland management and maintenance funds, and emergency guarantee funds, establish a stable and long-term management and maintenance funding guarantee system, targeted resolve problems such as shortage of grassroots management and maintenance funds and insufficient operation and maintenance capacity, and at the same time standardize the supervision of fund use to ensure that all funds are used for facility maintenance, repair, renovation, and quality improvement. Third, advance facility quality upgrading and routine operation and maintenance and enhance the disaster resilience of projects. Establish a routine inspection, repair, and renewal system for farmland disaster prevention facilities, dynamically investigate and rectify aging, disrepair, and functionally weakened weak facilities, appropriately raise the design standards of farmland projects in key areas, and continuously enhance the comprehensive carrying capacity of agricultural infrastructure for disaster prevention and resistance, stable production, and supply guarantee.
Focus on synergy and efficiency improvement and improve the full-coverage linked disaster prevention guarantee system.
First, improve the institutionalized linkage mechanism and consolidate departmental coordination responsibilities. Establish a working mechanism for routine joint consultation, data sharing, and linked disposal among multiple departments including agriculture, emergency management, meteorology, and water resources, and reverse the working situation of temporary coordination and passive response. Refine the disaster prevention responsibility lists of each department, break through information barriers and coordination bottlenecks, achieve closed-loop articulation of risk assessment, hidden danger investigation, and emergency disposal, effectively solve the problem of fragmentation in disaster prevention governance, and improve the overall linked disposal efficiency. Second, build a strong grassroots frontline disaster prevention team and improve practical disposal capacity. Routinely carry out special training in disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief and emergency practical drills, with emphasis on improving the comprehensive disposal capacity of village-level disaster information officers and grassroots staff in coping with multi-hazard superposition and chain-type disasters. Improve the incentive and guarantee mechanism for grassroots disaster prevention posts, fill the shortcomings in professional talent, and build a solid frontline combat force for grassroots disaster prevention. Third, activate the disaster prevention momentum of society and the market and extend the disaster prevention and control chain. Promote the transformation of agricultural insurance and agricultural socialized services from post-disaster compensation to pre-disaster risk reduction, and strengthen routine hidden danger investigation and risk prevention and control services. Smooth the channels for participation of new-type agricultural business entities and agricultural machinery service organizations, fully integrate social forces into all links of routine prevention and control, emergency rescue, and post-disaster production recovery, and consolidate a strong joint force for agricultural disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief.
By: 吴勇军
The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence is becoming a key variable in the governance of online public opinion. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed: "We must attach great importance to the various endogenous and derivative risks triggered by artificial intelligence, promote the building of a system of laws and regulations, technical monitoring, risk early warning, and emergency response, shore up the bottom line of security, prevent abuse and malicious use, and ensure that artificial intelligence remains under human control at all times." This important thesis points the way for coordinating development and security and doing a good job of public opinion governance in the digital-intelligent era. Proactively using artificial intelligence to empower online public opinion governance is both a practical need for preventing and defusing AI-derived public opinion risks and holding the bottom line of ideological security, and a strategic choice for advancing the modernization of the online public opinion governance system and governance capacity.
At present, artificial intelligence is continuously reshaping the logic of online public opinion generation and dissemination, and has become a new type of cause for the breeding and spread of public opinion and the amplification and diffusion of risks. First, the production of false content has become intelligent, and source risks are spreading in batches. Relying on large models and deepfake technology, online false information has completely escaped the limitations of manual editing and achieved low-cost, batch, assembly-line production. New types of false content such as "AI face-swapping," synthesized audio and video, and rewritten text variants iterate quickly, are highly disguised, and are difficult to identify. Various emotional and confrontational narratives can be generated in batches through open-source models, giving rise to professionalized, industrialized "AI water-army flooding," upgrading scattered false statements into organized, large-scale public opinion posturing, and source public opinion risks are showing explosive growth. Second, intelligent amplification of public opinion dissemination makes the evolution situation more complex and changeable. Intelligent algorithms possess strong capabilities for hot-topic derivation, topic reconstruction, and emotion boosting, and can continuously renew narrative angles around a single public opinion event, derive new talking points, and manufacture secondary topics, breaking the traditional pattern of public opinion "breaking out briefly and subsiding quickly." Coupled with the batch distribution, circle-layer penetration, comment control, and posturing of AI account clusters, artificially manufactured false public opinion heat creates a false atmosphere of public opinion, pushes negative emotions to spread across circle layers and resonate across platforms, causing public opinion to rebound repeatedly, extend its cycle, and continue to ferment. Third, the game of risk attack and defense has become intelligent, and the intensity of covert confrontation continues to escalate. Online public opinion attack and defense has fully entered the stage of artificial intelligence gaming. The governance side relies on intelligent systems to strengthen monitoring and control, while violators simultaneously use technologies such as intelligent text rewriting, image tampering, implied word meanings, and content variants to evade regulation, forming a continuously iterating attack-defense loop. Intelligent public opinion risks mutate quickly, are highly covert, and have many means of evasion. Traditional governance identification, screening, and research-and-judgment models are seriously lagging behind, and problems such as model pollution, algorithmic bias, and data-simplified research and judgment are intertwined and superimposed, easily inducing governance deviations and giving rise to new hidden public opinion dangers.
The new forms of public opinion spawned by artificial intelligence constitute a deep-level impact on the traditional online public opinion governance system, and the original disposal framework faces new challenges in key links such as identification, research and judgment, and traceability. First, the difficulty of distinguishing truth from falsehood continues to increase. AI-generated multimodal false content is highly realistic and iterates variants quickly. Traditional keyword screening finds it difficult to effectively identify disguised and rewritten rumor texts and synthesized audio and video. True and false information is mixed in the public opinion arena, greatly raising the cost of fact-checking, easily leading to missed judgments and misjudgments, and making it difficult to promptly lock onto the source of false content. Second, situation research and judgment is prone to inaccuracy. AI swarm accounts can manufacture false heat in batches and create false public opinion divorced from reality. Algorithmic quantitative indicators can only capture surface-level dissemination data and cannot discern the real social emotions behind the traffic facade. If risk levels are simply judged on the basis of data scores, it is extremely easy to misjudge the evolutionary direction of public opinion, resulting in inaccurate disposal strategies. Third, responsibility traceability and determination has become more complex. The production and distribution chain of AI-generated content is tending toward fragmentation, with model developers, calling users, and dissemination platforms intertwined as multiple subjects. Once AI-derived public opinion breaks out, it is difficult to quickly clarify the boundaries of responsibility. In addition, violators continuously rely on intelligent technology to evade regulation, and the pace of disposal response lags behind the speed of risk diffusion, lengthening the public opinion disposal cycle and significantly increasing the pressure to prevent and control secondary public opinion.
Faced with the above challenges, we must proactively conform to the general trend of change in the AI public opinion ecosystem, face up to current governance shortcomings, shore up institutional weaknesses, optimize governance models, and continuously promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and public opinion governance. We must adhere to controlling technology for good, make good use of the technical advantages of AI-enabled governance, manage the derivative risks of intelligent public opinion, and firmly hold the bottom line of online public opinion security with systematic, forward-looking governance measures.
Build a solid source-regulation defense line and compress the space for the generation of AI-derived public opinion.
Source control is the primary link in curbing AI-derived public opinion, and the focus is on setting rigid constraints across the entire chain of model development, content output, and lawful application to block the large-scale generation of intelligent false information. First, improve the tiered filing and safety assessment mechanism for large models. Conduct pre-launch safety assessments of generative artificial intelligence with deepfake and batch text generation capabilities, embed risk assessment into the entire life cycle of model training, fine-tuning, and release, delimit usage boundaries for high-risk models, prevent models from being targeted for poisoning and maliciously invoked to produce confrontational narratives, and reduce hidden public opinion dangers caused by model pollution from the base. Second, implement a mandatory labeling and traceability record system for AI-generated content. Promote platforms to embed digital watermarks and traceability markers in AI-generated images and text and synthesized audio and video, so that AI-forged content can be identified and traced; improve multimodal content authenticity-verification infrastructure, open up identification capabilities, reduce the cost for platforms and fact-checking institutions to identify AI-forged content, and solve the difficult problem of distinguishing mixed true and false information. Third, continuously crack down on the gray and black industry chain of AI public opinion. Focus on illegal acts such as customized plug-ins, GEO "poisoning," batch deepfakes, large-scale "water army" carpet-style pushing of rumors, public opinion extortion, and publishing inflammatory "black articles" for traffic sharing, implement punishment across the entire industrial chain of technical support, public opinion production and manipulation, precise distribution, and diversified monetization, clarify the responsibilities of model developers, calling users, and dissemination platforms, fill legal characterization blind spots and raise the cost of illegality, and solve the governance bottleneck of fragmented AI public opinion responsibility and difficult accountability.
Build a human-machine collaborative research and judgment mechanism to avoid the risk of distortion in AI-derived public opinion research and judgment.
To deal with the problems of "AI swarms" manufacturing false heat and quantitative indicators misleading research and judgment, we should adhere to human leadership, build a research and judgment and disposal model with human-machine division of labor and mutual verification, and prevent algorithmic indicators from replacing value judgments. First, clarify the boundaries of human-machine rights and responsibilities. Artificial intelligence undertakes data support work such as multimodal content capture, dissemination path tracking, heat quantification, and abnormal account identification, and is responsible for providing a complete chain of evidence; governance personnel undertake the functions of value judgment, contradiction analysis, risk determination, and final decision-making, put an end to simplifying complex social issues into emotional scores and heat values, and avoid relying solely on algorithmic conclusions to judge the direction of public opinion. Second, establish a routine algorithm evaluation and error-correction mechanism. Regularly carry out special assessments of algorithmic bias, excessive sensitivity, and missed judgments and misjudgments, dynamically calibrate identification models, and, in response to the continuously iterating semantic evasion and content variant means of violators, iteratively upgrade the identification feature library to solve the Red Queen-style attack-defense gaming dilemma and reduce research and judgment distortion. Third, build a linked fact-checking system. Integrate propaganda, cyberspace affairs, mainstream media, and professional fact-checking forces, establish a rapid verification channel for AI false information, and once intelligent generation of false narratives is detected, immediately mark and clarify the facts, generate authoritative rumor-refuting materials, prevent and control AI-derived secondary rumors, and prevent false public opinion from continuing to ferment and mislead governance decisions.
Build a full-chain closed-loop defense system and block the chain of dissemination and diffusion of AI-derived public opinion.
AI-derived public opinion spreads quickly, has many variants, and easily rebounds repeatedly. It is necessary to connect the links of monitoring, intervention, review, and science popularization to form a dynamic and sustainable governance closed loop. First, upgrade multimodal full-domain intelligent monitoring and early warning capabilities. Break through data barriers across departments and platforms, build an integrated monitoring engine integrating text, image, audio, and video, continuously accumulate the account characteristics of "AI water armies" and false narrative patterns, provide early warning of batch homogeneous content and abnormal interaction of cluster accounts, and achieve early capture and early identification of the signs of AI-derived public opinion. Second, implement differentiated dissemination intervention. Distinguish among three types of subject dissemination — ordinary netizen expression, algorithmic traffic boosting, and "AI swarm" posturing — and do not engage in applying the same standard to all situations (一刀切, yi dao qie - "one, knife, cut") control; when algorithms continuously recommend AI false content that intensifies confrontation, promptly adjust recommendation weights, block the cross-circle-layer diffusion of false narratives, and compress the dissemination space for repeated fermentation of secondary public opinion. Third, improve the digital literacy and information discrimination ability of the whole people. Popularize common knowledge for the public on identifying deepfakes and AI rumors, analyze typical cases of AI manufacturing public opinion posturing, and break the public's blind trust in AI-generated content. At the same time, strengthen the capacity building of governance teams, cultivate composite talents who understand the boundaries of artificial intelligence and can verify model output, enhance the professional ability of governance subjects to respond to intelligent public opinion risks, and build a network ecosystem with multi-party participation and collaborative co-governance.
[The author is Director of the Cyberspace Affairs Office of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department (concurrently)]
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