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Uphold the Integration of Development and Security

坚持统筹发展和安全

Introduction

“Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.” This is the central message of the fifth chapter of the Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline, a 150 page doctrinal manual distributed to party committees across China in early 2022. The Study Outline likens economic development and national security to “two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart.” The two must be pursued in tandem. Doing so will realize “one of our party’s major principles for governing China”: the “integration of development and security” [统筹发展和安全]. It is difficult to understand the economics of post-COVID China without first understanding the meaning of this phrase.

This is not only a challenge for outsiders. The authors of the Study Outline—the Central Propaganda Bureau and the Office of the Central National Security Commission—must devote an entire chapter to the phrase precisely because so many cadres struggle to implement the concept. In the not-so distant past, leading cadres were judged on simple metrics. The measure of a man was the GDP growth of the locality he led.1 Today growth numbers are no longer sufficient. This is not to say they do not matter—the Study Outline assures the rank-and-file that economic development “is still our essential and foundational work.” But it is no longer all that matters. As the manual argues: “Development and the improvement of material living standards are not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support.”

It is easy to see why a cadre might think otherwise. A laser-like focus on economic growth saved China’s Leninist project. China thrived as communist regimes across the world buckled under the weight of sclerotic bureaucracies and stagnant economies. A famous phrase associated with Deng Xiaoping captured the ethos of that time: “let some get rich first!”2 With the Party securely in charge, the thinking went, China could safely shoulder unbalanced growth. The Party would translate exploding private wealth into expanding national power. Eventually China would become prosperous, strong, and technologically advanced enough to head off all challengers and restore China to its state of ancestral glory. From that position of wealth and strength, the Party would have the means to bring all Chinese the shared prosperity that its revolutionary founders dreamed about.3

So the thinking went. With slogans like “development is the solution to all of our problems” as their guide, Chinese officials brought this thinking to life one factory, development zone, and high-speed rail at a time. Few who watched China catapult forward in the ranks of fortune and power doubted the wisdom of this program.

Yet the solution to one crisis sows the seeds of the next one. As Xi Jinping ascended to the top of the Party hierarchy, it was evident the negative byproducts of the reform program were eroding the foundations of communist rule. Xi Jinping would introduce a new ideological line to address these problems. Core to this ideological system—grandiosely titled “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”—was a set of over-arching concepts intended to steer China’s response to the numerous challenges posed by its own success. This chapter of the Study Guide sits at the intersection of two of these governing frameworks: the Total National Security Paradigm [总体国家安全观] and the New Development Concept [新发展理念]. Though originally distinct, the two frameworks have (as this document itself is evidence of) grown increasingly intertwined with time.

 The Study Outline was written as an “an important and authoritative auxiliary text [for teaching] the broad mass of cadres” about the first of these frameworks—Xi Jinping’s signature contributions to security theory, the Total National Security Paradigm.4 For cadres inclined by temperament or career track to focus their attention on the problems of regime security, economic development never did seem like the solution to “all” of the Party’s problems. It introduced as many dangers as it resolved. Reform and Opening meant integrating disruptive technologies (like the internet) into Chinese life. It exposed the masses to subversive intellectual trends from the outside world. Above all else, a narrow focus on economic growth enmeshed cadres in a culture of graft and greed. The threat that corruption posed to state security was not abstract: just before Xi came to power the Ministry of State Security learned that the CIA had leveraged China’s culture of corruption to build a substantial network of informants inside the Party itself.5

Xi introduced the new security framework to meet this mounting crisis. The Total National Security Paradigm trains cadres to treat threats to the PRC’s economic, political, and ideological integrity as dangers equal to traditional military threats. Under this paradigm cadres are bidden to cultivate “consciousness of calamity” [忧患意识]—an awareness that even in times of seeming peace and plenty they are all that stands between national rejuvenation and national collapse. The goal of all this is not to jettison the Dengist paradigm but to harden it: by securitizing large swathes of party policymaking, Xi seeks to shield Socialism with Chinese Characteristics from dangers otherwise built into its DNA.6

Yet as Xi came to power the security services were not the only part of the state ecosystem expressing unease with the the many shibboleths they had inherited from the Reform Era. A chorus of economists and economic planners offered their own critique of growth-at-all-costs. These economists understood that the driving engines of the Chinese growth miracle at its height were large-scale exports and massive investment in infrastructure and other fixed capital assets. By 2013 it was clear that this model of development was not sustainable. There is a limit to the number of roads, sewers, skyscrapers, and railways any country—even a country as large as China—can build before additional capital investments provide diminishing returns. Climbing Chinese wages would eventually price China out of many exports. The negative externalities of income inequality and industrial pollution threatened to undermine future growth. A more sustainable model was needed.7

These economists argued that if China was to sustain an upward growth trajectory in the decades to come then it must embrace a more balanced pattern of development. An extensive growth model based on expanding capital stock must be replaced by an intensive growth model based on rising productivity. Domestic consumption, not savings and investment, should be the engine of this new economy. Money must be guided away from China’s bubbling housing market. Chinese industry must move up the value chain. A better balance must be struck between the development of China’s rich eastern seaboard and relatively poorer inner hinterlands. Pollution must be curbed. From this point forward the kind of growth China experienced must matter as much as the scale of this growth.

Xi Jinping would gather these ideas together into a schema he dubbed the New Development Concept. This schema urged cadres to recognize that the Chinese economy had entered a “new normal” [新常态] of lower growth rates, less competitive exports, and smaller returns to capital investments. Economic planning must adapt to these realities. In practice this meant a national campaign to slash over-capacity in industries like steel and aluminum, a crash-course industrial policy to propel China to the cutting edge of high technology, a renewed focus on reducing pollution even if it came at the cost of easy growth, and numerous attempts to direct Chinese savers away from an overheated real estate market and towards direct consumption.

This New Development Concept was not originally justified by or conceptually linked to the language of security. However, the two tracks always had complimentary objectives: the Total National Security Paradigm and the New Development Concept both affirmed the basic Dengist vision of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics while rejecting, for distinct but parallel reasons, the growth-at-all-costs mindset that the Dengist reforms begot. It was not until Xi's second term these two lines of policy began to merge. The Study Outline describes one reason for their fusion:

The trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states [across the globe]. The cycle of international markets and natural resources has clearly slowed and the old environment conducive to importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new development pattern; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensuring the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed.

The growth-at-all-costs mindset had been premised on a benign international environment that no longer exists. Party leaders had long claimed that the early 20th century would offer a limited window—a “period of strategic opportunity”—where the Party could safely rely on globalization to speed China’s rise. In this period there was no distinction between securing China and growing its economy. Tariffs, export controls, COVID closures, and growing hostility towards the PRC across the developed world signaled that this period was ending.8 Thus the Study Guide’s warnings of outside powers set on “stifling” and “crushing” China’s future growth. In this threatening global environment, the manual maintains, it no longer suffices to rely on “development to advance security.” Now cadres must use “security to protect development” as well.

 The Study Guide suggests that this will require cadres to “weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state.” In the formalized language of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, this is described as “the integration of development and security.” This undertaking is not new: Xi Jinping described it as a core plank of the Total National Security Paradigm in 2014. However, the slogan did not migrate into economic planning documents until the late 2010s and was not officially endorsed by the Center as a key part of China’s development process until the 5th Plenum of the 19th Congress in 2021.9 In a speech given at the conclusion of that plenum Xi Jinping went out of his way to describe “the integration of development and security” as an official sub-component of the New Development Concept, decisively linking two streams of party policy into one whole.10

The Study Guide provides insight into what this whole is intended to look like. Many sections of this chapter simply justify long-standing development initiatives with the logic and language of security. Thus measures to reduce economic inequality, which Xi Jinping earlier justified in terms of “safeguarding fairness and justice” and “benefiting the people,” is described by the Study Outline as a safeguard against the “the rupture of the social fabric, political polarization, and rampant populism.”11 Cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations, once advocated by Xi Jinping to “fuel our economy… and build a beautiful China with blue skies, greenery, and clean water,” is here described as a “matter of our survival.”12 The list continues: Green development is necessary because “environmental problems are often those most prone to provoking discontent among the masses,” economic opening is necessary to “protect economic security,” and so forth. 

Since the New Development Concept’s introduction to China, party leaders have described the sort of development China seeks as “shared,” “innovative,” “open,” “coordinated,” and “green.” It is difficult to discern whether the Study Guide’s security-based arguments for each of these goals reflect genuine rationales for their adoption or if these arguments are simply post-hoc attempts to justify existing policy initiatives with the language of danger. The logic of peril and threat may simply be the easiest way to rally a recalcitrant bureaucracy (or a security minded General Secretary) behind a costly set of economic reforms. Few problems are left to fester when national survival is on the line.

The connection between economics and security are less forced in the Study Guide’s repeated arguments for self-reliance. Longstanding calls to rebalance the Chinese economy in favor of domestic consumption took a distinctly geopolitical edge when the Politburo announced in 2020 that China must henceforth adopt a “new development pattern” with the domestic market acting as “the mainstay” of the Chinese economy. While this new development pattern allows for the domestic and international markets to “boost each other,” the Study Outline is frank about the policy’s larger priorities: “The most essential characteristic of the construction of a new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency.”

The Study Outline provides several reasons for why self-sufficiency is so critical to China’s state security. By “cultivat[ing] a complete system of domestic demand” China will be able to “absorb both external shocks and the effects of decreasing foreign demand.” More important still, it will allow the Party to “ensure the stability of our state’s economy and social environment under extreme circumstance.” The exact extreme circumstances that the Office for Central National Security Commission has in mind are not made clear. But the manual does hint at some possibilities.

“The Achilles’ heel of China’s massive economy,” the Study Outline notes, are “strangleholds” [卡脖子] in Chinese supply chains where foreign powers have the ability to cut off Chinese firms from the technological inputs they need to thrive. Self-sufficiency is therefore not just a matter of raising domestic demand but also scientific and technological progress. “A new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology,” the Study Outline instructs. “If we cannot improve our capacity for innovation in science and technology we will not be able to transition the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition.”

The Study Outline makes clear this is not a call for strategic autarky: “Constructing a new development pattern is not a last resort or a measure of expedience. It is a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth.” The ultimate goal of self-reliance is not to cut China off from the world, but to make China more central to it. If it is realized the new development pattern should “allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources.” Thus even though “the protectionist zeitgeist is on the rise,” cadres must stand for “opening-up, cooperation, and planning for win-win development.” If China can no longer rely on globalization to power its journey to the center of the world stage, it can still hope to leverage international trade and development for its own ends. But this requires China to occupy a position of strength, not one of vulnerability.  

Thus “the more we open [our economy to the world], the more we must prioritize security,” and “the more necessary it becomes to properly integrate the planning of development with security, the more necessary it becomes to put greater effort into increasing our ability to compete self-sufficiently.” Under this schema, GDP growth cannot justify dependency. The overwhelming priority of the Party must be development that leads towards national self-sufficiency. “Only then,” the Study Outline concludes, “can we [navigate] constant fluctuations in international [affairs] and be filled with the vigor needed to survive and develop. At that point no one can cause us to fall.”

THE EDITORS

1. Joseph Fewsmith and Gao Xiang described the overlapping pressures that led to GDP growth targets being placed at the center of cadre responsibility system as follows:
This system proved highly effective in promoting growth, as China’s high-speed development over the past three decades attests; but its very focus on economic growth meant that other areas of governance–including health care, education, and environmental protection–were neglected. This imbalance was caused by four factors. First, the cadre system privileges targets that are easily counted. Thus the one-child policy could be implemented with remarkable effectiveness and, at times, ruthlessness. Similarly, economic development can be counted, albeit with some slippage, through the calculation of GDP figures. Second, pursuit of economic development has been relatively uncontroversial at all levels of government, which makes it a consensus target. Prioritizing economic development as the core task and weighing it heavily in the cadre evaluation system avoids arguments about how to measure and compare “softer” tasks. Focusing on economic development also aligns the personal interests of cadres–who often bene½t personally through privilege and corruption–with the goals of the state, making economic goals more likely to be attained. But again, the focus on development inevitably comes at the expense of softer social services. 
Joseph Fewsmith and Gao Xiang, “Local Governance in China: Incentives & Tensions,” Daedalus 143, No. 2 (2014): 172-173.

The extent to which economic performance actually matters for cadre promotion has produced an enormous literature with empirical studies coming down on both sides of the question. For a recent review, see Pang, Baoqing, Shu Keng, and Siyi Zhang. “Does Performance Competition Impact China's Leadership Behaviour? Re-Examining the Promotion Tournament Hypothesis.” The China Quarterly (2023) 1–18.

2. Deng Xiaoping pronounced his now-famous formula, “let some people get rich first” [让一部分人先富起来], during the height of Reform and Opening in 1985. In an interview with Time in October 1985, he explained that there was no fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism and that China's development strategy was a means to achieve the socialist ideal in the end: “Some areas and some people can get rich first, driving and helping other areas and other people, and gradually achieve common prosperity.” Deng reiterated this vision during a tour to Tianjin a year later, maintaining that allowing some to prosper before others is a “shortcut to attaining common prosperity.”
Deng Xiaoping, “There Is No Fundamental Contradiction Between Socialism and a Market Economy,” Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 23 October 1985. Deng Xiaoping, “Remarks During An Inspection Tour of Tianjin,” Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 19-21 August 1986.

3. See the CST glossary entries for INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS and GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION and their respective sources longer explications of this theory.
4. Taken from “Zongti Guojia Anquan Xuexi Gongyao: Chuban Faxing 《总体国家安全观学习纲要》出版发行 [The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline is Published],” Renmin Wang 人民网 [People’s Daily Online], 16 April 2022. In Chinese the passage reads干部群众学习贯彻总体国家安全观的重要权威辅助读物。
For broader overviews of the Total National Security Paradigm see Matthew Johnson, “Safeguarding Socialism: The Origins, Evolution and Expansion of China’s Total Security Paradigm,” Sinopsis (Prague: AcaMedia z.ú., June 2020); Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022; Katja Drinhausen and Helena Legarda, “‘Comprehensive National Security’ Unleashed: How Xi’s Approach Shapes China’s Policies at Home and Abroad,” MERICS China Report, Mercator Institute for China Studies, 15 September 2022; and Samantha Hoffman, “Programming China: the Communist Party’s autonomic approach to managing state security,” (PhD diss., University of Nottingham, 2017).
5. The story of the CIA network in China has been reported in Zach Dorfman, “Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents,” Foreign Policy, 15 August 2018 and “China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe,” Foreign Policy, 21 December 2020; Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Matthew Apuzzo, “Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations,” The New York Times, 20 May 2017; and Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants,” The New York Times, 5 October 2021. The connection between this event and the anti-corruption drive that followed is outline in John Fitzgerald, Cadre Country: How China Became the Chinese Communist Party (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2022), 204-214.
6. See Joseph Fewsmith, Rethinking Chinese Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) for a compelling depiction of the weaknesses inherent in what Fewsmith calls “reform Leninism” and a description Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics as an intentional answer to these weaknesses.

7. Perhaps the most influential of these voices was the joint report issued by the World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council: China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society (The World Bank: Washington DC, 2013); an accessible overview to the issues involved is Arthur Kroeber, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 267-296.
8. See the CST glossary entry PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY for a longer explication; see also Alex Dessein, "Identifying Windows of Opportunity within China’s Rise: Problematizing China’s Hundred-Year Strategy toward Great-Power Status,” Military Review (September-October 2019), 64-82; Brock Erdhal, and Daid Gitter, “China’s Uncertain Times and Fading Opportunities,” CACR Occasional Report. Washington DC: Center for Advanced China Research, 2022.

9. The history of this slogan is traced in Howard Wang, “‘Security Is a Prerequisite for Development’: Consensus-Building toward a New Top Priority in the Chinese Communist Party,” Journal of Contemporary China (2022), 1-15.
10. Xi Jinping, Governance Of China, vol 4 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2022), 195-196.
11. Xi Jinping, Governance Of China, vol 2 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2017), 236-237.
12. Ibid., 221. See also p. 297.

Author
Office of the Central National Security Commission
中央国家安全委员会办公室
original publication
The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline
《总体国家安全观学习纲要》
publication date
April 14, 2022
Translator
Ethan Franz
Translation date
July 2023
Tags
Tag term
Tag term
Central Committee
中国共产党中央委员会

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, until 1927 called the Central Executive Committee (中央执行委员会), is the central administrative and decision-making body of the Chinese party-state. 

In the post-Mao era members of the Central Committee have been elected by the National Congress of the CPC every five years. These elections are a confirmation vote based on a candidate list where the number of candidates slightly exceeds the number of available seats. Usually only 8% to 12% of candidates are not elected to the Central Committee; it is customary for the Committee to include the governors and party secretaries of China’s provinces, the heads of central government bodies, major SOEs, and national party organizations, and high ranking military officers in the PLA among its members. 

The Central Committee has the nominal power to elect the members of the Secretariat, Politburo, and its Standing Committee, but in practice it merely confirms candidates pre-selected by the top leadership.  At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee, called PLENUMS, have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the POLITBURO ahead of time. Documents drafted during Central Committee meetings are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each condenses the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party.

See also: CENTER, THE; PLENUM

Great Changes Unseen in a Century
百年未有的大变局

The phrase “great changes unseen in a century,” sometimes translated by official party media as “profound changes unseen in a century,” was first used by Chinese academics following the Great Recession. The phrase is associated with the dangers and opportunities posed by American decline, and has been adopted by THE CENTER as a programmatic assessment of the trajectory of the current world order. The trends which can be feasibly linked to this trajectory are diverse. Commentators have described everything from the rise of populist political parties to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence as falling under the "great changes" label. What unites these different trends is the perception that they pose a mortal threat to Western leadership of the international order.

“Great changes” was officially elevated into the party lexicon in 2017, when then-State Councilor Yang Jiechi described it as a guiding tenet of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy. Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy was formally adopted by the Party in a 2018 Central Foreign Affairs Work Conference, where Xi informed the collected leadership of the Chinese diplomatic corp and state security apparatus that

China now finds itself in the best period for development it has seen since the advent of the modern era; [simultaneously], the world faces great changes unseen in a century. These two [trends] are interwoven, advancing in lockstep; each stimulates the other. Now, and in the years to come, many advantageous international conditions exist for success in foreign affairs (Xi 2020).

Xi’s comments followed a tradition laid out in innumerable Party documents, speeches, and regulations, which present declarations of  policy, especially foreign policy, as following from an assessment of the “overall landscape” [全局] “inherent tendencies” [大势], or “the great trends” [大趋势] of the historical moment in which the Party finds itself. “Great changes unseen in a century” is a shorthand for the central leadership’s current assessment of the future trajectory of the international order.

The slogan invokes a slew of great changes that shook global politics one century ago: the collapse of British hegemony and the European imperial system following WWI and the concurrent rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as the predominant powers of world politics. The slogan implies that a similar power transition is now underway, with America playing the role of faltering hegemon, and China the rising  power.  

More substantive discussions of the slogan by Chinese academics and state affiliated scholars trace this power transition to myriad causes: the growing wealth of the developing world, the rise of right-wing populism in Western countries, the debilitating effects that neoliberalism and identity politics have on American power, the resurgence of nationalism across the globe, advances in novel technologies not pioneered by the West, and the proliferation of non-traditional security threats (such as pandemics and terrorist attacks) are all common explanations for the crumbling of the American-led international order. 

Though the phrase was introduced in a rather triumphal tone, the slogan has taken on a darker valence as Sino-American relations have worsened and China has grown more isolated in the international arena. Party propagandists and Chinese academics alike now pair the phrase “great changes unforeseen in a century” with increasingly dire warnings about the unique risks and dangers China faces in the final stage of NATIONAL REJUVENATION. Thus the slogan has come to also signify a warning that China sails into uncharted waters. As Xi Jinping reported in his address to the 20th Congress:

Great changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world… the once-in-a-century pandemic has had far-reaching effects; a backlash against globalization is rising; and unilateralism and protectionism are mounting… The world has entered a new period of turbulence and change… [where] external attempts to suppress and contain China may escalate at any time.

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising... We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms (Xi 2022).

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; COMMUNITY OF COMMON DESTINY FOR ALL MANKIND; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION;  NEW ROUND OF TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION AND INDUSTRIAL UPGRADING; PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY.

Harmonious World
和谐世界
Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation
中华民族伟大复兴

General Secretaries of the Communist Party of China have described “national rejuvenation” [民族复兴] as the central mission of their Party since the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1987. Their wording intentionally echoes the language used by Sun Yat-sen and the nationalist revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing Dynasty at the cusp of the modern era. Those revolutionaries dreamed of restoring a broken nation to its traditional station at the center of human civilization.Though he lives a century after Sun Yat-sen’s death, Xi Jinping rarely gives a speech without endorsing the same aspiration. As Xi describes it, national rejuvenation is a “strategic plan” for “achieving lasting greatness for the Chinese nation” (Xi 2022). The formal term for this plan is the “National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation,” a term that could be alternatively translated as the “National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Race.” In the modern era national rejuvenation has been formally identified as the overarching goal of all activities of both party and state.

The work of a Leninist party is inherently goal oriented. Chinese governance depends on a  “high pressure system” [压力型体制] that uses a mix of campaign tactics and career incentives to focus the work of millions of cadres on a shared set of tasks, all of which are nested in a hierarchy of overarching goals. During the Maoist era China’s leadership identified the  “the realization of communism” as the “ultimate aim of the Party,” and proposed “victory in class struggle” as the path for reaching this end (Perrolle 1976). The CPC of today still endorses the“realization of communism” as the “highest ideal and ultimate aim” of the Party, but argues that “the highest ideal of communism pursued by Chinese Communists can be realized only when socialist society is fully developed and highly advanced,” a historical process that will “take over a century” to achieve (Constitution of the CPC 2022). In contrast, the “lasting greatness” associated with national rejuvenation can be accomplished on a more feasible timescale. The Party expects to lead the Chinese race to this desired end state by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. Achieving the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation by this date is the overarching goal of the Chinese party-state.

To attain national rejuvenation, party leadership has argued that China must become a “great and modern socialist state” [社会主义现代化强国]. In Xi Jinping’s NEW ERA this imperative has been broken down into five aspirational end states: prosperity and strength [富强],democracy [民主], advanced culture [文明], social harmony [和谐], and beauty [美丽]. The first category emphasize the Party’s drive to build a country whose COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER is commensurate with a civilization at the leading edge of modernity; the next three identify the desired relationship between the Communist Party and a unified Chinese nation; the last is associated with campaigns to reduce pollution and forge a healthier relationship between industrial development and the natural environment. 

With sub-components as broad as these, almost any policy promoted by THE CENTER falls under the remit of “national rejuvenation.” The breadth of this mandate is intentional. As communist utopia retreats ever further into the future, Party leadership has bet that reclaiming lost Chinese greatness is the one cause “the entire Party and all the Chinese people [will] strive for” (Xi 2022). 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; CENTURY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION

Making a Greater Contribution to Mankind
人类作出更大贡献
National Rejuvenation
民族复兴
Leadership Core
领导核心

In Leninist political systems the authority of a party leader does not always align with his formal position in a communist party's hierarchy. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping exercised immense power despite retiring from all official leadership positions; in contrast, the authority of men like Zhao Ziyang and Hu Jintao was tightly circumscribed despite their selection as General Secretary. The concept of the “leadership core” provides one way for party members to recognize the exceptional standing of a paramount leader without reference to his formal position in the Party. Under this schema, a leader of unusual historical significance will be labeled the “core” [核心] of his leadership cohort.

Xi Jinping is the acknowledged core of the Party today. He was not always honored with this title: it was not until the 6th PLENUM of the 18th CENTRAL COMMITTEE—some four years into Xi’s tenure as formal leader of the Communist Party of China—that state media described Xi Jinping as the core leader of his era.

A speech given by Xi Jinping in early 2013 provides a typical example of the way this title is employed in communist rhetoric. In a ceremony commemorating Hu Jintao’s leadership of the Party, Xi Jinping told the representatives at the People’s Congress that 

Under the leadership of the Party’s first generation of collective leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core, the Party’s second generation of collective leadership with Comrade Deng Xiaoping as the core, the Party’s third generation of collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin as the core, and the Party’s Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, people of all ethnic groups in the country have worked together, persevered, and overcome various difficulties and obstacles on the path of progress. (Xi 2013)

As this passage makes clear, not all leaders deserve “core” status. The modest achievements and limited power of Hu Jintao vis a vis other leading party members of his era denies Hu this honor. Hu’s historical role only merits the mention of his formal party title, that of “General Secretary.”  

The origins of the “core” designation are found in the early years of the Deng era. Mao was never referred to as the “core” of a collective leadership cohort during his tenure. He preferred titles—such as the “People’s Leader” [人民领袖]—that elevated him far above other members of the revolutionary generation, and which justified the concentration of power in his own hands. For Deng Xiaoping, this was one of the central errors of the late Mao era. As with many other leading cadres, Deng attributed his suffering during the Cultural Revolution to Mao’s incontestable authority. These men hoped that “collective leadership” [集体领导] might preserve the Party from similar disasters in the future. “The overconcentration of power,” Deng said in 1980, “hinders the practice of socialist democracy and of the Party’s democratic centralism, impedes the progress of socialist construction and prevents us from taking full advantage of collective wisdom” (Deng 1980). 

Formalizing mechanisms for collective leadership and instituting “intra-party democracy” [党内民主] was thus a key priority of Deng’s early reform agenda. The 12th Party Congress of 1982 abolished the post of Chairman of the Central Committee, a position that many deemed too powerful. Instead the Party would be formally led by a General Secretary with a ten-year term limit.  Other reforms intended to constrain and distribute political power across the Party included new mandatory retirement ages, the regular holding of party congresses, and the staggered filling of the POLITBURO seats every five years.

Yet Deng’s attempt to institutionalize the CPC power structure was fatally undermined by his own style of leadership. In the 1980s Deng twice identified potential successors and elevated them to the position of General Secretary. Despite their formal authority, the actual power of these chosen heirs was limited. Anytime a contentious issue divided the Party, Deng’s intervention was necessary for a solution to be implemented. On two occasions this solution included the removal of an uncooperative General Secretary from office. Events like these repeatedly offered Deng Xiaoping a choice between procedural integrity and political victory. Deng consistently chose the latter. Aligning policy and personnel with his own preferences behind the scenes weakened the formal institutions, procedures, and norms he hoped would eventually govern the Party in his place. 

It was in this context that the concept of the leadership core was introduced to the Party. Deng Xiaoping neither possessed nor aspired to absolute power: his influence flowed from his indispensability. Loyalty to Deng was the one nexus point holding the various factions of the Party together. Thus Deng concluded that “for the second generation of leaders, I can be considered the core, but the group is still a collective” (Deng 1989a).

In 1989, Deng began working to pass this status on to a new successor. Four days before the denouement of the Tiananmen demonstrations, Deng negotiated with Chen Yun and other party elders of his generation to choose the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Jiang Zemin was their choice. Soon after, Deng further argued that Jiang must be treated as the future “core” of the party’s collective leadership. “A collective leadership must have a core; without a core, no leadership can be strong enough,” said Deng.

The core of our first generation of collective leadership was Chairman Mao. Because of that core, the “cultural revolution” did not bring the Communist Party down. Actually, I am the core of the second generation. Because of this core, even though we changed two of our leaders, the Party’s exercise of leadership was not affected but always remained stable. The third generation of collective leadership must have a core too; all you comrades present here should be keenly aware of that necessity and act accordingly. You should make an effort to maintain the core — Comrade Jiang Zemin, as you have agreed. From the very first day it starts to work, the new Standing Committee should make a point of establishing and maintaining this collective leadership and its core (Deng 1989b). 

Though Jiang Zemin would govern under the shadow of Deng Xiaoping for another five years, the slow passing of the revolutionary generation gave Jiang the opportunity to fill critical party positions with his own people. Jiang’s consolidation of power proved enduring. By the time Jiang’s successor, Hu Jintao, rose to the position of CPC General Secretary in November 2002, both the POLITBURO and the CENTRAL COMMITTEE were stocked with Jiang’s men. Jiang himself would stay on as Chairman of the Central Military Commission for several years into Hu’s term. No one was under the illusion that Hu Jintao was the “core” of anything. Instead, his role in the collective leadership was usually described with the phrase “the Party CENTER with Comrade Hu Jintao as General Secretary” [以胡锦涛同志为总书记的党中央]. 

Xi Jinping successfully centralized power in a fashion Hu Jintao never managed. Through bureaucratic restructuring and a colossal anti-corruption drive that removed hundreds of thousands of Party members from the rolls, Xi remade the Communist Party in his own image. He used this power to roll back Deng era norms of collective leadership. Just one year after Xi obtained official recognition as the “core,” the Party abolished the term limit of the General Secretary. At the conclusion of the Party Congress where this occurred, Cai Qi–a Xi loyalist who would soon be elevated to the PBSC–referred to Xi Jinping as the Leader, or lingxiu [领袖], of the Party. Up to this point this grandiose title had only ever been applied to Mao Zedong and his designated successor, Hua Guofeng. Cai maintained that:

In the past five years, historic changes have taken place in the cause of the Party and the state, all of which stem from the fact that General Secretary Xi Jinping, the strong leadership core, is the helmsman [掌舵] of the whole Party. General Secretary Xi Jinping is worthy of being a wise leader [英明领袖], the chief architect of reform, opening up and modernization in the New Era, and the core of this generation of the Party. At all times and in all circumstances, we must resolutely safeguard the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core. (Cai 2017).   

Thus the valence of the term “core” has shifted as the norms of the Deng era have eroded away. If in the Reform era the “core” designation signaled a break from the Maoist past, associating Deng’s pre-eminence with the more restrained language of intra-party democracy, in Xi’s NEW ERA the phrase is deployed in the same breath as titles once reserved for Mao himself, such as “helmsman” and "Leader.” Three decades after its introduction the concept of the leadership core lives on. The associated ideals of collective leadership do not. 

Plenum
全体会议

A plenum, or more formally, a Plenary Session of a Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a gathering of all full and alternate members of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE  held to review and approve policies proposed by the POLITBURO. In the post-Mao era it is customary for each CENTRAL COMMITTEE to hold seven plenums in its five year term. These closed door meetings are usually the most important political events of any given year. The topics discussed in the plenary sessions range from revisions to the constitution to realignments of development strategy. Deliberations are secret. The General Secretary delivers a speech to the CENTRAL COMMITTEE, but this speech is usually not published until long after the plenum has concluded.  

In the post-Mao era the topics addressed in the seven plenums tend to follow a pattern: the first plenum is held to select the POLITBURO and CENTRAL COMMITTEE membership, the second confirms the leadership of important government posts, the third is devoted to economic development and reform, the fourth focuses on initiatives in law or party building, the fifth lays the groundwork for the next FIVE YEAR PLAN, the sixth addresses problems of ideology, culture, or intra-party rules, and the seventh prepares the CENTRAL COMMITTEE for the upcoming PARTY CONGRESS.

Documents drafted during plenums are among the most authoritative in the Chinese policy process; each compacts the various guidelines, policies, and tasks issued since the previous plenum into a baseline directive for the entire party. At select points in modern Chinese history–such as the 3rd and 5th plenums of the 11th Party Congress–meetings of the Central Committee have served as forums for substantive intra-party debates. More often the Central Committee simply makes small adjustments to plans already agreed on by the Politburo ahead of time. 

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; POLITBURO; PARTY CONGRESS; FIVE YEAR PLAN

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
中国特色社会主义

Leaders of the Communist Party of China use the phrase “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” as the preferred moniker for the political and economic system that they govern. The now ubiquitous phrase was invented shortly after the death of Mao Zedong to describe the distinctive features of a Leninist political system retreating from a Stalinist economic model. Yet if Socialism with Chinese Characteristics was originally intended to explain CPC deviations from orthodox Marxism, in the decades following the fall of the communist bloc it has most often been used to justify China’s deviation from the liberal norms of the world’s richest nations. To invoke Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is to remind cadres that China follows a distinct path to modernity. This path not only precludes the wholesale importation of Western institutions and values, but also provides an explanation for perceived Western hostility to China’s National Rejuvenation.  

The origins of the Socialism with Chinese Characteristics concept can be traced back to Mao Zedong’s various statements on the need to develop the “Sinicization of Marxism” [马克思主义的中国化].  In his most famous proclamation on this theme, Mao declared that “the history of this great nation of ours goes back several thousand years. It has its own laws of development [and] its own national characteristics.” These characteristics must be integrated into the revolutionary programs of the Chinese communists because even though “a communist is a Marxist internationalist…. Marxism must take on a national form before it can be put into practice.” Mao thus championed a

Marxism that has taken on a national form, that is, Marxism applied to the concrete struggle in the concrete conditions prevailing in China, and not Marxism abstractly used. If a Chinese Communist, who is a part of the great Chinese people, bound to his people by his very flesh and blood, talks of Marxism apart from Chinese peculiarities, this Marxism is merely an empty abstraction. Consequently, the Sinicization of Marxism—that is to say, making certain that in all its manifestations it is imbued with Chinese characteristics, using it according to Chinese peculiarities—becomes a problem that must be understood and solved by the whole Party without delay (Schram 2004, liii).

Mao spoke these words as the leader of a guerilla revolutionary movement. Neither Marx’s writings nor the Soviet experience provided much practical guidance in this situation. Stalinist models would prove more relevant to Mao after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Using Stalin’s Short Course as a guidebook, China’s new communist regime imported Soviet economic and political structures with little alteration. The failure of these structures over the next few decades would eventually prompt the leaders of the Communist Party of China to seek a new path—and to justify that path with language that echoed Mao’s early calls for a Sinicized form of Marxism.  “We must integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete realities of China,” Deng Xiaoping would report to the 12th Party Congress in 1982, “and blaze a path of our own and build a Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” (Deng 1991).

The phrase “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has featured in the title of every subsequent Political Report given by a General Secretary to a Party Congress. In these reports Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is consistently identified as comprising a distinctive theoretical system [理论体系], a set of institutions [制度], a culture [文化], and a path [道路].  As Xi Jinping describes it, the theoretical system of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics offers intellectual “guid[ance] to the Party and people,” the institutions of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “provide the fundamental guarantee for progress and development” of socialism, the culture of Socialism with Chinese characteristics “is a powerful source of strength and inspiration” for individual cadres, while the path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “is the only path to socialist modernization and a better life for the people” (Xi 2020).  Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is thus defined both by the aims of China's political system and the tools cadres must use to accomplish these aims. 

The political debates of the 1980s powerfully shaped both these tools and aims. As the failings of the Chinese economy grew clearer, Party leaders concluded that “the practice of implementing orthodox socialist principles in the style of the Soviet Union was excessive for China’s level of socioeconomic development and productivity” (Zhao 2009). A country starting from such a low economic base must prioritize economic growth over class struggle—even if this required marketization of parts of the Chinese economy. In Zhao Ziyang’s 1987 Political Report this developmental stage—called the INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM—was linked to the political structures and priorities of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics:

The basic line of our Party in building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics during the initial stage of socialism is as follows: to lead the people of all our nationalities in a united, self-reliant, intensive and pioneering effort to turn China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and modern socialist country… The fundamental task for a socialist society is to develop its productive forces and concentrate on a drive for modernization (Zhao 1987).

Zhao and his fellow economic reformers were aware that statements like these broke from Marxist orthodoxy. “Building socialism in a big, backward, Eastern country like China is something new in the history of the development of Marxism,” Zhao told the Party. “We are not in the situation envisioned by the founders of Marxism” (Zhao 1987). Deng Xiaoping echoed this theme in an interview with a doubtful member of the Japanese socialist party: “Ours is an entirely new endeavor, one that was never mentioned by Marx, never undertaken by our predecessors and never attempted by any other socialist country. So there are no precedents for us to learn from. We can only learn from practice, feeling our way as we go” (Deng 1994).

Statements like these gave reformers the cover they needed to defeat “hidebound thinking” and introduce market mechanisms to Chinese life. The idea that China must bend Marxist-Leninism to fit its national circumstances allowed the reformists to obscure the differences between capitalism and socialism. Tolerance for market processes and an open embrace of international trade would remain a distinguishing feature of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the decades to come.

Yet a return to “hidebound thinking” and “leftist deviation” was never the only danger that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics sought to avert. From its origins the concept was associated with Deng Xiaoping’s FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES—a set of commitments that Deng did not allow the Party to retreat from or tolerate debate over. The four items that party members must remain loyal to include: the socialist path, the rule of a dictatorship of the proletariat, the political predominance of the Communist Party of China, and Marxist and Maoist thought. In practical terms these Four Cardinal Principles were understood as a party-wide commitment to maintain communist control over Chinese politics even as the Party relinquished a measure of control over China’s economy. These political commitments remain in force. “The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Xi Jinping instructed in his Political Report to the 20th Congress, “and [is] the greatest strength of the system of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” (Xi 2022). 

From the concept’s origin in the 1980s, the leaders of the CPC have identified liberalism as the most dangerous threat to the Party’s monopoly on power. Zhao Ziyang’s discussion of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics warns that “the tendency towards bourgeois liberalization, which rejects the socialist system in favor of capitalism… will last throughout the initial stage of socialism” (Zhao 1987). Socialism with Chinese Characteristics can thus be thought of as an attempt to ward off not only the temptations of the orthodox Marxist “left” but also the liberal-capitalist “right.” 

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the allure of leftist deviation was much diminished. In recent decades Party leaders tend to contrast the theory, institutions, culture, and path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics not with Marxist orthodoxy but liberal heresy. Thus Xi Jinping warns party cadres that

Since the end of the Cold War, some countries, affected by Western values, have been torn apart by war or afflicted with chaos. If we tailor out practices to Western capitalist values, measure our national development by means of the Western capitalist evaluation system, and regard Western standards as the sole standards for development, the consequences will be devastating—we will have to follow others slavishly at every step, or we subject ourselves to their abuse (Xi 2017, 356).

The contrast with China could not be clearer. In Xi’s home country, “[our] party has led the people in independently blazing the path to success over the past century, and the success of Marxism in China has been realized by Chinese Communists through our own endeavors.” Xi insists that as cadres “strengthen [their] confidence in the path, theoretical system, institutions, and culture of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” they will be able to “deal with China’s issues… in light of the Chinese context.” In the eyes of Xi Jinping and other senior leaders of the Communist Party of China, this is the only path by which China can become strong, wealthy, beautiful, and modern  (Xi 2022). 

See Also: DENG XIAOPING THEORY; FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM; MODERATELY PROSPEROUS SOCIETY; ONE CENTER, TWO BASIC TASKS.

Center, The
中央

“The Center” is a literal rendering of zhōngyāng. The phrase is is most commonly used as an abbreviation for the CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the Communist Party of China (中国共产党中央委员会), and official Chinese translations almost always opt for translating it as “The Central Committee.” The term, however, is more ambiguous than most translations into English allow. Cheng Zhenqiu, who directed  the English translation of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, described his dissatisfaction with his own translation with these comments:

Lexically, there are still many issues…for example, the translation of zhōngyāng [中央]….Sometimes zhongyang refers to the Central Standing Committee [中央常委], sometimes it refers to the Central Politburo [中央政治局], and more often it refers to the Central Committee. Abroad some have begun translating it as “the Center”; on this issue there’s room for further research (Snape 2021).

The kaleidoscopic nature of the term is evident in Party regulations governing the Central Committee, which declares that 

The Central Committee, Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) are the brain and central hub of the Party organization. Only the Party Centre has the mandate to make decisions and interpret Party-wide and state-wide important principles and policies  (Xinhua 2020).

The usefulness of a term whose definition can stretch to describe either the Central Committee, the POLITBURO, or the POLITBURO STANDING COMMITTEE as contingency requires has been recognized since the days of Mao Zedong, when obedience to The Center was first codified as part of the “FOUR OBEYS” regulating Party life. In particular, obfuscating the specific source of new directives means that decisions that may have only been made by a small group of leading cadres are cloaked with the mantle of larger party organs, suggesting a shared consensus or collective decision making process that may not actually exist.

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; POLITBURO

New Development Concept
新发展理念

Xi Jinping introduced the New Development Concept, alternatively translated as the New Development Philosophy, to guide China’s development strategy in an age of declining growth rates. Presented shortly before the Thirteenth Five Year Plan in 2015, the express aim of the New Development Concept is to reorient Chinese economic planning away from narrow GDP growth targets and towards what Xi Jinping calls “high quality development” [高质量发展].  From a macroeconomic perspective, the New Development Concept aims to boost China’s economic growth on the long run by addressing the structural challenges inherent in China’s development model; from a social perspective, it aims to temper popular discontent with pollution, inequality, and other negative byproducts of growth pursued at all costs; and from a geopolitical perspective, it aims to transform China into the global leader in science and technology, paving China’s ADVANCE TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE.

The roots of the problem set tackled by the New Development Concept stretch back to the early Reform Era. Shortly after the death of Mao Zedong many party leaders concluded that economic growth was the key to restoring China’s national strength, the Party’s international standing, and the loyalty of the Chinese people. After more than a decade of experimentation proved the value of this logic, General Secretary Jiang Zemin would codify it as the Party’s “basic line” during the “INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM,” declaring in his 1997 Political Report to the 15th National Congress that “We have no choice but to make economic construction the central task of the entire Party and the whole country. All other work is subordinated to and serves this task.... The key to the solution of all of China's problems lies in our own development” (Jiang 1997). For two generations the entire machinery of the Chinese party-state served the demands of this mantra. 

The results of the Party’s unfaltering pursuit of development were extraordinary: the living standard of the average Chinese person increased by twenty-six times in real terms during the four decades between 1978 and 2018, while China’s share of the global economy climbed from 2 percent to 16 percent over the same period (Yao 2020). The main drivers of the fantastic growth of this era were government investment in fixed capital assets and strong foreign demand for cheap Chinese goods. This meant that despite its undeniable achievements, the growth model of the Reform Era came with a prepackaged expiration date. Chinese economists long predicted that climbing Chinese wages would eventually price China out of many export markets. They also understood that there are limits to the number of roads, sewers, skyscrapers, and railways any country—even a country as large as China—can build before additional capital investments provide diminishing returns. It was only a matter of time before China would be forced to either adopt a new growth model or accept economic stagnation.

The Great Recession marked this transition point: the financial crisis lowered global demand for Chinese goods, forcing the Chinese state to power through the emergency with a massive stimulus spending spree. This spending package saved China from recession at the cost of stagnating returns on capital investments and a sharp accumulation of debt on local government balance sheets. To make matters worse, a shrinking surplus labor pool pushed up production costs in China, making Chinese goods less competitive in the global market just as global demand began to recover. Henceforth the Chinese economy would require new sources of growth if China was to attain the long-term development goals that party leaders had set for it.

The CENTER understood these problems well. In 2013, Xi cataloged a series of problems facing China’s development in the Third PLENUM of the 18th CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development remains a big problem. We are weak in scientific and technological innovation. The industrial structure is unbalanced and the growth mode remains inefficient. The development gap between urban and rural areas and between regions is still large, and so are income disparities (Xi 2014, p. 78).

The key to surmounting these challenges, Xi maintained, was widespread recognition that the Chinese economy had entered a “new normal” [新常态]. The halcyon days where Chinese economic planners could rely on high-speed growth were over; medium-high speed growth must be the new norm. This would require China to adjust its economic strategy. At the Central Conference on Economic Work in 2014, Xi warned cadres that in this new environment “economic restructuring will be painful but is unavoidable.” He assured cadres that restructuring would mark the beginning of a what he called a New Development Stage [新发展阶段] where China would transition to “to a [development] model that is more advanced, better structured, and with a more complicated division of labor” (Xi 2017, p. 255). 

The New Development Concept was introduced to guide development planning in this new stage. Presented in 2015 in tandem with the Thirteenth Five Year Plan, the concept directs cadres to prioritize five qualitative outcomes over quantitative measures of growth: economic development must be innovative [创新], coordinated [协调], green [绿色], open [开放], and shared [共享].  Scientific and technological innovation lay at the center of this new development approach. The New Development Concept presumes that the global economy sits on the cusp of a technological revolution. Whichever nation invents, introduces, and controls these emerging technologies will determine the course of global economic development in the decades to come. However, “inadequate capacity for innovation is [China’s] Achilles’ heel,” Xi remarked during a study session of the Thirteenth Five Year Plan. “Innovation-driven growth has become the pressing demand for China’s development. Therefore, I stress repeatedly that innovation is development; innovation is the future” (Xi 2017, p. 223). In response to this call the PRC rolled out multiple techno-industrial policies—the most famous being “Made in China 2025”— between 2015 and 2017. All attempted to push the industrial foundations of the Chinese economy up the global value chain.  

Parallel to this push towards the technological frontier was a drive to cut away unproductive parts of the existing industrial base. The stimulus package that powered China through the Great Recession also saddled the Chinese economy with wasteful overcapacity in state-run industries like steel and coal. Reforming the Chinese growth model meant taking the axe to these industries—and stomaching the costs of a short-term GDP slowdown to do so. The Center signaled its willingness to stomach those costs in a 2016 series of People’s Daily articles penned by an “authoritative personage” (rumored to be Liu He, then head of the highest economic policymaking body, the Central Economic and Financial Leading Group) outlining the “supply side reforms” [供给侧改革] required by the New Development Concept. 

In reference to the growing debts incurred by local governments and state owned enterprises, the People’s Daily wrote that “a tree cannot grow to the sky; high leverage carries high risks.” The old growth playbook no longer worked: “economic stabilization relies on the old method, which is investment-driven, and fiscal pressure in some areas has added to possibilities of economic risks” (Wright 2023). To reduce these risks the State Council passed a series of measures for supply-side structural reform. The primary target of these reforms were so-called “zombie enterprises,” state-owned enterprises that were not generating enough profits. Parallel measures sought to reduce financial risks posed by a poorly regulated banking sector and crackdown on industries responsible for large-scale industrial pollution.

Up until 2018 or so, the New Development Concept could be understood primarily in these terms. The concept would guide China towards a growth model driven less by state investment in infrastructure and more by domestic demand for Chinese goods. It would do this through an industrial policy tailored to support Chinese firms working on the technological frontier while slowly diminishing the role that unproductive sectors of the economy, which relied on lax regulation or expensive state subsidies to survive, played in China’s future development. However, under the pressure of a grueling trade war, the threat of foreign export controls, and a global pandemic, both the stated aims and means of the New Development Concept began to shift. Party leaders began framing the New Development Concept in terms of China’s “economic security” [经济安全]. Security concepts previously associated with the TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM began to be deployed alongside those associated with the New Development Concept. The Central Committee officially endorsed this marriage of Chinese economic and security strategy in the 5th plenum of the 19th Party Congress. The plenum readout declared that “the integrated planning of development and security” [统筹发展和安全] should henceforth be recognized as a core tenet of development planning (Central Committee 2021). Today it is common for party leaders to not only call for innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development, but “secure” development as well.

Now the stated aim of the New Development Concept is to guide the Chinese economy towards what Xi Jinping has dubbed a NEW DEVELOPMENT PATTERN. This is a schema of self-sufficiency: if successful, the Party leadership will rely on domestic consumers to power the Chinese economy and on a homegrown scientific-industrial complex to power China’s technological advance. This will prevent Chinese development from being held hostage by HOSTILE FORCES. These goals are not too far afield from the original aims of the New Development Concept—what has changed is less the ultimate aims of Xi’s development program than the urgency with which the Party must pursue it. What was once a strategy for making China wealthier, more equal, and less polluted is now described to cadres as a strategy that will “decide our state’s capacity for survival” (Office of the Central National Security Commission 2022). 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM; NEW DEVELOPMENT PATTERN; SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM;

Period of Strategic Opportunity
战略机遇期

The concept of a “period of strategic opportunity” was first introduced by Jiang Zemin in 2002. In his political report to the 16th Party Congress, Jiang identified “the first two decades of the twenty-first century” as “an important period of strategic opportunity that must be grasped tightly.” In Jiang’s telling, the turn of the 21st century introduced a rare window of time in which China could focus all of its efforts on economic development. By embracing the forces of globalization during this window, the Party had the opportunity to build Chinese power through peaceful means, thereby laying the foundation for “a strong, prosperous, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country by the middle of this century” (Jiang 2002).

Jiang’s slogan was born out of the foreign policy debates that racked the Communist Party of China in the late 1990s. A decade before Deng Xiaoping had declared that PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT WERE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; a suite of reform era policies—including China’s opening to outside investment, Deng’s pursuit of market reforms, and the decision to terminate support for Maoist guerillas in the developing world—flowed from this assessment. A world trending towards peace and economic integration was a world where it was safe to focus the work of the Chinese party-state on economic reform.

The annual debates over China’s trading status in Washington, the 1997 Taiwan Straits crisis, and America’s 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade all put Deng’s assessment of the international scene to question. Many in China believed that it had been a mistake to prioritize economic growth over military power or confrontation with the United States. China’s ascension to the WTO and the 9/11 attacks—which diverted American hostility away from the PRC and towards the Middle East—put an end to their worries. By 2002 it was clear that globalization would not only power China’s economic ascent but would also temper opposition to China’s growing material might.

Jiang’s conception of the period of strategic opportunity was endorsed by the two men who governed China during the remainder of this window of opportunity. Both Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping repeated Jiang’s phrase verbatim; both paired it with fulsome depictions of globalization as an unstoppable historical force. Yet as Xi Jinping’s second term came to a close, economic integration seemed a far less powerful trend than it had seemed at the start of tenure. By that point the BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE had met with numerous setbacks; China was engaged in an unforgiving trade war with the United States, and anti-China sentiment was rising across the globe. Two decades after Jiang’s introduction of the period of strategic opportunity, Xi would offer a new assessment of the times:

Our country has entered a period of development in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising… We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms (Xi 2022).

 Xi’s new formula does not predict imminent war. It does suggest, however, that the Party can no longer rely on globalization and economic integration to shepherd the REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION. In an international environment defined by risk and danger, the strategies of the reform era are no longer sufficient to secure the Party CENTER’s desired future.

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; GREAT CHANGES UNSEEN IN A CENTURY; PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT ARE THE THEME OF THE TIMES; COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER; PATH OF PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT

Total National Security Paradigm
总体国家安全观

The Total National Security Paradigm is a set of interlinked concepts that party sources describe as Xi Jinping’s signature contribution to Chinese security theory. Xi introduced the paradigm in a 2014 address where he instructed cadres to “pay attention to both traditional and non-traditional security, and build a national security system that integrates such elements as political, military, economic, cultural, social, science and technology, information, ecological, resource, and nuclear security” (Xi 2014, p. 221-222).  This distinction between traditional [传统] and non-traditional [非传统] security is key to Xi’s paradigm. “Traditional security” is oriented around threats to China’s territorial integrity and threats from foreign military powers. The Total National Security Paradigm guides cadres to place equal emphasis on “non-traditional security” threats which cannot be resolved with military tools, but which are potentially as dangerous as military defeat.

Variously translated as the Holistic Approach to National Security, the Comprehensive National Security Concept, or the Overall National Security Outlook, the core of Xi's security paradigm is a maximalist conception of security. This intellectual framework blurs the lines between hard and soft power, internal and external threats, and traditional distinctions between the worlds of economics, culture, and diplomacy. China’s accounting of its security must be “total” [总体].

Though the Total National Security Paradigm is the most forceful and systematic presentation of this idea, it is not new to Party thought. Mao introduced the phrase PEACEFUL EVOLUTION into the party lexicon to describe the threat posed by Western powers who hoped to overthrow communist regimes by instigating revolution from within. The collapse of the Soviet Union vividly demonstrated what happened to a party who ignored this threat. From that moment to the present day, party leaders and state intellectuals have portrayed the Communist Party of China as safeguarding a system under siege. Be they faced with economic coercion and political isolation or friendly offers to integrate into the international order, party authorities consistently describe their country as the object of hostile stratagems designed to subvert China’s domestic stability and the Party’s unquestioned rule.

Xi Jinping’s solution to this problem differs from its predecessors more in scale than concept. Officials in the Jiang and Hu eras offered regular warnings about the danger that ideological dissent, social protest, online media, and official corruption posed to the Party’s hold on power. The Total National Security Paradigm formalized these warnings into a more systematic conceptual framework. In Leninist systems theoretical frameworks like these are the necessary prerequisite of bureaucratic overhaul. If this was the concept’s purpose it seems to have accomplished its aim: by the 20th Congress, the Chinese government was spending more on its internal security budget than on military power, the state security apparatus saw fresh expansion down to lower levels of government, and new national bodies like the Central National Security Commission (CNSC) [中央国家安全委员会] were coordinating state security functions across China’s bureaucratic labyrinth.

See also: CORE INTERESTS; HOSTILE FORCES; PEACEFUL EVOLUTION; SOFT BONE DISEASE; COMPOSITE NATIONAL POWER

Initial Stage of Socialism
社会主义初级阶段

Since the 1980s the concept of the initial stage of socialism (also translated as the “primary stage of socialism”) has served as the theoretical foundation for the Communist Party of China’s embrace of market economics. The theory of the initial stage of socialism posits that the ideal socialist order—from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs—presumes a level of wealth that China simply does not have. China remains in the initial stage of socialist rule; in this stage the Communist Party of China must focus its work on creating the wealth that future generations will redistribute. The transition to that more “advanced” stage of socialism must wait until China’s productive capacity and COMPOSITE NATIONAL STRENGTH has caught up with or surpassed that of the leading capitalist nations.

The origins of the slogan begin with an oversight: Karl Marx did not anticipate that communist revolutionaries would succeed in economically underdeveloped agrarian empires. He theorized revolution as the inevitable end point of industrialization and saw socialism as the culmination of capitalist development. Marx’s writings, therefore, offered little guidance to any revolutionary leader who seized control of a country that had not yet industrialized. The attempts these leaders made to modernize their countries sans private property, market mechanisms, and the other trappings of capitalism led to some of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies—China’s own Great Leap Forward chief among them.

Having experienced these tragedies firsthand, the men who led the Communist Party of China in the 1980s did not need to be convinced that the economic programs of Stalin and Mao were disasters. However, theirs was a negative consensus: there was no widespread agreement on what positive economic program China should follow. Deng Xiaoping’s reform program was therefore both experimental and provisional. It drew criticism from both the “left” and the “right.” Leftists opposed the ongoing reforms out of fear that they undermined party authority and threatened a wholesale retreat from Marxist principles. The rightists, on the other hand, thought that Deng’s reforms did not go far enough. They hoped that economic reform might evolve into a radical overhaul of not only the Chinese economy but also the Chinese political system. It was in the context of this debate that the market-friendly Zhao Ziyang proposed the theory of the initial stage of socialism.

Though close antecedents to the phrase can be found in party documents as far back as the 1950s, the concept was neither fully explored nor codified as part of the CPC’s guiding ideology until General Secretary Zhao Ziyang used it to justify the sweeping market reform package that he introduced at the 13th Congress in 1987. By that point the phrase “initial stage of socialism” had been used at least three times before in major policy documents of the preceding decade (the 1981 resolution on party history, Hu Yaobang’s Political Report to the 12th Congress, and the 1986 “Resolution on the Construction of a Socialist Spiritual Civilization”), though it was never presented in a systematic way in any of them. However, as party leaders had already endorsed these documents, the phrase “initial stage of socialism” was a useful vehicle for Zhao’s new program.

Zhao’s version of the initial stage of socialism was carefully designed to parry criticism from both the left and the right. To leftists, Zhao emphasized the importance of socialist rule over China. China was still socialist—it was just that in China’s present “historical stage” [历史阶段] low productive capacity was a fundamental “national condition” [国情] that any program of SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS could not ignore. “When a backward country is trying to build socialism,” Zhao explained, it is: 

natural that during the long initial period its productive forces will not be up to the level of those in developed capitalist countries and that it will not be able to eliminate poverty completely. Accordingly, in building socialism we must do all we can to develop the productive forces and gradually eliminate poverty, constantly raising the people’s living standards. Otherwise, how will socialism be able to triumph over capitalism?

In the second stage, or the advanced stage of communism, when the economy is highly developed and there is overwhelming material abundance, we shall be able to apply the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ (Zhao 2009).

Yet even as Zhao’s commitment to communist rule placated the left, by promising that economic reform would remain at the center of the Party’s policy platform as long as the country remained in the initial stage of socialism Zhao also sought to ease the fears of the right. Zhao estimated that for China to enter an “advanced stage of communism” economic development must remain the focus of the Party for several generations—at least until the year 2050. This allowed Zhao to position himself in between extremes to both his left and right:  

Under the specific historical conditions of contemporary China, to believe that the Chinese people cannot take the socialist road without going through the stage of fully developed capitalism is to take a mechanistic position on the question of the development of revolution, and that is the major cognitive root of Right mistakes. On the other hand, to believe that it is possible to jump over the initial stage of socialism, in which the productive forces are to be highly developed, is to take a Utopian position on this question, and that is the major cognitive root of Left mistakes (Zhao 1987).

Zhao was able to continue this dance until the Tiananmen protests of 1989 led to his removal from power. His favored phrase initially seemed to fall with him, but in 1997 Jiang Zemin returned the slogan to the center of the Party’s policy program. In his Political Report to the 15th Congress Jiang used the initial stage of socialism as a cudgel to silence critics who wished to walk back Dengist reforms. In a long section of the Report devoted to the concept, Jiang affirmed that “the true reality is that China is currently in the initial stage of socialism and will remain in this stage for a long time to come…. This is a historical stage we cannot jump over.” In this stage China will “accomplish industrialization,” “realize socialist modernization by and large,” “gradually narrow the gap between our level and the advanced world standard,” and “bring about a GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION on the basis of socialism.” 

Taking the founding of the PRC in 1949 as the starting point of the initial stage of socialism, Jiang estimated that China “will take at least a century to complete this historical process.” He predicted that following 2050 “a much longer period of time to consolidate and develop the socialist system” will be needed. Attaining communism in this period “will require persistent struggle by many generations, a dozen or even several dozen” (Jiang 1997).

Like his predecessors, Xi Jinping has emphasized both that China remains in the initial stage of socialism and that cadres must have faith that communism will eventually be realized in the distant future. But where Zhao, Jiang, and other leaders of the reform generation closely tied their invocations of the initial stage to their judgment that they must make “economic development the central task of the entire Party and the whole country… and make sure that all other work is subordinated to and serves this task” (Jiang 1997), Xi has used the phrase to support party work on a larger set of priorities.

“We have laid a solid material foundation to embark on a new journey and achieve new and higher goals by our unremitting endeavors since the founding of the NEW CHINA, especially over the four decades since the reform and opening up,” Xi instructed members of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE in 2021. This “new journey” is possible because in Xi’s view the initial stage of socialism is “not static, but rather dynamic, active, promising, and permeated with vigorous vitality.” The task the CPC faces now is not merely to develop China’s productive forces, but to “advance from the initial stage [of socialism] to a higher one” (Xinhua 2021). 

Xi describes this higher stage of socialism in terms of modernization and rejuvenation. If the first two decades of development under the “initial stage of socialism” schema made China wealthy, Xi Jinping believes that development during the last three decades of the initial stage of socialism will restore China to its proper place at the CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE.

See also: DENG XIAOPING THEORY; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; MODERATELY PROSPEROUS SOCIETY; ONE CENTER, TWO BASIC TASKS; REFORM AND OPENING; SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS.

New Development Pattern
新发展格局

The new development pattern—sometimes translated by Chinese state media as the new development dynamic—describes a proposed structure for the Chinese economy that was first introduced to the Party in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequently adopted as a guiding principle in the China’s Fourteenth Five Year Plan (2021-2025). As a blueprint for China’s future development, the new development pattern imagines a country whose economic growth and technological progress is not dependent on fickle global markets or foreign HOSTILE FORCES. While urging China towards self-reliance, the new development pattern is not a call for autarky. Instead, Xi Jinping instructs cadres to engineer a pattern of growth where “the domestic cycle is the mainstay, with the domestic cycle and international cycle providing mutual reinforcement.” (Xi 2022, p. 178).  Under this “dual cycle” or “dual circulation” [双循环] formula, China is expected to contribute to and benefit from global markets even as it transitions towards an economic model whose near-term growth primarily flows from domestic demand for Chinese goods and whose long term promise rests on China’s indigenous capacity for scientific and technological innovation. 

Chinese economists first began characterizing China’s economic development in terms of  “large scale cycles” [大循环] in the era of Deng Xiaoping. In 1987 Wang Jian, an economist then working for the State Planning Commission, proposed that China’s future growth could be best guaranteed by securing a place in the “large-scale international cycle” of trade and capital. Burdened with decaying heavy industry and a surplus pool of labor, Wang argued that China could reverse these trends by developing light industries like textiles and consumer appliances. The slogan “two ends extending abroad, with a high-volume of  imports and exports” [两头在外, 大进大出] captured the logic of the proposed development pattern. Under this schema, Chinese firms would first purchase raw materials for production from foreign markets (one of the two “ends extending abroad”), exploit China’s surplus labor to manufacture goods at low cost, and then sell the finished products in the global marketplace (the other “end” of the slogan). Trade would occur at volumes high enough to accumulate foreign exchange, which in turn could be used to purchase the new machinery needed to revitalize China’s out-of-date heavy industries. Enmeshing China in the “large-scale international cycle” of trade and capital flows outside of China would thus create a virtuous cycle of climbing wealth and growing industry inside China.     

This strategy was openly endorsed by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang; under his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao the integration of the Chinese economy with the global market would continue apace. There was a quiet geopolitical calculation behind this development strategy. The “two ends extending abroad” approach took economic interdependence as a prerequisite for China’s continued growth. This required a period of time where China could safely leverage the gains of integration without provoking opposition from foreign powers alarmed by its growing strength and wealth. Party leaders concluded that globalization would offer China such a PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY—a period they predicted would last through the first two decades of the 21st century.

These predictions proved prescient: globalization's assigned role in Chinese economic growth was downgraded as the 2010s came to a close. Two developments would undermine the choice position of global integration in Chinese development planning. The first was a waning commitment to economic growth as the be-all and end-all of the Party’s work. When Xi Jinping came to power, the negative consequences of the Party’s growth-at-all-costs mindset were apparent: noxious pollution, rising class tensions, regional wealth disparities, massive debt on local government ledgers, and a ubiquitous culture of corruption all undermined the Party’s quest for national rejuvenation. To address these problems Xi Jinping incorporated a new intellectual framework for economic development inside the Thirteenth Five Year Plan (2016-2020). This framework, dubbed the NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT, instructed cadres to prioritize “high quality development” [高质量发展] over narrower metrics of GDP growth. The concept called for the Party to achieve these aims by transitioning away from growth driven by fixed asset investments and cheap foreign exports to growth driven by domestic consumption and high end manufacturing at the edge of the technological frontier.

Parallel to these changes in development philosophy was the transformation of Chinese security theory. Under the auspices of Xi Jinping’s TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM, Chinese security officially began to blur existing distinctions between hard and soft power, internal and external threats, and traditional dividing lines between the worlds of economics, culture, and diplomacy. From this viewpoint, emerging problems in any of these domains might threaten the Party’s hold on power and thus must be viewed through the lens of regime security. Viewed from this perspective, the economic gains that international integration promised must be balanced against increased exposure to hostile forces from the outside world.

These two streams—economic planning and security strategy—began to merge as American export controls and tariffs placed pressure on the Chinese economy. The high-tech development strategy envisioned by the New Development Concept assumes access to crucial technological components that Chinese firms do not yet have the capacity to manufacture. Party leaders began to worry that without the capacity to manufacture these components at home, China’s ADVANCE TO THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE might be held hostage by hostile foreign powers. These anxieties were only reinforced by the dramatic drop in global demand for Chinese goods and equally dramatic rise in global anti-China sentiment caused by the 2020 pandemic. The lesson was clear: the PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY was closing. Chinese development was dangerously dependent on foreign powers. In this environment China could no longer afford a development pattern that prioritized economic growth and global integration over self-reliance. 

“We have become more aware that security is a prerequisite for development and development guarantees security,” Xi concluded in a Politburo study session in October 2020. “Our country is exposed to the risk of various problems and dangers now and in the future, and risks – both foreseeable and unforeseeable – are on the increase” (Xi 2022, p. 133). To mitigate these risks, China needed to “integrate the planning of security and development” [统筹发展和安全]. 

In April 2020 Xi Jinping laid out what a “secure” development pattern must look like. Chinese development can no longer take the  “large-scale international cycle” as its foundation. Instead, the Party must construct a “large-scale domestic cycle” [国内大循环] to serve as the mainstay of future growth, with the “international cycle” [国际循环] serving as a supplement. As much as possible, planners should locate both the materials used as inputs for Chinese manufacturing and the consumers of China’s manufactured goods (the “two ends extending abroad” in the old slogan) within China’s own borders.

This development strategy has both macroeconomic and security rationales. Chinese observers note that from a macroeconomic standpoint, raising domestic consumption promises to right an economy that has long been described as “unbalanced.” As Chinese wages rise and the labor supply shrinks, China can no longer maintain a growth model premised on low-end manufacturing for the global market. Intentional investment in emerging technologies and key strategic industries is one route around the feared “middle income trap.” It is also a way to escape technological dependence on hostile foreign powers. Xi Jinping describes the drive for technological self-sufficiency as “vital to the survival and development of [the] nation” (Xi 2021, p. 204). By reshoring technological supply chains, as well as key economic inputs like food and energy, the new development pattern promises to secure China against sanction or blockade.

However, the new development pattern is less a bid for autarky than a plan for “hedged integration” with the global economy (Blanchette and Polk 2020). Chinese economists expect that rising Chinese consumer demand will fuel economic growth for exporters across the globe; if China successfully pushes forward the technological frontier, Chinese firms expect to export their new products to every corner of the earth. As one manual designed to teach cadres about the strategy concludes: “Constructing a new development pattern is... a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth.” The ultimate goal of self-reliance is not to cut China off from the world, but to make China more central to it. If realized, the new development pattern will “allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources” (Office of the Central National Security Commission 2023). 

See also: ADVANCING TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD STAGE; GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION; INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM; NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT; SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS; TOTAL NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM;

坚持统筹发展和安全—关于新时代国家安全的必然要求

1. 推进发展和安全深度融合 

(36)  发展和安全是一体之两翼、驱动之双轮。统筹发展和安全,增强忧患意识,做到居安思危,是我们党治国理政的一个重大原则。要把国家安全贯穿到党和国家工作各方面全过程,同经济社会发展一起谋划、一起部署,做到协调一致、齐头并进。要让发展和安全两个目标有机融合,实现高质量发展和高水平安全的良性互动,努力建久安之势、成长治之业。

当代中国正在经历人类历史上最为宏大而独特的实践创新,改革发展稳定任务之重、矛盾风险挑战之多、治国理政考验之大都前所未有,世界百年未有之大变局深刻变化前所未有。我们比历史上任何时期都更接近、更有信心和能力实现中华民族伟大复兴的目标,同时必须准备付出更为艰巨、更为艰苦的努力。要勇于开顶风船,善于转危为机,努力实现更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续、更为安全的发展。历史和现实都告诉我们,只要不断解放和发展社会生产力,不断增强经济实力、科技实力、综合国力,不断让广大人民的获得感、幸福感、安全感日益充实起来,不断让坚持和发展中国特色社会主义、实现中华民族伟大复兴的物质基础日益坚实起来,我们就一定能够使中国特色社会主义航船乘风破浪、行稳致远。

2. 坚定维护改革发展稳定大局

(37) 习近平总书记指出:“改革发展稳定是我国社会主义现代化建设的三个重要支点。改革是经济社会发展的强大动力,发展是解决一切经济社会问题的关键,稳定是改革发展的前提”。只有社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进;只有改革发展不断推进,社会稳定才能具有坚实基础。离开社会稳定,不仅改革发展不可能顺利推进,而且已经取得的成果也会丧失。

从世界范围看,许多国家由于政局动荡、不仅失去发展机遇,也给这些国家的人民带来深重灾难。贯彻落实总体国家安全观,必须全面把握艰巨繁重的改革发展稳定任务。改革开放以来,我们党始终高度重视正确处理改革发展稳定关系,保持了我国社会大局稳定,为改革开放和社会主义现代化建设营造了良好环境。

当前,我国面临的国际形势日趋错综复杂,我们要清醒认识国际国内各种不利因素的长期性、复杂性。发展仍然是我们党执政兴国的第一要务,仍然是带有基础性、根本性的工作,但经济发展、物质生活改善并不是全部,人心向背也不仅仅决定于这一点。

必须坚持辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义世界观和方法论,正确处理改革发展稳定关系,坚持把改革的力度、发展的速度和社会可承受的程度统一起来,坚持方向不变、道路不偏、力度不减,把改善人民生活作为正确处理改革发展稳定关系的结合点,在保持社会稳定中推进改革发展,通过改革发展促进社会稳定。要增强改革措施、发展措施、稳定措施的协调性,把握好当前利益和长远利益、局部利益和全局利益、个人利益和集体利益的关系。

面对复杂多变的安全和发展环境,要坚持稳中求进工作总基调。稳中求进的根本点在于稳定大局、不断进取,“稳”和“进”,要相互促进,坚持在发展中平稳化解风险,在化解风险中优化发展。要把推进改革同防范化解重大风险结合起来,深入研判改革形势和任务,科学谋划推动落实改革的时机、方式、节奏,更加积极有效应对不稳定不确定因素,增强斗争本领,拓展政策空间,提升制度张力,推动改革行稳致远。既要认识到解决经济社会发展中一些长期存在的难题需要久久为功,又不能畏首畏尾,把问题留给后人,要抓铁有痕、踏石留印,发扬钉钉子精神,一步一个脚印向前迈进。

3. 从问题导向和忧患意识把握新发展理念

(38)发展理念是否对头,从根本上决定着发展成效乃至成败。党的十八大以来,我们对经济社会发展提出了许多重大理论和理念,其中新发展理念是最重要、最主要的。创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享的新发展理念,是在深刻总结国内外发展经验教训的基础上形成的,也是针对我国发展中的突出矛盾和问题提出来的。

要坚持问题导向,深入分析问题背后的原因,在贯彻落实新发展理念中及时化解矛盾风险,不断提高国家安全能力。要认识到推动创新发展、协调发展、绿色发展、开放发展、共享发展,前提都是国家安全、社会稳定。必须以安全保发展、以发展促安全,把国家发展建立在更加安全、更为可靠的基础之上。

创新发展注重的是解决发展动力问题。经过多年努力,我国科技整体水平大幅提升,但创新能力还不适应高质量发展要求,科技自立自强成为决定我国生存和发展的基础能力,存在诸多“卡脖子”问题,这是我国这个经济大个头的“阿喀琉斯之踵”。新一轮科技革命带来的是更加激烈的科技竞争,如果科技创新搞不上去,发展动力就不可能实现转换,我们在全球经济竞争中就会处于下风。必须坚持创新在我国现代化建设全局中的核心地位,以全球视野谋划和推动创新,深入实施创新驱动发展战略,加快建设世界科技强国,推动科技和经济社会发展深度融合,通过创新培育发展新动力、塑造更多发挥先发优势的引领型发展。

协调发展注重的是解决发展不平衡问题。我国发展不协调是一个长期存在的问题,突出表现在区域、城乡、经济和社会、物质文明和精神文明、经济建设和国防建设等关系上。要注意调整关系,注重发展的整体效能,否则“木桶效应”就会愈加显现,一系列社会矛盾会不断加深。必须牢牢把握中国特色社会主义事业总体布局,通过补齐短板挖掘发展潜力、增强发展后劲,不断增强发展整体性。

绿色发展注重的是解决人与自然和谐问题。良好生态环境是人和社会持续发展的根本基础,随着经济社会发展和人民生活水平不断提高,环境问题往往最容易引起群众不满。

必须坚定走生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展道路,加快推动产业结构、能源结构、交通运输结构、用地结构调整,实现经济社会发展与人口、资源、环境相协调,确保中华民族永续发展,为全球生态安全作出我们应有的贡献。

当前,加快推动经济社会发展全面绿色转型已经形成高度共识,而我国能源体系高度依赖煤炭等化石能源,生产和生活体系向绿色低碳转型的压力都很大,实现二〇三〇年前二氧化碳排放达到峰值、二〇二六年前碳中和的目标任务极其艰巨。实现碳达峰、碳中和是推动高质量发展的内在要求,要坚定不移推进,但不可能毕其功于一役。要坚待全国统筹、节约优先、双防范风险的原则。传统能源逐步退出要建立在新能源安全可靠的替代基础上。

开放发展注重的是解决发展内外联动问题。国际经济合作和竞争局面正在发生深刻变化,全球经济治理体系和规则正在面临重大调整,应对外部经济风险、维护国家经济安全的压力也是 过去所不能比拟的。我国对外开放水平总体上还不够高,用好国际国内两个市场、两种资源的能力还不够强。必须坚持对对外开放的基本国策,建设多元平衡、安全高效的全面开放体系,发展更高层次的开放型经济,以扩大开放带动创新、推动改革、促进发展。越开放越要重视安​​全,越要统筹好发展和安全,着力增强自身竞争能力、开放监管能力、风险防控能力。

共享发展注重的是解决社会公平正义问题。当前,全球收入不平等问题突出,一些国家贫富分化,中产阶层塌陷,导致社会撕裂、政治极化、民粹主义泛滥,教训十分深刻。从国内看,在共享改革发展成果上,无论是实际情况还是制度设计,都还有不完善的地方,实现人的全面发展和全体人民共同富裕仍然任重道远。

共享是中国特色社会主义的本质要求,实现共同富裕不仅是经济问题,而且是关系党的执政基础的重大政治问题。必须从全心全意为人民服务的根本宗旨把握新发展理念,坚决防止两极分化,决不能在富的人和穷的人之间出现一道不可逾越的鸿沟。实现共同富裕目标,首先要通过全国人民共同奋斗把 “蛋糕”做大做好,然后通过合理的制度安排把“蛋糕”切好分好。这是一个长期的历史过程,要稳步朝着这个目标迈进。

要在推动高质量发展中强化就业优先导向,提高经济增长的就业带动力。要发挥分配的功能和作用,坚持按劳分配为主体,完善按要素分配政策,加大税收、社保、转移支付等的调节力度,优化收入分配结构,扩大中等收入群体。支持有意愿有能力的企业和社会群体积极参与公益慈善事业。要坚持尽力而为、量力而行,完善公共服务政策制度体系,在教育、医疗、养老、住房等人民群众最关心的领域精准提供基本公共服务。

4. 构建新发展格局要牢牢守住安全发展底线

(39) 加快构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局,是一项关系我国发展全局的重大战略任务。习近平总书记指出:“要牢牢守住安全发展这条底线。这是构建新发展格局的重要前提和保障,也是畅通国内大循环的题中应有之义”。

近年来,经济全球化遭遇逆流,国际经济循环格局发生深度调整。新冠肺炎疫情也加剧了逆全球化趋势,各国内顾倾向上升。市场和资源两头在外的国际大循环动能明显减弱,大进大出的环境条件已经变化。在当前全球市场萎缩的外部环境下,必须集中力量办好自己的事,加快构建新发展格局,在各种可以预见和难以预见的狂风暴雨、惊涛骇浪中,增强我们的生存力、竞争力、发展力、持续力,确保中华民族伟大复兴进程不被迟滞甚至中断。构建新发展格局不是被迫之举和权宜之计,而是把握未来发展主动权的战略性布局和先手棋,是一场需要保持顽强斗志和战略定力的攻坚战、持久战。

构建新发展格局的关键在于经济循环的畅通无阻。如果经济循环过程中出现堵点、断点,循环就会受阻,在宏观上就会表现为增长速度下降、失业增加、风险积累、国际收支失衡等情况,在微观上就会表现为产能过剩、企业效益下降、居民收入下降等问题。在我国发展现阶段,畅通经济循环最主要的任务是供给侧有效畅通,有效供给能力强可以穿透循环堵点、消除瓶颈制约。必须坚持深化供给侧结构性改革这条主线,实现经济在高水平上的动态平衡。

构建新发展格局最本质的特征是实现高水平的自立自强。要把自主创新放在能不能生存和发展的高度加以认识,全面加强对科技创新的部署,加强创新链和产业链对接,创造有利于新技术快速大规模应用和迭代升级的独特优势,加速科技成果向现实生产力转化,提升产业链水平,维护产业链安全,打通从科技强到产业强、经济强、国家强的通道,以改革释放创新活力,加快建立健全国家创新体系。

形成强大国内市场是构建新发展格局的重要支撑,也是大国经济优势所在。加快培育完整内需体系,有利于化解外部冲击和外需下降带来的影响,也有利于在极端情况下保证我国经济基本正常运行和社会大局总体稳定。要把实施扩大内需战略同深化供给侧结构性改革有机结合起来,着力提升供给体系对国内需求的适配性,使生产、分配、流通、消费各环节更多依托国内市场实现良性循环。

我们只有立足自身,把国内大循环畅通起来,把安全发展贯穿国家发展各领域和全过程,努力炼就百毒不侵、金刚不坏之身,才能任由国际风云变幻,始终充满朝气生存和发展下去,没有任何人能打倒我们、卡死我们。改革开放以来,我们遭遇过很多外部风险冲击,最终都能化险为夷,靠的就是办好自己的事、把发展立足点放在国内。

(40) 要科学认识国内大循环和国内国际双循环的关系。构建新发展格局是开放的国内国际双循环,不是封闭的国内单循环。我国经济已经深度融入世界经济,同全球很多国家的产业关联和相互依赖程度都比较高,内外需市场本身是相互依存、相互促进的。构建新发展格局,实行高水平对外开放,必须具备强大的国内经济循环体系和稳固的基本盘,并以此形成对全球要素资源的强大吸引力、在激烈国际竞争中的强大竞争力、在全球资源配置中的强大推动力。要重视以国际循环提升国内大循环效率和水平,改善我国生产要素质量和配置水平。要通过参与国际市场竞争,增强我国出口产品和服务竞争力,推动我国产业转型升级。

现在国际上保护主义思潮上升,但我们要站在历史正确的一边,以开放、合作、共赢胸怀谋划发展,坚定不移推动经济全球化朝着开放、包容、普惠、平衡、共赢的方向发展,推动建设开放型世界经济。同时,要牢固树立安全发展理念,加快完善安全发展体制机制,补齐相关短板,维护产业链、供应链安全,积极做好防范化解重大风险工作。

 

Uphold the Integration of Development and Security: On a Necessary Requirement for National Security in the New Era

1.  Advancing the Complete Fusion of Development and Security

(36) Development and security are like two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart. One of our Party’s major principles for governing China1 is the integration of development and security, increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace.2 We must weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state, planning and deploying [national security policies] alongside economic and social development, [having them] work harmoniously in lockstep. We must organically harmonize the two goals of development and security; realize the positive interaction between high-quality development and security; and diligently establish long-lasting security and long-term stability. 

China at present is experiencing the grandest and most unique innovations in praxis that have yet occurred in human history. The task of reform, development, and stability is a heavy one; there are numerous contradictions, risks, and challenges, as well as great tests [of our ability to] govern the state. All are without precedent. Across the globe great changes unseen in a century are profound and unprecedented. We are now closer to, and more confident and capable of, realizing the goal of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation than at any point in history. At the same time, this will require preparing [ourselves] for onerous and painstaking effort. We must courageously sail in dire straits and turn a myriad of crises into opportunities, ceaselessly realize better quality, more efficient, more equal, more sustainable, and more secure development.3 History and reality have told us: as long as we ceaselessly liberate and develop society’s productive forces;4 ceaselessly increase our economic strength, scientific and technological strength, and composite national power;5 ceaselessly [work] so that our vast people's sense of achievement, happiness, and security grows fuller day by day; and ceaselessly [work so that] the material foundation for upholding and developing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and for realizing the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation grows more substantial day by day–then we will not fail to guide Socialism with Chinese Characteristics through wind and wave, steadfastly sailing into the distance. 

2.  Steadfastly Protect the Broader Landscape of Reform, Development, and Stability

(37) General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that “reform, development, and stability are the three pivotal fulcrums of our state’s socialist modernization. Reform is a powerful driving force for economic and social development. Development is the key to solving all our economic and social problems. Only with social stability can reform and development possibly advance without ceasing.”6 Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.

 On a global scale, political unrest has not only caused many countries to pass up favorable opportunities for development, but has also brought grave disasters upon the peoples of these countries. To conclusively carry out the Total National Security Paradigm we must grasp firmly the formidable task of reform, development, and stability on all fronts. For the sake of constructing a favorable environment for Reform and Opening and socialist modernization, from the beginning of Reform and Opening our party has always given a high priority to correctly managing the relationship between reform, development, and stability, and on preserving the broader landscape of stability in our state and society.

Currently, our state faces an increasingly intricate and complex international dynamic. We must soberly recognize the complexity and protracted nature of the various adverse factors [we face] both internationally and domestically.  Development is still our Party’s top priority in the government and rejuvenation of the state; it is still our essential and foundational work. However, economic development and the improvement of material living [standards] is not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support. 

It is necessary to uphold the worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. It is necessary to correctly manage the relationship between reform, development, and stability; to unify the force of reform, the speed of development, and the load-bearing capacity of [our] society. We must never shift in our course, stray from our path, or slacken our strength. Improving the livelihood of the people [should be] the nexus of reform, development, and stability. While guaranteeing social stability, [we must] advance reform and development. [We must] promote social stability through reform and development. It is necessary to strengthen reform measures, development measures, and stability measures; and to properly grasp the relationship between individual and collective interests, short-term and long-term interests, the interests of the parts and the interests of the whole.

Facing a complex and mutable environment for security and development, it is necessary to uphold [an atmosphere] where seeking progress in stability is the keynote of our work.7 The fundamental point of seeking progress in stability lies in stabilizing the broader landscape [while still] ceaselessly forging ahead. “Stability” and “progress” should mutually promote one another. It is necessary to uphold the smooth resolution of risks in the midst of development, and to optimize development in the midst of risk resolution. Thoroughly evaluate the circumstances and the tasks of reform. Synthesize the promotion of reform with the prevention and resolution of major risks.  Scientifically plan the promotion and implementation of reform with proper timing, means, and pace. Handle destabilizing and uncertain [risk] factors more actively and effectively. Strengthen our capacity for struggle,8 expand our policy space;9 improve the resilience of [our] institutions under stress; and ensure that reform [will] be steady and enduring. We must recognize that resolving long-standing difficulties in economic and social development will require a long and protracted effort, but we must never act with trepidation, passing our problems on to future generations. We must strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone,10 carry forward in the “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,”11 and press towards the future one step at a time. 

3. Grasping the New Development Concept with Risk Consciousness and a Problem Oriented Approach 

(38) The correctness of our development concept fundamentally determines the effectiveness and even the success or failure of development.  Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, we have introduced important theories and concepts for economic and social development. Among them, the New Development Concept is the most important and essential. The New Development Concept, [which calls for] innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared [growth], is based on a profound synthesis of the experiences and lessons of development [learned] both at home and abroad. It is [designed] to counter the prominent contradictions and problems that arise from development in China.

[We] need to follow a problem oriented approach, thoroughly analyze the reasons for the problems [we face], resolve contradictions and risks by carrying out the New Development Concept in a timely manner, and ceaselessly improve our state’s capacity in national security. [We] need to recognize that innovative development, coordinated development, green development, open development, and shared development are all premised on national security and social stability. We must use security to protect development and development to advance security. This will place our state's development and security on a safer and more trustworthy foundation.

Innovative development focuses on problems related to drivers of growth. After many years of concerted effort, China’s overall scientific and technological standards have improved considerably, but [our] capacity for innovation does not meet the requirements of high-quality development. Scientific and technological self-reliance will decide our state’s capacity for survival and development. There are many “strangleholds.”12 This is the “Achilles’ Heel” of our state’s massive economy.13 A new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology. If we cannot improve our [capacity] for innovation in science and technology, we will not be able to transform the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition. It is necessary to uphold innovation’s central position in the overall modernization landscape; plan and advance innovation from a global perspective; thoroughly implement the “Strategy for Innovation-Driven Development”;14 accelerate the construction of a world-class great power in science and technology;15 advance the fusion of science and technology with economic and social development; cultivate new drivers of growth through education; and sculpt a leading-edge development with more first mover advantages.

The focus of coordinated development is resolving the problem of imbalanced development. China’s imbalanced development is a persistent problem that manifests in the relations among localities, [between] urban and rural areas, between material civilization and spiritual civilization, and between economic development and national defense. We must focus on adjusting these relationships and focus on the overall effectiveness of development. Otherwise the problem of the “Wooden Bucket Theory”16 will become increasingly prominent [in our society], and a series of social contradictions will continuously worsen. We must firmly grasp the broader configuration of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, unearth developmental potential through correcting and consolidating our shortcomings, strengthen our vigor [after the initial stages of this process], and ceaselessly strengthen the holistic nature of development. 

The focus of green development is resolving the problem of harmony between humanity and nature. A favorable ecological environment is the foundation for the continuous development of humanity and society. As socio-economic development [matures] and living standards rise, environmental problems are often those most prone to provoking discontent among the masses. We must steadfastly walk the path of civilized development that [combines] productivity growth, prosperity, and a clean environment. We must accelerate adjustments in the structure of industry, energy, public transport, and land use. 

We must coordinate socio-economic development with the population [level], natural resources, and the environment; ensure that the Chinese will develop sustainably; and make our due contribution for the security of the global ecosystem. 

At the present, there is already a high degree of consensus in regards to accelerating the green transition in [our] socio-economic development. However, our state’s energy system is reliant on coal and fossil fuels, and the systems of production and daily living are placing immense pressure on our green and low-carbon transition. Our targets to reach a carbon emissions peak before 2030 and to [become] carbon neutral by 2026 are extraordinarily challenging.  Realizing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is a basic condition for realizing high-quality development. While we must pursue [this goal] unwaveringly, we cannot accomplish this task in one fell swoop. Keep to the principles of integrated planning for the entire country, prioritizing conservation, and protecting against double risks. The phasing out of traditional energy [sources] must be built on the foundation of replacing them with secure and reliable new energy [sources].

The focus of open development is resolving the problem of the interrelations between domestic and international development. The state of international economic cooperation and competition has undergone profound changes. The global economy’s governance systems and regulations are facing drastic adjustments. The [challenge of] responding to foreign economic risks and the pressure we face protecting economic security has no precedents. Our state’s overall standard of [economic] openness is not high enough, and our ability to utilize both the domestic and international markets, as well as the resources [concomitant to each], is not strong enough. We must uphold our basic state strategy of [economic] opening; construct comprehensive and open [economic] systems that are diverse and balanced as well as secure and highly efficient; develop an open model of the economy at a higher level; and use the expansion of opening up to bring about innovation, promote reform, and advance development. The more we open [the economy], the more we must prioritize security, the more necessary it becomes to properly integrate development with security, and the more necessary it becomes to put greater effort into increasing our ability to compete self sufficiently, our ability to regulate an open [market],17 and our ability to manage risk.

The focus of shared development is resolving the problem of social equality and justice. Currently, the issue of global income inequality is very prominent. In some countries the middle class has crumbled and wealth disparities are gaping. This leads to the rupture of the social [fabric], political polarization, and rampant populism. All [of these countries] provide profound lessons for our state. When it comes to sharing the gains of reform and development domestically, whether it is the concrete situation or the design of [our institutions], there are still imperfections, and the road to realizing comprehensive development and common prosperity for all of the people is still heavy and protracted.

Shared [development] is a fundamental requirement for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Realizing common prosperity is not only an economic question. It is also an important political question related to the foundation of the Party’s governance. With the aim of serving the people with all of our heart and soul, we must seize the New Development Concept, resolutely prevent the polarization [of our society], and never allow the emergence of a chasm between the rich and the poor that cannot be bridged. To realize our target of common prosperity [we] must first create a larger and better “cake” through the people’s collective efforts. Then through appropriate institutional arrangements this “cake” will then be cut and divided properly. This is a long-term historical process, towards which we must proceed steadily.18

We must prioritize employment in the promotion of high quality development, ensuring that economic growth drives up employment. It is necessary to give full play to the purpose and effect of redistribution, persist in the major [principle] of “distribution according to one’s work,” and perfect the policies of “distribution according to the factors of production.”19 It is necessary to raise the strength of regulations on taxation, social insurance, transfer payments and the like; optimize income distribution structures; and expand the middle class. We must support corporations and social organizations that are willing and able to actively participate in the public good [provision] and philanthropy. We must persist in doing all in our power to perfect [both] public policies and the system of institutions that serve the public, and improve basic public services in education, medicine, retirement, housing and other areas that the people find most important. 

4. Firmly Safeguard the Bottom Line of Security and Development in Order to Construct a New Development Pattern 

(39) Accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, which takes a large-scale cycle in the domestic market as its mainstay with a dual cycle in the domestic and international markets boosting each other, is a vital strategic task that impacts the broader landscape of China’s development. General Secretary Xi Jinping indicated that “we must firmly safeguard the bottom line of security and development. This is the vital prerequisite and guarantee for constructing a new development pattern and is the key to an unimpeded large-scale domestic cycle.”20

In recent years, economic globalization has encountered headwinds and cyclical international economic structures have undergone profound adjustments. The outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated those headwinds, and the trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states. The cycle of international markets and [natural] resources has clearly slowed. The [old] environment [conducive to] importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new development pattern; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensure the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed. Constructing a new development pattern is not a last resort or a measure of expedience. It is a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth. This is a war of attrition that requires tenacious fighting spirit and strategic resolution.21

The key to constructing a new development pattern lies in unimpeded economic circulation. If [economic] circulation is blocked or cut off at any point, this obstruction will manifest at the macro level as a falling growth rate, rising unemployment, the accumulation of risk, and an unbalanced balance of payments; at the micro level it will manifest as excess production, a decrease in corporate profits, falling personal incomes, and other similar problems. In China’s present stage of development, the most important task [to encourage] unimpeded economic circulation is to ensure that the supply-side [of the economy] is efficient and unobstructed. An efficient supply side is able to pierce through blockages in circulation and remove the constraints imposed by bottlenecks. We must persist in deepening the paradigm of supply side reform and realize a high-level dynamic equilibrium.  

The most essential characteristic of the construction of a new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency and self empowerment. We must recognize that [the ability to] innovate on our own is a matter of our survival and development. On all fronts we must strengthen our deployments for scientific and technological innovation; strengthen the links between innovation and supply chains; create unique competitive advantages that are conducive to the rapid and large-scale application of new technologies and to iterative upgrades; accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity; increase standards for supply chains; protect the security of supply chains; open up a channel between scientific-technological strength and industrial, economic, and national strength; unleash new innovative vigor via reform; and accelerate the establishment of a robust country-wide system of innovation.

Forming a strong domestic market is an important pillar of the new development pattern. It is also a [natural] advantage for a large country’s economy. The cultivation of a complete system of domestic demand is advantageous for absorbing both external shocks and the effects of decreasing foreign demand, as well as for ensuring the stability of China’s economy and social environment under extreme circumstances. We must combine the implementation of our strategy of expanding domestic demand with supply side reforms in an organic manner. We must increase the interoperability of supply chain systems with domestic demand, so that production, distribution, circulation, consumption and other segments can rely more on domestic markets to realize a virtuous cycle.  

Only through self-sufficiency can we realize an unimpeded, large-scale domestic cycle, weave security and development into the entire process and all fields of national development, and tirelessly make ourselves invulnerable to all attacks.22 Only then can we [navigate] constant fluctuations in international [affairs], be filled with the vigor needed to survive and develop. Then no one can cause us to fall or place us in a stranglehold.23 Since Reform and Opening, we have suffered many shocks and external risks, but we have always been able to avert disaster by relying on properly handling our own affairs and keeping the foothold for our own development inside our [own] country.

(40) We must build a scientific understanding of the relationship between a large-scale domestic cycle and a dual cycle in the international and domestic [spheres]. To construct a new development pattern means the opening of a paired [dual] cycle in the domestic and international [spheres]–it does not mean a single, sealed-off, domestic cycle. Our state’s economy is already deeply fused with the global economy. It has a relatively high degree of mutual interdependence and association with the other country’s industry, and domestic and international market demand are [both] interdependent and mutually reinforcing. To build a new development pattern and implement high quality [market] opening requires a strong domestic cycle and a solid bedrock [on which to stand]. This will allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources. We must prioritize using the international cycle both to improve the standards and efficiency of the large-scale cycle in the domestic [sphere], and to improve the quality of our factors of production and our allocation of [resources]. It is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of China’s export products and services and promote the evolution of China’s industries by participating in international market competition.

At present, the protectionist zeitgeist is on the rise, but through opening-up, cooperation, and planning for win-win development, we shall stand on the right side of history. We will staunchly promote economic globalization in the direction of openness, tolerance, inclusivity, balance, and shared benefits;24 [we will] promote the construction of an open, global economy. At the same time, we must firmly establish security and development concepts, and accelerate our perfection of their respective systems and mechanisms, correct relevant shortcomings, preserve the security of production and supply chains, and actively manage and mitigate major risks.

1. The term zhìguó lǐzhèng [治国理政], translated here as “governing China” but more literally rendered as “state governance,” has special significance in the age of Xi Jinping. The phrase is incorporated into the title of Xi Jinping’s published speeches (a literal translation of the Chinese title would be Xi Jinping on State Governance [习近平谈治国理政]; our translation here follows the official English title of Xi’s book, On the Governance of China). Describing integrated planning of development and security as a “major principle” of state governance [治国理政] is thus an unsubtle way to emphasize the importance of this concept to Xi Jinping’s broader program.
2. “Increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace” is an ubiquitous phrase in party documents that captures an important aspect of the Party’s psyche. As one People’s Daily article puts it, “the Communist Party of China is a political party born from calamities, grown in calamities, and is becoming stronger from calamities.” This call for awareness of constant danger dates back to Mao Zedong, who admonished his cadres not to become complacent after the success of the revolution. Today, Xi quotes the phrases often to emphasize the challenges ahead. “The brighter the future, the more it is necessary to increase the awareness of potential calamities,” the People’s Daily quotes Xi. One “must be constantly prepared for danger in times of peace, and fully understand and be prepared for major risks and challenges.” For a discussion of the calamity consciousness from a party source, see Chen Shifa, “Zengqiang Youhuan Yishi 增强忧患意识 [Increase our consciousness of calamity],” Renmin Ribao 人民日报 [People’s Daily], November 2022. 
3. This list of adjectives entered the party lexicon in 2015, when Xi Jinping provided guidance on how to implement the Thirteenth Five Year Plan in 2015. As part of his New Development Concept Xi exhorted the Party to pursue high-quality development–that is, development that is “more efficient, more equal, and more sustainable” [更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续]  than what had come before. In 2021, the Fourteenth Five Year Plan added the phrase “more secure” [更为安全] into the list of qualities characterizing high-quality development. This addition, paired with language about  “the integration of development and security,” signaled to the Party that it must take the role of national security more seriously in economic planning. The new consensus was codified at the highest level in 2022, when the 20th Party Congress amended the Party Constitution to include “secure development” as a goal of the Party’s economic work.

For a discussion of the relationship between Xi’s economic strategy and national security paradigm, see the CST glossary entries on the NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT and the NEW DEVELOPMENT PATTERN. For the text of the 13th and 14th five year plans, see Xinhua News Agency,  “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisan ge wu nian guihua 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十三个五年规划 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online]  March 2016; Xinhua News Agency, “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisi ge wu nian guihua he 2035 nian yuanjing mubiao gangyao 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和2035年远景目标纲要 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online], March 2021. For the 2022 constitutional amendments, see Communist Web, “ershí da dangzhang xiuzheng an xuexi wenda 二十大党章修正案学习问答 [Q&A on the 20th Congress Party Constitution Amendments],” December 2022. 
4. In Marxist terminology, the phrase “productive forces” describes the combination of human labor and the means of labor (machinery, infrastructure, industrial techniques, natural resources, exploitable land, and so forth) available to society in any given stage of economic development. The exhortation to “liberate the productive forces” thus has a long history in the rhetoric of Chinese communism–Mao Zedong was urging cadres to  “liberate the productive forces” all the way back in 1944, adding that the Japanese must be defeated in order to “eradicate the old politics and military affairs that [currently] block the development of the productive forces” in China. The phrase would used many times in the decades that followed, though the obstacles that the productive forces must be liberated from would change: Mao would use later the phrase to justify collectivization; during the Deng era many reformists, arguing that China’s own sclerotic bureaucracy was the main force blocking China’s economic development, repurposed Mao’s phrase to justify marketization. Ye Jianying’s 1979 argument for market reforms provide a typical example of the phrase’s usage in this era:
First, for socialism to replace capitalism, we must liberate the productive forces and achieve a constantly rising labor productivity to meet the people’s material and cultural needs. This is the fundamental aim of socialist revolution. Once the proletariat has seized political power in a country, and especially after the establishment of the socialist system, it is imperative to place the focus of work squarely on economic construction, actively expand the productive forces and gradually improve the people's standard of living.
Today the phrase is associated with many of the same things Ye tied it to in 1979: economic development, rising productivity, and rising living standards. Under Xi Jinping the Center has argued that these things will be guaranteed by cutting edge innovations in science and technology; the phrase is thus often used today to justify state investment or intervention in those sectors.
For the Ye Jianying quote, see Bill Brugger, Chinese Marxism in Flux 1978-84: Essays on Epistemology, Ideology and Political Economy (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp Inc, 1985), 46; Mao's comments are found in Mao Zedong, " Cultural Education Problems in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region'," in Stuart Schram, ‎Timothy Cheek, ‎and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, vol viii (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2015).
5. The term “composite national power” [zònghé guólì 综合国力] has been commonly used in Chinese geopolitical analysis since the 1980s. The term assumes that–as was true in the Cold War–military power is not the sole determinant of success in geopolitical competition. An accurate assessment of two countries’ strengths and weaknesses must integrate measures of military power with calculations of economic strength, scientific prowess, diplomatic acumen, cultural influence, and so forth. Such a cross-domain assessment would measure composite national strength. Though the term implies a formal and comprehensive accounting of the total resources a country can bring to bear, it is rarely used with any more rigor than phrases like “smart power” or “soft power” are used in Western debates. There are no recent English language discussions of this term; a lengthy discussion of its use in China’s policy debates in the 1990s is found in  Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Forest Grove, Oregon: University Press of the Pacific, 2004), ch. 5. 
6. This quotation comes from a speech made by Xi Jinping during a Collective Study Session in 2012. For the text of that speech, see “Xi Jinping zai shiba jie zhonggong zhongyang zhengzhi jv dierci jiti xuexi shi de jianghua 习近平在十八届中共中央政治局第二次集体学习时的讲话 [Speech by Xi Jinping at the Second Group Study of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee],” Xinhua 新华, 31 December 2012.  However, it is an almost verbatim reiteration of a development strategy first endorsed by Jiang Zemin. In an address to the Central Committee in September 1995, Jiang stated that “there is an inseparable connection among reform, development and stability,” adding that “the key to solving all of China’s problems depends on its own development.” “Zhonggong Shisi Jie Wu Zhong Quanhui 中共十四届五中全会[The Fifth Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], December 2008. 
7. The phrase “seeking in progress in stability” dates to the immediate post-Tiananmen environment, a time when economic growth numbers were falling as the Party tried to slow down market liberalization in the name of regime security. The phrase would periodically return anytime far-reaching economic restructuring was on the national agenda: In the 2010s it has been closely associated with China’s drive to transition the country to a sustainable, consumption-driven economy. For that drive see the CST glossary entry NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT; for a longer history of this term, Stella Chen, “Seeking Progress in Stability,China Media Project, 17 March 2022.
8. Translated here as “struggle,” the word douzheng [斗争] is also often translated as “to battle” or “to fight.” The list of forces Party members have been directed to struggle against over the course of the Party’s history is long: imperialism, liberalism, bureaucratism, factionalism, capitalism, revisionism, nihilism, corruption, crime, and even, in one famous statement by  Mao Zedong, against heaven and earth itself (“To struggle against heaven means boundless joy; to struggle against earth means boundless joy; to struggle against man means boundless joy  [与天斗,其乐无穷;与地斗,其乐无穷;与人斗,其乐无穷]”). Struggle suggests a righteous underdog triumphing against unjust powers. It is less a defined set of actions than an attitude: the word is associated with mental fortitude; unyielding tenacity; absolute commitment; a willingness to ruffle feathers, ruin friendships, or sacrifice pleasant comforts for the sake of the cause; and the determination to treat enemies with the hostility they deserve. 
Struggle has a distinctly Maoist flavor; the call to struggle was rarely issued in the Reform Era. Xi Jinping has resurrected these calls–most dramatically in a 2019 speech at the Central Party School where Xi used the word “struggle” more than 50 times. Xi Jinping instructed rising cadres that they must “dare to struggle” [敢于斗争] and “struggle well” [善于斗争].  “Struggle is an art,” he would go on to say, “and we must be adroit practitioners.” See Xi Jinping, Governance of China, vol III (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2020), 264. For the concerns that led Xi Jinping to resurrect the call to struggle, see the CST glossary entry SOFT BONE DISEASE. For some of the difficulties with translating this word, see David Barduski, “The Party is Struggling,” China Media Project, 6 September 2019 and Todd Hall and Pu Xiaoyu, “Dare to Fight or Dare to Struggle? Translation of a Chinese Political Concept,” CSIS: Interpret China, 8 May 2023.
9. “Policy space” is a term imported into Chinese political rhetoric from the debates that shook international development organizations in the mid-aughts. The debate began when multiple observers from the developing world accused the IMF and World Bank of eroding the sovereignty of the nations they loaned to by tying their bail-outs to a restricted menu of the macroeconomic policies on the part of loanees. Denying the leaders of these countries the freedom to yield whichever macroeconomic policy tools they thought were most appropriate to their respective national conditions was “shrinking the policy space“ these leaders could operate in. In Chinese economic debates the term is used in a similar way, signifying the range and the effectiveness of macroeconomic measures available to policy makers in Beijing. For a recent discussion of Chinese macroeconomic policy in this framework, see Zhang Qidi, “Zhenshi Kongjina De ‘Da’ Yu ‘Buda’ 政策空间的 ‘大’与 ‘不大’[The Size of Chinese Policy Space],” Jinrong Jie, April 2022. 
10. Xi Jinping introduced the slogan “strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone” in 2013 at a meeting with the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the CPC’s highest institution for enforcing internal rules and combating corruption and malfeasance in the party. The point of the slogan is to emphasize the long term commitment and determination needed to build a new culture of intra-party discipline. As an official explanation of Xi Jinping Thought explains the matter: 
Therefore, in the face of these two tasks, only by making up your mind, strengthening your confidence, working hard, and constantly working hard can you see results. That is to leave footprints on the "stone" and scratch marks on the "iron". Emphasizing "stepping on stones to leave marks and grasping iron marks" is actually a reminder to all comrades in the party: comprehensively and strictly governing the party requires constant alarm bells to be grasped frequently and for a long time; comprehensively deepening reform requires overcoming difficulties and overcoming difficulties. Kan, there must be such a breath and energy. 
[所以,面对这样两项任务,只有痛下决心、增强信心,真抓实干、常抓不懈,才能见到成效。也就是要在“石”上留下足印,在“铁”上抓出痕迹。强调“踏石留印、抓铁有痕”,实际上就是提醒全党同志:全面从严治党需要警钟长鸣,做到经常抓、长期抓;全面深化改革需要攻坚克难、爬坡过坎,必须有那么一股气儿和劲儿。]
Li Zhen and Shi Chang, “Xijinping zhiguo li zheng guanjian ci (13): Ta shi liu yin zhua tie you hen 习近平治国理政关键词(13):踏石留印 抓铁有痕 [Keywords of Xi Jinping's governance of the country (13): strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], February 2016. 
11. Xi Jinping first told the Party that it needed to cultivate a “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,” in a speech at the second plenum of the 18th Central Committee on February 28, 2013. The speech was an exhortation for the party members to implement the decisions of the Central Committee in a diligent manner. “We have already got in our hands a good blueprint,” he said. “What we should do is to follow it through to the end and make it a success. In this regard, we need to have a ‘nail’ spirit. When we use a hammer to drive in a nail, a single knock often may not be enough; we must keep knocking until it is well in place.” Xi Jinping. “Follow a Good Blueprint,” in The Governance of China Volume I. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), 445. 
12. Or more literally, a “strangling problem” [qiǎ bózi wèntí 卡脖子问题]. The term came to prominence in the late 2010s when the United States began threatening to use export controls to curb China’s technological advance. These problems are critical inputs in Chinese supply chains, such as semiconductors, engines, CNC machine tools, and other crucial technological components that must be sourced from abroad and thus are vulnerable to foreign sanctions.
13. This intentionally echoes Xi Jinping’s 2016 statement that  “The overall level of scientific and technological development in China is not high, and the ability of science and technology to support economic and social development is insufficient. This is the ‘Achilles Heel’ of China’s large economy.” See “chen li tan 《xi jin ping guan yu zong ti guo jia an quan guan lun shu zhai bian 》陈理谈《习近平关于总体国家安全观论述摘编》” [Chen Li Discusses Excerpts from Xi Jinping's Discussion on an Overall National Security View], People’s Daily, August 4, 2018.
14. Initially proposed in 2013, the “National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy” was formally adopted by the Central Committee and the State Council in May 2016. It offered a blueprint for a nationally organized innovation system that would develop a range of strategic emerging technologies and transform China’s development pattern in a fundamental way. This document marked a break from China’s earlier industrial policies. Between 2006 to 2016, China’s state-directed funds targeted a limited range of technologies and was primarily aimed at catching up to advanced economies in industrial capabilities. The 2016 strategy, by contrast, was built around the idea that a very specific wave of technological change was beginning, and that this change was going to give China a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to vault into the leading ranks of economic and technological powers. The adoption of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy thus marked the beginning of a new phase in China’s industrial ambition. 
See a full translation of the outline at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (trans.), “中共中央 国务院印发《国家创新驱动发展战略纲要》[Outline of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy],” Xinhua News Agency, 19 May 2016. 
For a lengthy discussion of the Innovation-Driven Development Strategy, see Barry Naughton, “Innovation-Driven Development Strategy: 2015-present,” in The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy: 1978 To 2020. (New York: Academic Network of Latin America and the Caribbean on China, 2021). 
15. The goal of making China into a “world-class great power in science and technology” by the middle of the 21st century was first endorsed by the “Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020),” published by the State Council in 2006.  
The State Council of the PRC, “Guojia zhongchangqi kexue he jishu fazhan guihua gangyao 国家中长期科学和技术发展规划纲要 (2006-2020) [Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020)],” The State Council Gazzete 9, 2006.

16. Also known as Cannikin’s Law, the “Wooden Bucket Theory” draws an analogy to a wooden bucket in organization theory. If a wooden bucket with wooden stave sides all at different heights is filled with water, the capacity for the bucket to hold water is determined only by its shortest stave. In the context of businesses or–in the case of the Study Guide–a government, Cannikin’s law suggests that output will never exceed the capacity of the weakest department. 
 17. The phrases “ability to regulate an open [market]” and “ability to regulate in an open [environment]” [开放监管能力] are commonly used in the context of China’s capital controls. Robert Kahn explains the logic behind these controls in “The Case for Chinese Capital Controls,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 2016.
18. The “cake theory” emerged in Chinese discourse in 2010 as thirty years of economic growth left China with an increasing gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” In 2010, then premier Wen Jiabao said in the People’s Congress that “we must not only make the cake of social wealth bigger through economic development, but also divide the cake well through a reasonable income distribution system.” This remark generated a debate among party members over the future path of the country’s development. On one hand, Bo Xilai, then party secretary Chongqing, insisted on prioritizing redistribution over economic growth. “Deng Xiaping once said ‘let some people get rich first and then we will achieve common prosperity,’” Bo reasoned. “In China, some people have indeed become rich. But we must also realize the second half of the sentence–common prosperity.” Others disagreed. Wang Yang, then party secretary of Guangdong, argued that economic development should still be the party’s priority. “Dividing the cake should not be the focus of our work right now,” he said, “but making the cake is.” 
In 2013, Xi Jinping ended this debate by staking out his own position in his address to the 18th Central Committee during its Third Plenum:
When we speak of social fairness and justice, we mean to proceed from the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and view and address this problem from the larger picture of social development, social harmony, and the people as a whole…. We must take economic development as the central task, promote sustained and sound growth, and “make the cake bigger,” thereby laying a more solid material foundation for greater social fairness and justice. This does not mean that we should wait to address the problem of social fairness and justice until the economy is developed. The nature of the problems may differ from period to period, bearing the features of society–developed or not so developed–in which they are found. Even when the “cake” has indeed become bigger, we must cut it fairly.
Xi Jinping, The Governance of China, vol I (Beijing:  Foreign Language Press, 2014), 108. 
For a lengthy discussion of the debate over the “cake theory,” see Fang Ming, “Luxian Zhizheng? Wang Bo ‘Dangao Lun’ Ge ChuZhao 路线之争?汪薄“蛋糕论”各出招[The Battle over the Roads? Wang and Bo's Debates on the ‘Cake Theory’],” Duowei Xingwen 多维新闻 [Duowei News], 14 July 2011. 
19. The CPC adopted the dual principle of  “distribution according to one’s work” and “distribution according to the factors of production”  during the Reform Era to justify the emergence of a free market under a socialist system. During the Mao era, China’s economic system was built on the principle of “distribution according to one’s work” [按劳分配], which held that the state should distribute reward to workers according to their contribution to the total production. However, this principle impeded China’s economic reform in the 1980s because it discouraged factory managers from making autonomous decisions to reinvest their profits and enlarge productive capacities. To overcome this theoretical barrier to reform, Jiang Zemin proposed a secondary principle in the 1990s: “distribution according to the factors of production” [按要素分配]. He argued that land, labor, technology, and capital were all necessary factors of production and thus should receive a share of resources proportional to their contributions to total production. This principle, combined with the Party’s increasing recognition that the market is an efficient way for resource allocation, justified the CPC’s more aggressive market reform in the 1990s. Today, official documents still use this dual principle to reconcile the existence of the free market with China’s socialist system. For a lengthy discussion of this dual principle written shortly after it was introduced, see Ma Hongwei, “Rúhé lǐjiě àn shēngchǎn yàosù fēnpèi 如何理解按生产要素分配 [How to Understand Distribution According to the Factors of Production],” People’s Daily, 4 December 1997. 
20. This language is lifted directly from a speech made by Xi Jinping on the same subject at the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October 2020. For a full text of the speech see “Xin Fazhan Jieduan Guanche Xin Fazhan Linian Biran Yaoqiu Goujian Xin Fazhan Geju 新发展阶段贯彻新发展理念必然要求构建新发展格局 [Implementing a New Development Concept in this New Development Stage Will Inevitably Require the Construction of a New Development Structure],” Qiushi Zazhi 《求是》杂志 [Qiushi Magazine], 31 August 2022. 
21. Dìng lì 定力, translated here as resolution, is a term most often associated with the disciplined concentration Buddhist monks muster in meditation. By implication, the passage is less an exhortation to stand resolute in the face of fear or danger than instructions to steel yourself with a spiritual resolution capable of banishing distraction and temptation.
22. Literally, “cultivate a body that is invulnerable to a hundred kinds of poisons and that is as indestructible as gold and steel.”
23. See footnote 12.
24. This language is lifted directly from Xi’s address to the China International Import Expo in November 2020. Xi Jinping, “Keynote Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China At the Opening Ceremony of The Third China International Import Expo,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China, 4 November 2020.

坚持统筹发展和安全—关于新时代国家安全的必然要求

1. 推进发展和安全深度融合 

(36)  发展和安全是一体之两翼、驱动之双轮。统筹发展和安全,增强忧患意识,做到居安思危,是我们党治国理政的一个重大原则。要把国家安全贯穿到党和国家工作各方面全过程,同经济社会发展一起谋划、一起部署,做到协调一致、齐头并进。要让发展和安全两个目标有机融合,实现高质量发展和高水平安全的良性互动,努力建久安之势、成长治之业。

当代中国正在经历人类历史上最为宏大而独特的实践创新,改革发展稳定任务之重、矛盾风险挑战之多、治国理政考验之大都前所未有,世界百年未有之大变局深刻变化前所未有。我们比历史上任何时期都更接近、更有信心和能力实现中华民族伟大复兴的目标,同时必须准备付出更为艰巨、更为艰苦的努力。要勇于开顶风船,善于转危为机,努力实现更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续、更为安全的发展。历史和现实都告诉我们,只要不断解放和发展社会生产力,不断增强经济实力、科技实力、综合国力,不断让广大人民的获得感、幸福感、安全感日益充实起来,不断让坚持和发展中国特色社会主义、实现中华民族伟大复兴的物质基础日益坚实起来,我们就一定能够使中国特色社会主义航船乘风破浪、行稳致远。

2. 坚定维护改革发展稳定大局

(37) 习近平总书记指出:“改革发展稳定是我国社会主义现代化建设的三个重要支点。改革是经济社会发展的强大动力,发展是解决一切经济社会问题的关键,稳定是改革发展的前提”。只有社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进;只有改革发展不断推进,社会稳定才能具有坚实基础。离开社会稳定,不仅改革发展不可能顺利推进,而且已经取得的成果也会丧失。

从世界范围看,许多国家由于政局动荡、不仅失去发展机遇,也给这些国家的人民带来深重灾难。贯彻落实总体国家安全观,必须全面把握艰巨繁重的改革发展稳定任务。改革开放以来,我们党始终高度重视正确处理改革发展稳定关系,保持了我国社会大局稳定,为改革开放和社会主义现代化建设营造了良好环境。

当前,我国面临的国际形势日趋错综复杂,我们要清醒认识国际国内各种不利因素的长期性、复杂性。发展仍然是我们党执政兴国的第一要务,仍然是带有基础性、根本性的工作,但经济发展、物质生活改善并不是全部,人心向背也不仅仅决定于这一点。

必须坚持辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义世界观和方法论,正确处理改革发展稳定关系,坚持把改革的力度、发展的速度和社会可承受的程度统一起来,坚持方向不变、道路不偏、力度不减,把改善人民生活作为正确处理改革发展稳定关系的结合点,在保持社会稳定中推进改革发展,通过改革发展促进社会稳定。要增强改革措施、发展措施、稳定措施的协调性,把握好当前利益和长远利益、局部利益和全局利益、个人利益和集体利益的关系。

面对复杂多变的安全和发展环境,要坚持稳中求进工作总基调。稳中求进的根本点在于稳定大局、不断进取,“稳”和“进”,要相互促进,坚持在发展中平稳化解风险,在化解风险中优化发展。要把推进改革同防范化解重大风险结合起来,深入研判改革形势和任务,科学谋划推动落实改革的时机、方式、节奏,更加积极有效应对不稳定不确定因素,增强斗争本领,拓展政策空间,提升制度张力,推动改革行稳致远。既要认识到解决经济社会发展中一些长期存在的难题需要久久为功,又不能畏首畏尾,把问题留给后人,要抓铁有痕、踏石留印,发扬钉钉子精神,一步一个脚印向前迈进。

3. 从问题导向和忧患意识把握新发展理念

(38)发展理念是否对头,从根本上决定着发展成效乃至成败。党的十八大以来,我们对经济社会发展提出了许多重大理论和理念,其中新发展理念是最重要、最主要的。创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享的新发展理念,是在深刻总结国内外发展经验教训的基础上形成的,也是针对我国发展中的突出矛盾和问题提出来的。

要坚持问题导向,深入分析问题背后的原因,在贯彻落实新发展理念中及时化解矛盾风险,不断提高国家安全能力。要认识到推动创新发展、协调发展、绿色发展、开放发展、共享发展,前提都是国家安全、社会稳定。必须以安全保发展、以发展促安全,把国家发展建立在更加安全、更为可靠的基础之上。

创新发展注重的是解决发展动力问题。经过多年努力,我国科技整体水平大幅提升,但创新能力还不适应高质量发展要求,科技自立自强成为决定我国生存和发展的基础能力,存在诸多“卡脖子”问题,这是我国这个经济大个头的“阿喀琉斯之踵”。新一轮科技革命带来的是更加激烈的科技竞争,如果科技创新搞不上去,发展动力就不可能实现转换,我们在全球经济竞争中就会处于下风。必须坚持创新在我国现代化建设全局中的核心地位,以全球视野谋划和推动创新,深入实施创新驱动发展战略,加快建设世界科技强国,推动科技和经济社会发展深度融合,通过创新培育发展新动力、塑造更多发挥先发优势的引领型发展。

协调发展注重的是解决发展不平衡问题。我国发展不协调是一个长期存在的问题,突出表现在区域、城乡、经济和社会、物质文明和精神文明、经济建设和国防建设等关系上。要注意调整关系,注重发展的整体效能,否则“木桶效应”就会愈加显现,一系列社会矛盾会不断加深。必须牢牢把握中国特色社会主义事业总体布局,通过补齐短板挖掘发展潜力、增强发展后劲,不断增强发展整体性。

绿色发展注重的是解决人与自然和谐问题。良好生态环境是人和社会持续发展的根本基础,随着经济社会发展和人民生活水平不断提高,环境问题往往最容易引起群众不满。

必须坚定走生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展道路,加快推动产业结构、能源结构、交通运输结构、用地结构调整,实现经济社会发展与人口、资源、环境相协调,确保中华民族永续发展,为全球生态安全作出我们应有的贡献。

当前,加快推动经济社会发展全面绿色转型已经形成高度共识,而我国能源体系高度依赖煤炭等化石能源,生产和生活体系向绿色低碳转型的压力都很大,实现二〇三〇年前二氧化碳排放达到峰值、二〇二六年前碳中和的目标任务极其艰巨。实现碳达峰、碳中和是推动高质量发展的内在要求,要坚定不移推进,但不可能毕其功于一役。要坚待全国统筹、节约优先、双防范风险的原则。传统能源逐步退出要建立在新能源安全可靠的替代基础上。

开放发展注重的是解决发展内外联动问题。国际经济合作和竞争局面正在发生深刻变化,全球经济治理体系和规则正在面临重大调整,应对外部经济风险、维护国家经济安全的压力也是 过去所不能比拟的。我国对外开放水平总体上还不够高,用好国际国内两个市场、两种资源的能力还不够强。必须坚持对对外开放的基本国策,建设多元平衡、安全高效的全面开放体系,发展更高层次的开放型经济,以扩大开放带动创新、推动改革、促进发展。越开放越要重视安​​全,越要统筹好发展和安全,着力增强自身竞争能力、开放监管能力、风险防控能力。

共享发展注重的是解决社会公平正义问题。当前,全球收入不平等问题突出,一些国家贫富分化,中产阶层塌陷,导致社会撕裂、政治极化、民粹主义泛滥,教训十分深刻。从国内看,在共享改革发展成果上,无论是实际情况还是制度设计,都还有不完善的地方,实现人的全面发展和全体人民共同富裕仍然任重道远。

共享是中国特色社会主义的本质要求,实现共同富裕不仅是经济问题,而且是关系党的执政基础的重大政治问题。必须从全心全意为人民服务的根本宗旨把握新发展理念,坚决防止两极分化,决不能在富的人和穷的人之间出现一道不可逾越的鸿沟。实现共同富裕目标,首先要通过全国人民共同奋斗把 “蛋糕”做大做好,然后通过合理的制度安排把“蛋糕”切好分好。这是一个长期的历史过程,要稳步朝着这个目标迈进。

要在推动高质量发展中强化就业优先导向,提高经济增长的就业带动力。要发挥分配的功能和作用,坚持按劳分配为主体,完善按要素分配政策,加大税收、社保、转移支付等的调节力度,优化收入分配结构,扩大中等收入群体。支持有意愿有能力的企业和社会群体积极参与公益慈善事业。要坚持尽力而为、量力而行,完善公共服务政策制度体系,在教育、医疗、养老、住房等人民群众最关心的领域精准提供基本公共服务。

4. 构建新发展格局要牢牢守住安全发展底线

(39) 加快构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局,是一项关系我国发展全局的重大战略任务。习近平总书记指出:“要牢牢守住安全发展这条底线。这是构建新发展格局的重要前提和保障,也是畅通国内大循环的题中应有之义”。

近年来,经济全球化遭遇逆流,国际经济循环格局发生深度调整。新冠肺炎疫情也加剧了逆全球化趋势,各国内顾倾向上升。市场和资源两头在外的国际大循环动能明显减弱,大进大出的环境条件已经变化。在当前全球市场萎缩的外部环境下,必须集中力量办好自己的事,加快构建新发展格局,在各种可以预见和难以预见的狂风暴雨、惊涛骇浪中,增强我们的生存力、竞争力、发展力、持续力,确保中华民族伟大复兴进程不被迟滞甚至中断。构建新发展格局不是被迫之举和权宜之计,而是把握未来发展主动权的战略性布局和先手棋,是一场需要保持顽强斗志和战略定力的攻坚战、持久战。

构建新发展格局的关键在于经济循环的畅通无阻。如果经济循环过程中出现堵点、断点,循环就会受阻,在宏观上就会表现为增长速度下降、失业增加、风险积累、国际收支失衡等情况,在微观上就会表现为产能过剩、企业效益下降、居民收入下降等问题。在我国发展现阶段,畅通经济循环最主要的任务是供给侧有效畅通,有效供给能力强可以穿透循环堵点、消除瓶颈制约。必须坚持深化供给侧结构性改革这条主线,实现经济在高水平上的动态平衡。

构建新发展格局最本质的特征是实现高水平的自立自强。要把自主创新放在能不能生存和发展的高度加以认识,全面加强对科技创新的部署,加强创新链和产业链对接,创造有利于新技术快速大规模应用和迭代升级的独特优势,加速科技成果向现实生产力转化,提升产业链水平,维护产业链安全,打通从科技强到产业强、经济强、国家强的通道,以改革释放创新活力,加快建立健全国家创新体系。

形成强大国内市场是构建新发展格局的重要支撑,也是大国经济优势所在。加快培育完整内需体系,有利于化解外部冲击和外需下降带来的影响,也有利于在极端情况下保证我国经济基本正常运行和社会大局总体稳定。要把实施扩大内需战略同深化供给侧结构性改革有机结合起来,着力提升供给体系对国内需求的适配性,使生产、分配、流通、消费各环节更多依托国内市场实现良性循环。

我们只有立足自身,把国内大循环畅通起来,把安全发展贯穿国家发展各领域和全过程,努力炼就百毒不侵、金刚不坏之身,才能任由国际风云变幻,始终充满朝气生存和发展下去,没有任何人能打倒我们、卡死我们。改革开放以来,我们遭遇过很多外部风险冲击,最终都能化险为夷,靠的就是办好自己的事、把发展立足点放在国内。

(40) 要科学认识国内大循环和国内国际双循环的关系。构建新发展格局是开放的国内国际双循环,不是封闭的国内单循环。我国经济已经深度融入世界经济,同全球很多国家的产业关联和相互依赖程度都比较高,内外需市场本身是相互依存、相互促进的。构建新发展格局,实行高水平对外开放,必须具备强大的国内经济循环体系和稳固的基本盘,并以此形成对全球要素资源的强大吸引力、在激烈国际竞争中的强大竞争力、在全球资源配置中的强大推动力。要重视以国际循环提升国内大循环效率和水平,改善我国生产要素质量和配置水平。要通过参与国际市场竞争,增强我国出口产品和服务竞争力,推动我国产业转型升级。

现在国际上保护主义思潮上升,但我们要站在历史正确的一边,以开放、合作、共赢胸怀谋划发展,坚定不移推动经济全球化朝着开放、包容、普惠、平衡、共赢的方向发展,推动建设开放型世界经济。同时,要牢固树立安全发展理念,加快完善安全发展体制机制,补齐相关短板,维护产业链、供应链安全,积极做好防范化解重大风险工作。

 

Uphold the Integration of Development and Security: On a Necessary Requirement for National Security in the New Era

1.  Advancing the Complete Fusion of Development and Security

(36) Development and security are like two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart. One of our Party’s major principles for governing China1 is the integration of development and security, increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace.2 We must weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state, planning and deploying [national security policies] alongside economic and social development, [having them] work harmoniously in lockstep. We must organically harmonize the two goals of development and security; realize the positive interaction between high-quality development and security; and diligently establish long-lasting security and long-term stability. 

China at present is experiencing the grandest and most unique innovations in praxis that have yet occurred in human history. The task of reform, development, and stability is a heavy one; there are numerous contradictions, risks, and challenges, as well as great tests [of our ability to] govern the state. All are without precedent. Across the globe great changes unseen in a century are profound and unprecedented. We are now closer to, and more confident and capable of, realizing the goal of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation than at any point in history. At the same time, this will require preparing [ourselves] for onerous and painstaking effort. We must courageously sail in dire straits and turn a myriad of crises into opportunities, ceaselessly realize better quality, more efficient, more equal, more sustainable, and more secure development.3 History and reality have told us: as long as we ceaselessly liberate and develop society’s productive forces;4 ceaselessly increase our economic strength, scientific and technological strength, and composite national power;5 ceaselessly [work] so that our vast people's sense of achievement, happiness, and security grows fuller day by day; and ceaselessly [work so that] the material foundation for upholding and developing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and for realizing the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation grows more substantial day by day–then we will not fail to guide Socialism with Chinese Characteristics through wind and wave, steadfastly sailing into the distance. 

2.  Steadfastly Protect the Broader Landscape of Reform, Development, and Stability

(37) General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that “reform, development, and stability are the three pivotal fulcrums of our state’s socialist modernization. Reform is a powerful driving force for economic and social development. Development is the key to solving all our economic and social problems. Only with social stability can reform and development possibly advance without ceasing.”6 Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.

 On a global scale, political unrest has not only caused many countries to pass up favorable opportunities for development, but has also brought grave disasters upon the peoples of these countries. To conclusively carry out the Total National Security Paradigm we must grasp firmly the formidable task of reform, development, and stability on all fronts. For the sake of constructing a favorable environment for Reform and Opening and socialist modernization, from the beginning of Reform and Opening our party has always given a high priority to correctly managing the relationship between reform, development, and stability, and on preserving the broader landscape of stability in our state and society.

Currently, our state faces an increasingly intricate and complex international dynamic. We must soberly recognize the complexity and protracted nature of the various adverse factors [we face] both internationally and domestically.  Development is still our Party’s top priority in the government and rejuvenation of the state; it is still our essential and foundational work. However, economic development and the improvement of material living [standards] is not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support. 

It is necessary to uphold the worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. It is necessary to correctly manage the relationship between reform, development, and stability; to unify the force of reform, the speed of development, and the load-bearing capacity of [our] society. We must never shift in our course, stray from our path, or slacken our strength. Improving the livelihood of the people [should be] the nexus of reform, development, and stability. While guaranteeing social stability, [we must] advance reform and development. [We must] promote social stability through reform and development. It is necessary to strengthen reform measures, development measures, and stability measures; and to properly grasp the relationship between individual and collective interests, short-term and long-term interests, the interests of the parts and the interests of the whole.

Facing a complex and mutable environment for security and development, it is necessary to uphold [an atmosphere] where seeking progress in stability is the keynote of our work.7 The fundamental point of seeking progress in stability lies in stabilizing the broader landscape [while still] ceaselessly forging ahead. “Stability” and “progress” should mutually promote one another. It is necessary to uphold the smooth resolution of risks in the midst of development, and to optimize development in the midst of risk resolution. Thoroughly evaluate the circumstances and the tasks of reform. Synthesize the promotion of reform with the prevention and resolution of major risks.  Scientifically plan the promotion and implementation of reform with proper timing, means, and pace. Handle destabilizing and uncertain [risk] factors more actively and effectively. Strengthen our capacity for struggle,8 expand our policy space;9 improve the resilience of [our] institutions under stress; and ensure that reform [will] be steady and enduring. We must recognize that resolving long-standing difficulties in economic and social development will require a long and protracted effort, but we must never act with trepidation, passing our problems on to future generations. We must strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone,10 carry forward in the “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,”11 and press towards the future one step at a time. 

3. Grasping the New Development Concept with Risk Consciousness and a Problem Oriented Approach 

(38) The correctness of our development concept fundamentally determines the effectiveness and even the success or failure of development.  Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, we have introduced important theories and concepts for economic and social development. Among them, the New Development Concept is the most important and essential. The New Development Concept, [which calls for] innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared [growth], is based on a profound synthesis of the experiences and lessons of development [learned] both at home and abroad. It is [designed] to counter the prominent contradictions and problems that arise from development in China.

[We] need to follow a problem oriented approach, thoroughly analyze the reasons for the problems [we face], resolve contradictions and risks by carrying out the New Development Concept in a timely manner, and ceaselessly improve our state’s capacity in national security. [We] need to recognize that innovative development, coordinated development, green development, open development, and shared development are all premised on national security and social stability. We must use security to protect development and development to advance security. This will place our state's development and security on a safer and more trustworthy foundation.

Innovative development focuses on problems related to drivers of growth. After many years of concerted effort, China’s overall scientific and technological standards have improved considerably, but [our] capacity for innovation does not meet the requirements of high-quality development. Scientific and technological self-reliance will decide our state’s capacity for survival and development. There are many “strangleholds.”12 This is the “Achilles’ Heel” of our state’s massive economy.13 A new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology. If we cannot improve our [capacity] for innovation in science and technology, we will not be able to transform the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition. It is necessary to uphold innovation’s central position in the overall modernization landscape; plan and advance innovation from a global perspective; thoroughly implement the “Strategy for Innovation-Driven Development”;14 accelerate the construction of a world-class great power in science and technology;15 advance the fusion of science and technology with economic and social development; cultivate new drivers of growth through education; and sculpt a leading-edge development with more first mover advantages.

The focus of coordinated development is resolving the problem of imbalanced development. China’s imbalanced development is a persistent problem that manifests in the relations among localities, [between] urban and rural areas, between material civilization and spiritual civilization, and between economic development and national defense. We must focus on adjusting these relationships and focus on the overall effectiveness of development. Otherwise the problem of the “Wooden Bucket Theory”16 will become increasingly prominent [in our society], and a series of social contradictions will continuously worsen. We must firmly grasp the broader configuration of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, unearth developmental potential through correcting and consolidating our shortcomings, strengthen our vigor [after the initial stages of this process], and ceaselessly strengthen the holistic nature of development. 

The focus of green development is resolving the problem of harmony between humanity and nature. A favorable ecological environment is the foundation for the continuous development of humanity and society. As socio-economic development [matures] and living standards rise, environmental problems are often those most prone to provoking discontent among the masses. We must steadfastly walk the path of civilized development that [combines] productivity growth, prosperity, and a clean environment. We must accelerate adjustments in the structure of industry, energy, public transport, and land use. 

We must coordinate socio-economic development with the population [level], natural resources, and the environment; ensure that the Chinese will develop sustainably; and make our due contribution for the security of the global ecosystem. 

At the present, there is already a high degree of consensus in regards to accelerating the green transition in [our] socio-economic development. However, our state’s energy system is reliant on coal and fossil fuels, and the systems of production and daily living are placing immense pressure on our green and low-carbon transition. Our targets to reach a carbon emissions peak before 2030 and to [become] carbon neutral by 2026 are extraordinarily challenging.  Realizing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is a basic condition for realizing high-quality development. While we must pursue [this goal] unwaveringly, we cannot accomplish this task in one fell swoop. Keep to the principles of integrated planning for the entire country, prioritizing conservation, and protecting against double risks. The phasing out of traditional energy [sources] must be built on the foundation of replacing them with secure and reliable new energy [sources].

The focus of open development is resolving the problem of the interrelations between domestic and international development. The state of international economic cooperation and competition has undergone profound changes. The global economy’s governance systems and regulations are facing drastic adjustments. The [challenge of] responding to foreign economic risks and the pressure we face protecting economic security has no precedents. Our state’s overall standard of [economic] openness is not high enough, and our ability to utilize both the domestic and international markets, as well as the resources [concomitant to each], is not strong enough. We must uphold our basic state strategy of [economic] opening; construct comprehensive and open [economic] systems that are diverse and balanced as well as secure and highly efficient; develop an open model of the economy at a higher level; and use the expansion of opening up to bring about innovation, promote reform, and advance development. The more we open [the economy], the more we must prioritize security, the more necessary it becomes to properly integrate development with security, and the more necessary it becomes to put greater effort into increasing our ability to compete self sufficiently, our ability to regulate an open [market],17 and our ability to manage risk.

The focus of shared development is resolving the problem of social equality and justice. Currently, the issue of global income inequality is very prominent. In some countries the middle class has crumbled and wealth disparities are gaping. This leads to the rupture of the social [fabric], political polarization, and rampant populism. All [of these countries] provide profound lessons for our state. When it comes to sharing the gains of reform and development domestically, whether it is the concrete situation or the design of [our institutions], there are still imperfections, and the road to realizing comprehensive development and common prosperity for all of the people is still heavy and protracted.

Shared [development] is a fundamental requirement for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Realizing common prosperity is not only an economic question. It is also an important political question related to the foundation of the Party’s governance. With the aim of serving the people with all of our heart and soul, we must seize the New Development Concept, resolutely prevent the polarization [of our society], and never allow the emergence of a chasm between the rich and the poor that cannot be bridged. To realize our target of common prosperity [we] must first create a larger and better “cake” through the people’s collective efforts. Then through appropriate institutional arrangements this “cake” will then be cut and divided properly. This is a long-term historical process, towards which we must proceed steadily.18

We must prioritize employment in the promotion of high quality development, ensuring that economic growth drives up employment. It is necessary to give full play to the purpose and effect of redistribution, persist in the major [principle] of “distribution according to one’s work,” and perfect the policies of “distribution according to the factors of production.”19 It is necessary to raise the strength of regulations on taxation, social insurance, transfer payments and the like; optimize income distribution structures; and expand the middle class. We must support corporations and social organizations that are willing and able to actively participate in the public good [provision] and philanthropy. We must persist in doing all in our power to perfect [both] public policies and the system of institutions that serve the public, and improve basic public services in education, medicine, retirement, housing and other areas that the people find most important. 

4. Firmly Safeguard the Bottom Line of Security and Development in Order to Construct a New Development Pattern 

(39) Accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, which takes a large-scale cycle in the domestic market as its mainstay with a dual cycle in the domestic and international markets boosting each other, is a vital strategic task that impacts the broader landscape of China’s development. General Secretary Xi Jinping indicated that “we must firmly safeguard the bottom line of security and development. This is the vital prerequisite and guarantee for constructing a new development pattern and is the key to an unimpeded large-scale domestic cycle.”20

In recent years, economic globalization has encountered headwinds and cyclical international economic structures have undergone profound adjustments. The outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated those headwinds, and the trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states. The cycle of international markets and [natural] resources has clearly slowed. The [old] environment [conducive to] importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new development pattern; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensure the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed. Constructing a new development pattern is not a last resort or a measure of expedience. It is a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth. This is a war of attrition that requires tenacious fighting spirit and strategic resolution.21

The key to constructing a new development pattern lies in unimpeded economic circulation. If [economic] circulation is blocked or cut off at any point, this obstruction will manifest at the macro level as a falling growth rate, rising unemployment, the accumulation of risk, and an unbalanced balance of payments; at the micro level it will manifest as excess production, a decrease in corporate profits, falling personal incomes, and other similar problems. In China’s present stage of development, the most important task [to encourage] unimpeded economic circulation is to ensure that the supply-side [of the economy] is efficient and unobstructed. An efficient supply side is able to pierce through blockages in circulation and remove the constraints imposed by bottlenecks. We must persist in deepening the paradigm of supply side reform and realize a high-level dynamic equilibrium.  

The most essential characteristic of the construction of a new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency and self empowerment. We must recognize that [the ability to] innovate on our own is a matter of our survival and development. On all fronts we must strengthen our deployments for scientific and technological innovation; strengthen the links between innovation and supply chains; create unique competitive advantages that are conducive to the rapid and large-scale application of new technologies and to iterative upgrades; accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity; increase standards for supply chains; protect the security of supply chains; open up a channel between scientific-technological strength and industrial, economic, and national strength; unleash new innovative vigor via reform; and accelerate the establishment of a robust country-wide system of innovation.

Forming a strong domestic market is an important pillar of the new development pattern. It is also a [natural] advantage for a large country’s economy. The cultivation of a complete system of domestic demand is advantageous for absorbing both external shocks and the effects of decreasing foreign demand, as well as for ensuring the stability of China’s economy and social environment under extreme circumstances. We must combine the implementation of our strategy of expanding domestic demand with supply side reforms in an organic manner. We must increase the interoperability of supply chain systems with domestic demand, so that production, distribution, circulation, consumption and other segments can rely more on domestic markets to realize a virtuous cycle.  

Only through self-sufficiency can we realize an unimpeded, large-scale domestic cycle, weave security and development into the entire process and all fields of national development, and tirelessly make ourselves invulnerable to all attacks.22 Only then can we [navigate] constant fluctuations in international [affairs], be filled with the vigor needed to survive and develop. Then no one can cause us to fall or place us in a stranglehold.23 Since Reform and Opening, we have suffered many shocks and external risks, but we have always been able to avert disaster by relying on properly handling our own affairs and keeping the foothold for our own development inside our [own] country.

(40) We must build a scientific understanding of the relationship between a large-scale domestic cycle and a dual cycle in the international and domestic [spheres]. To construct a new development pattern means the opening of a paired [dual] cycle in the domestic and international [spheres]–it does not mean a single, sealed-off, domestic cycle. Our state’s economy is already deeply fused with the global economy. It has a relatively high degree of mutual interdependence and association with the other country’s industry, and domestic and international market demand are [both] interdependent and mutually reinforcing. To build a new development pattern and implement high quality [market] opening requires a strong domestic cycle and a solid bedrock [on which to stand]. This will allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources. We must prioritize using the international cycle both to improve the standards and efficiency of the large-scale cycle in the domestic [sphere], and to improve the quality of our factors of production and our allocation of [resources]. It is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of China’s export products and services and promote the evolution of China’s industries by participating in international market competition.

At present, the protectionist zeitgeist is on the rise, but through opening-up, cooperation, and planning for win-win development, we shall stand on the right side of history. We will staunchly promote economic globalization in the direction of openness, tolerance, inclusivity, balance, and shared benefits;24 [we will] promote the construction of an open, global economy. At the same time, we must firmly establish security and development concepts, and accelerate our perfection of their respective systems and mechanisms, correct relevant shortcomings, preserve the security of production and supply chains, and actively manage and mitigate major risks.

1. The term zhìguó lǐzhèng [治国理政], translated here as “governing China” but more literally rendered as “state governance,” has special significance in the age of Xi Jinping. The phrase is incorporated into the title of Xi Jinping’s published speeches (a literal translation of the Chinese title would be Xi Jinping on State Governance [习近平谈治国理政]; our translation here follows the official English title of Xi’s book, On the Governance of China). Describing integrated planning of development and security as a “major principle” of state governance [治国理政] is thus an unsubtle way to emphasize the importance of this concept to Xi Jinping’s broader program.
2. “Increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace” is an ubiquitous phrase in party documents that captures an important aspect of the Party’s psyche. As one People’s Daily article puts it, “the Communist Party of China is a political party born from calamities, grown in calamities, and is becoming stronger from calamities.” This call for awareness of constant danger dates back to Mao Zedong, who admonished his cadres not to become complacent after the success of the revolution. Today, Xi quotes the phrases often to emphasize the challenges ahead. “The brighter the future, the more it is necessary to increase the awareness of potential calamities,” the People’s Daily quotes Xi. One “must be constantly prepared for danger in times of peace, and fully understand and be prepared for major risks and challenges.” For a discussion of the calamity consciousness from a party source, see Chen Shifa, “Zengqiang Youhuan Yishi 增强忧患意识 [Increase our consciousness of calamity],” Renmin Ribao 人民日报 [People’s Daily], November 2022. 
3. This list of adjectives entered the party lexicon in 2015, when Xi Jinping provided guidance on how to implement the Thirteenth Five Year Plan in 2015. As part of his New Development Concept Xi exhorted the Party to pursue high-quality development–that is, development that is “more efficient, more equal, and more sustainable” [更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续]  than what had come before. In 2021, the Fourteenth Five Year Plan added the phrase “more secure” [更为安全] into the list of qualities characterizing high-quality development. This addition, paired with language about  “the integration of development and security,” signaled to the Party that it must take the role of national security more seriously in economic planning. The new consensus was codified at the highest level in 2022, when the 20th Party Congress amended the Party Constitution to include “secure development” as a goal of the Party’s economic work.

For a discussion of the relationship between Xi’s economic strategy and national security paradigm, see the CST glossary entries on the NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT and the NEW DEVELOPMENT PATTERN. For the text of the 13th and 14th five year plans, see Xinhua News Agency,  “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisan ge wu nian guihua 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十三个五年规划 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online]  March 2016; Xinhua News Agency, “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisi ge wu nian guihua he 2035 nian yuanjing mubiao gangyao 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和2035年远景目标纲要 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online], March 2021. For the 2022 constitutional amendments, see Communist Web, “ershí da dangzhang xiuzheng an xuexi wenda 二十大党章修正案学习问答 [Q&A on the 20th Congress Party Constitution Amendments],” December 2022. 
4. In Marxist terminology, the phrase “productive forces” describes the combination of human labor and the means of labor (machinery, infrastructure, industrial techniques, natural resources, exploitable land, and so forth) available to society in any given stage of economic development. The exhortation to “liberate the productive forces” thus has a long history in the rhetoric of Chinese communism–Mao Zedong was urging cadres to  “liberate the productive forces” all the way back in 1944, adding that the Japanese must be defeated in order to “eradicate the old politics and military affairs that [currently] block the development of the productive forces” in China. The phrase would used many times in the decades that followed, though the obstacles that the productive forces must be liberated from would change: Mao would use later the phrase to justify collectivization; during the Deng era many reformists, arguing that China’s own sclerotic bureaucracy was the main force blocking China’s economic development, repurposed Mao’s phrase to justify marketization. Ye Jianying’s 1979 argument for market reforms provide a typical example of the phrase’s usage in this era:
First, for socialism to replace capitalism, we must liberate the productive forces and achieve a constantly rising labor productivity to meet the people’s material and cultural needs. This is the fundamental aim of socialist revolution. Once the proletariat has seized political power in a country, and especially after the establishment of the socialist system, it is imperative to place the focus of work squarely on economic construction, actively expand the productive forces and gradually improve the people's standard of living.
Today the phrase is associated with many of the same things Ye tied it to in 1979: economic development, rising productivity, and rising living standards. Under Xi Jinping the Center has argued that these things will be guaranteed by cutting edge innovations in science and technology; the phrase is thus often used today to justify state investment or intervention in those sectors.
For the Ye Jianying quote, see Bill Brugger, Chinese Marxism in Flux 1978-84: Essays on Epistemology, Ideology and Political Economy (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp Inc, 1985), 46; Mao's comments are found in Mao Zedong, " Cultural Education Problems in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region'," in Stuart Schram, ‎Timothy Cheek, ‎and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, vol viii (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2015).
5. The term “composite national power” [zònghé guólì 综合国力] has been commonly used in Chinese geopolitical analysis since the 1980s. The term assumes that–as was true in the Cold War–military power is not the sole determinant of success in geopolitical competition. An accurate assessment of two countries’ strengths and weaknesses must integrate measures of military power with calculations of economic strength, scientific prowess, diplomatic acumen, cultural influence, and so forth. Such a cross-domain assessment would measure composite national strength. Though the term implies a formal and comprehensive accounting of the total resources a country can bring to bear, it is rarely used with any more rigor than phrases like “smart power” or “soft power” are used in Western debates. There are no recent English language discussions of this term; a lengthy discussion of its use in China’s policy debates in the 1990s is found in  Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Forest Grove, Oregon: University Press of the Pacific, 2004), ch. 5. 
6. This quotation comes from a speech made by Xi Jinping during a Collective Study Session in 2012. For the text of that speech, see “Xi Jinping zai shiba jie zhonggong zhongyang zhengzhi jv dierci jiti xuexi shi de jianghua 习近平在十八届中共中央政治局第二次集体学习时的讲话 [Speech by Xi Jinping at the Second Group Study of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee],” Xinhua 新华, 31 December 2012.  However, it is an almost verbatim reiteration of a development strategy first endorsed by Jiang Zemin. In an address to the Central Committee in September 1995, Jiang stated that “there is an inseparable connection among reform, development and stability,” adding that “the key to solving all of China’s problems depends on its own development.” “Zhonggong Shisi Jie Wu Zhong Quanhui 中共十四届五中全会[The Fifth Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], December 2008. 
7. The phrase “seeking in progress in stability” dates to the immediate post-Tiananmen environment, a time when economic growth numbers were falling as the Party tried to slow down market liberalization in the name of regime security. The phrase would periodically return anytime far-reaching economic restructuring was on the national agenda: In the 2010s it has been closely associated with China’s drive to transition the country to a sustainable, consumption-driven economy. For that drive see the CST glossary entry NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT; for a longer history of this term, Stella Chen, “Seeking Progress in Stability,China Media Project, 17 March 2022.
8. Translated here as “struggle,” the word douzheng [斗争] is also often translated as “to battle” or “to fight.” The list of forces Party members have been directed to struggle against over the course of the Party’s history is long: imperialism, liberalism, bureaucratism, factionalism, capitalism, revisionism, nihilism, corruption, crime, and even, in one famous statement by  Mao Zedong, against heaven and earth itself (“To struggle against heaven means boundless joy; to struggle against earth means boundless joy; to struggle against man means boundless joy  [与天斗,其乐无穷;与地斗,其乐无穷;与人斗,其乐无穷]”). Struggle suggests a righteous underdog triumphing against unjust powers. It is less a defined set of actions than an attitude: the word is associated with mental fortitude; unyielding tenacity; absolute commitment; a willingness to ruffle feathers, ruin friendships, or sacrifice pleasant comforts for the sake of the cause; and the determination to treat enemies with the hostility they deserve. 
Struggle has a distinctly Maoist flavor; the call to struggle was rarely issued in the Reform Era. Xi Jinping has resurrected these calls–most dramatically in a 2019 speech at the Central Party School where Xi used the word “struggle” more than 50 times. Xi Jinping instructed rising cadres that they must “dare to struggle” [敢于斗争] and “struggle well” [善于斗争].  “Struggle is an art,” he would go on to say, “and we must be adroit practitioners.” See Xi Jinping, Governance of China, vol III (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2020), 264. For the concerns that led Xi Jinping to resurrect the call to struggle, see the CST glossary entry SOFT BONE DISEASE. For some of the difficulties with translating this word, see David Barduski, “The Party is Struggling,” China Media Project, 6 September 2019 and Todd Hall and Pu Xiaoyu, “Dare to Fight or Dare to Struggle? Translation of a Chinese Political Concept,” CSIS: Interpret China, 8 May 2023.
9. “Policy space” is a term imported into Chinese political rhetoric from the debates that shook international development organizations in the mid-aughts. The debate began when multiple observers from the developing world accused the IMF and World Bank of eroding the sovereignty of the nations they loaned to by tying their bail-outs to a restricted menu of the macroeconomic policies on the part of loanees. Denying the leaders of these countries the freedom to yield whichever macroeconomic policy tools they thought were most appropriate to their respective national conditions was “shrinking the policy space“ these leaders could operate in. In Chinese economic debates the term is used in a similar way, signifying the range and the effectiveness of macroeconomic measures available to policy makers in Beijing. For a recent discussion of Chinese macroeconomic policy in this framework, see Zhang Qidi, “Zhenshi Kongjina De ‘Da’ Yu ‘Buda’ 政策空间的 ‘大’与 ‘不大’[The Size of Chinese Policy Space],” Jinrong Jie, April 2022. 
10. Xi Jinping introduced the slogan “strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone” in 2013 at a meeting with the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the CPC’s highest institution for enforcing internal rules and combating corruption and malfeasance in the party. The point of the slogan is to emphasize the long term commitment and determination needed to build a new culture of intra-party discipline. As an official explanation of Xi Jinping Thought explains the matter: 
Therefore, in the face of these two tasks, only by making up your mind, strengthening your confidence, working hard, and constantly working hard can you see results. That is to leave footprints on the "stone" and scratch marks on the "iron". Emphasizing "stepping on stones to leave marks and grasping iron marks" is actually a reminder to all comrades in the party: comprehensively and strictly governing the party requires constant alarm bells to be grasped frequently and for a long time; comprehensively deepening reform requires overcoming difficulties and overcoming difficulties. Kan, there must be such a breath and energy. 
[所以,面对这样两项任务,只有痛下决心、增强信心,真抓实干、常抓不懈,才能见到成效。也就是要在“石”上留下足印,在“铁”上抓出痕迹。强调“踏石留印、抓铁有痕”,实际上就是提醒全党同志:全面从严治党需要警钟长鸣,做到经常抓、长期抓;全面深化改革需要攻坚克难、爬坡过坎,必须有那么一股气儿和劲儿。]
Li Zhen and Shi Chang, “Xijinping zhiguo li zheng guanjian ci (13): Ta shi liu yin zhua tie you hen 习近平治国理政关键词(13):踏石留印 抓铁有痕 [Keywords of Xi Jinping's governance of the country (13): strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], February 2016. 
11. Xi Jinping first told the Party that it needed to cultivate a “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,” in a speech at the second plenum of the 18th Central Committee on February 28, 2013. The speech was an exhortation for the party members to implement the decisions of the Central Committee in a diligent manner. “We have already got in our hands a good blueprint,” he said. “What we should do is to follow it through to the end and make it a success. In this regard, we need to have a ‘nail’ spirit. When we use a hammer to drive in a nail, a single knock often may not be enough; we must keep knocking until it is well in place.” Xi Jinping. “Follow a Good Blueprint,” in The Governance of China Volume I. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), 445. 
12. Or more literally, a “strangling problem” [qiǎ bózi wèntí 卡脖子问题]. The term came to prominence in the late 2010s when the United States began threatening to use export controls to curb China’s technological advance. These problems are critical inputs in Chinese supply chains, such as semiconductors, engines, CNC machine tools, and other crucial technological components that must be sourced from abroad and thus are vulnerable to foreign sanctions.
13. This intentionally echoes Xi Jinping’s 2016 statement that  “The overall level of scientific and technological development in China is not high, and the ability of science and technology to support economic and social development is insufficient. This is the ‘Achilles Heel’ of China’s large economy.” See “chen li tan 《xi jin ping guan yu zong ti guo jia an quan guan lun shu zhai bian 》陈理谈《习近平关于总体国家安全观论述摘编》” [Chen Li Discusses Excerpts from Xi Jinping's Discussion on an Overall National Security View], People’s Daily, August 4, 2018.
14. Initially proposed in 2013, the “National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy” was formally adopted by the Central Committee and the State Council in May 2016. It offered a blueprint for a nationally organized innovation system that would develop a range of strategic emerging technologies and transform China’s development pattern in a fundamental way. This document marked a break from China’s earlier industrial policies. Between 2006 to 2016, China’s state-directed funds targeted a limited range of technologies and was primarily aimed at catching up to advanced economies in industrial capabilities. The 2016 strategy, by contrast, was built around the idea that a very specific wave of technological change was beginning, and that this change was going to give China a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to vault into the leading ranks of economic and technological powers. The adoption of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy thus marked the beginning of a new phase in China’s industrial ambition. 
See a full translation of the outline at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (trans.), “中共中央 国务院印发《国家创新驱动发展战略纲要》[Outline of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy],” Xinhua News Agency, 19 May 2016. 
For a lengthy discussion of the Innovation-Driven Development Strategy, see Barry Naughton, “Innovation-Driven Development Strategy: 2015-present,” in The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy: 1978 To 2020. (New York: Academic Network of Latin America and the Caribbean on China, 2021). 
15. The goal of making China into a “world-class great power in science and technology” by the middle of the 21st century was first endorsed by the “Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020),” published by the State Council in 2006.  
The State Council of the PRC, “Guojia zhongchangqi kexue he jishu fazhan guihua gangyao 国家中长期科学和技术发展规划纲要 (2006-2020) [Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020)],” The State Council Gazzete 9, 2006.

16. Also known as Cannikin’s Law, the “Wooden Bucket Theory” draws an analogy to a wooden bucket in organization theory. If a wooden bucket with wooden stave sides all at different heights is filled with water, the capacity for the bucket to hold water is determined only by its shortest stave. In the context of businesses or–in the case of the Study Guide–a government, Cannikin’s law suggests that output will never exceed the capacity of the weakest department. 
 17. The phrases “ability to regulate an open [market]” and “ability to regulate in an open [environment]” [开放监管能力] are commonly used in the context of China’s capital controls. Robert Kahn explains the logic behind these controls in “The Case for Chinese Capital Controls,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 2016.
18. The “cake theory” emerged in Chinese discourse in 2010 as thirty years of economic growth left China with an increasing gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” In 2010, then premier Wen Jiabao said in the People’s Congress that “we must not only make the cake of social wealth bigger through economic development, but also divide the cake well through a reasonable income distribution system.” This remark generated a debate among party members over the future path of the country’s development. On one hand, Bo Xilai, then party secretary Chongqing, insisted on prioritizing redistribution over economic growth. “Deng Xiaping once said ‘let some people get rich first and then we will achieve common prosperity,’” Bo reasoned. “In China, some people have indeed become rich. But we must also realize the second half of the sentence–common prosperity.” Others disagreed. Wang Yang, then party secretary of Guangdong, argued that economic development should still be the party’s priority. “Dividing the cake should not be the focus of our work right now,” he said, “but making the cake is.” 
In 2013, Xi Jinping ended this debate by staking out his own position in his address to the 18th Central Committee during its Third Plenum:
When we speak of social fairness and justice, we mean to proceed from the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and view and address this problem from the larger picture of social development, social harmony, and the people as a whole…. We must take economic development as the central task, promote sustained and sound growth, and “make the cake bigger,” thereby laying a more solid material foundation for greater social fairness and justice. This does not mean that we should wait to address the problem of social fairness and justice until the economy is developed. The nature of the problems may differ from period to period, bearing the features of society–developed or not so developed–in which they are found. Even when the “cake” has indeed become bigger, we must cut it fairly.
Xi Jinping, The Governance of China, vol I (Beijing:  Foreign Language Press, 2014), 108. 
For a lengthy discussion of the debate over the “cake theory,” see Fang Ming, “Luxian Zhizheng? Wang Bo ‘Dangao Lun’ Ge ChuZhao 路线之争?汪薄“蛋糕论”各出招[The Battle over the Roads? Wang and Bo's Debates on the ‘Cake Theory’],” Duowei Xingwen 多维新闻 [Duowei News], 14 July 2011. 
19. The CPC adopted the dual principle of  “distribution according to one’s work” and “distribution according to the factors of production”  during the Reform Era to justify the emergence of a free market under a socialist system. During the Mao era, China’s economic system was built on the principle of “distribution according to one’s work” [按劳分配], which held that the state should distribute reward to workers according to their contribution to the total production. However, this principle impeded China’s economic reform in the 1980s because it discouraged factory managers from making autonomous decisions to reinvest their profits and enlarge productive capacities. To overcome this theoretical barrier to reform, Jiang Zemin proposed a secondary principle in the 1990s: “distribution according to the factors of production” [按要素分配]. He argued that land, labor, technology, and capital were all necessary factors of production and thus should receive a share of resources proportional to their contributions to total production. This principle, combined with the Party’s increasing recognition that the market is an efficient way for resource allocation, justified the CPC’s more aggressive market reform in the 1990s. Today, official documents still use this dual principle to reconcile the existence of the free market with China’s socialist system. For a lengthy discussion of this dual principle written shortly after it was introduced, see Ma Hongwei, “Rúhé lǐjiě àn shēngchǎn yàosù fēnpèi 如何理解按生产要素分配 [How to Understand Distribution According to the Factors of Production],” People’s Daily, 4 December 1997. 
20. This language is lifted directly from a speech made by Xi Jinping on the same subject at the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October 2020. For a full text of the speech see “Xin Fazhan Jieduan Guanche Xin Fazhan Linian Biran Yaoqiu Goujian Xin Fazhan Geju 新发展阶段贯彻新发展理念必然要求构建新发展格局 [Implementing a New Development Concept in this New Development Stage Will Inevitably Require the Construction of a New Development Structure],” Qiushi Zazhi 《求是》杂志 [Qiushi Magazine], 31 August 2022. 
21. Dìng lì 定力, translated here as resolution, is a term most often associated with the disciplined concentration Buddhist monks muster in meditation. By implication, the passage is less an exhortation to stand resolute in the face of fear or danger than instructions to steel yourself with a spiritual resolution capable of banishing distraction and temptation.
22. Literally, “cultivate a body that is invulnerable to a hundred kinds of poisons and that is as indestructible as gold and steel.”
23. See footnote 12.
24. This language is lifted directly from Xi’s address to the China International Import Expo in November 2020. Xi Jinping, “Keynote Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China At the Opening Ceremony of The Third China International Import Expo,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China, 4 November 2020.

Cite This Article

Office of the Central National Security Commission and Central Propaganda Department, “Chapter Five: Uphold the Integration of Development and Security: On the Necessary Requirements of National Security in the New Era.” Translated by Ethan Franz. San Francisco: Center for Strategic Translation, 2023.

Originally published in Office of the Central National Security Commission and Central Propaganda Department. Zongti Guojia Anquan Guan Xuexi Gangyao: 总体国家安全学习纲要 [The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Guide].  (Beijing: Xuexi Chuban She 学习出版社 [Study Xi Press] and Renmin Chuban She 人民出版社 [People Press], April 2022), 47-5.

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Uphold the Integration of Development and Security

坚持统筹发展和安全

Author
Office of the Central National Security Commission
中央国家安全委员会办公室
original publication
The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline
《总体国家安全观学习纲要》
publication date
April 14, 2022
Translator
Ethan Franz
Translation date
July 21, 2023

Introduction

“Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.” This is the central message of the fifth chapter of the Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline, a 150 page doctrinal manual distributed to party committees across China in early 2022. The Study Outline likens economic development and national security to “two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart.” The two must be pursued in tandem. Doing so will realize “one of our party’s major principles for governing China”: the “integration of development and security” [统筹发展和安全]. It is difficult to understand the economics of post-COVID China without first understanding the meaning of this phrase.

This is not only a challenge for outsiders. The authors of the Study Outline—the Central Propaganda Bureau and the Office of the Central National Security Commission—must devote an entire chapter to the phrase precisely because so many cadres struggle to implement the concept. In the not-so distant past, leading cadres were judged on simple metrics. The measure of a man was the GDP growth of the locality he led.1 Today growth numbers are no longer sufficient. This is not to say they do not matter—the Study Outline assures the rank-and-file that economic development “is still our essential and foundational work.” But it is no longer all that matters. As the manual argues: “Development and the improvement of material living standards are not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support.”

It is easy to see why a cadre might think otherwise. A laser-like focus on economic growth saved China’s Leninist project. China thrived as communist regimes across the world buckled under the weight of sclerotic bureaucracies and stagnant economies. A famous phrase associated with Deng Xiaoping captured the ethos of that time: “let some get rich first!”2 With the Party securely in charge, the thinking went, China could safely shoulder unbalanced growth. The Party would translate exploding private wealth into expanding national power. Eventually China would become prosperous, strong, and technologically advanced enough to head off all challengers and restore China to its state of ancestral glory. From that position of wealth and strength, the Party would have the means to bring all Chinese the shared prosperity that its revolutionary founders dreamed about.3

So the thinking went. With slogans like “development is the solution to all of our problems” as their guide, Chinese officials brought this thinking to life one factory, development zone, and high-speed rail at a time. Few who watched China catapult forward in the ranks of fortune and power doubted the wisdom of this program.

Yet the solution to one crisis sows the seeds of the next one. As Xi Jinping ascended to the top of the Party hierarchy, it was evident the negative byproducts of the reform program were eroding the foundations of communist rule. Xi Jinping would introduce a new ideological line to address these problems. Core to this ideological system—grandiosely titled “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”—was a set of over-arching concepts intended to steer China’s response to the numerous challenges posed by its own success. This chapter of the Study Guide sits at the intersection of two of these governing frameworks: the Total National Security Paradigm [总体国家安全观] and the New Development Concept [新发展理念]. Though originally distinct, the two frameworks have (as this document itself is evidence of) grown increasingly intertwined with time.

 The Study Outline was written as an “an important and authoritative auxiliary text [for teaching] the broad mass of cadres” about the first of these frameworks—Xi Jinping’s signature contributions to security theory, the Total National Security Paradigm.4 For cadres inclined by temperament or career track to focus their attention on the problems of regime security, economic development never did seem like the solution to “all” of the Party’s problems. It introduced as many dangers as it resolved. Reform and Opening meant integrating disruptive technologies (like the internet) into Chinese life. It exposed the masses to subversive intellectual trends from the outside world. Above all else, a narrow focus on economic growth enmeshed cadres in a culture of graft and greed. The threat that corruption posed to state security was not abstract: just before Xi came to power the Ministry of State Security learned that the CIA had leveraged China’s culture of corruption to build a substantial network of informants inside the Party itself.5

Xi introduced the new security framework to meet this mounting crisis. The Total National Security Paradigm trains cadres to treat threats to the PRC’s economic, political, and ideological integrity as dangers equal to traditional military threats. Under this paradigm cadres are bidden to cultivate “consciousness of calamity” [忧患意识]—an awareness that even in times of seeming peace and plenty they are all that stands between national rejuvenation and national collapse. The goal of all this is not to jettison the Dengist paradigm but to harden it: by securitizing large swathes of party policymaking, Xi seeks to shield Socialism with Chinese Characteristics from dangers otherwise built into its DNA.6

Yet as Xi came to power the security services were not the only part of the state ecosystem expressing unease with the the many shibboleths they had inherited from the Reform Era. A chorus of economists and economic planners offered their own critique of growth-at-all-costs. These economists understood that the driving engines of the Chinese growth miracle at its height were large-scale exports and massive investment in infrastructure and other fixed capital assets. By 2013 it was clear that this model of development was not sustainable. There is a limit to the number of roads, sewers, skyscrapers, and railways any country—even a country as large as China—can build before additional capital investments provide diminishing returns. Climbing Chinese wages would eventually price China out of many exports. The negative externalities of income inequality and industrial pollution threatened to undermine future growth. A more sustainable model was needed.7

These economists argued that if China was to sustain an upward growth trajectory in the decades to come then it must embrace a more balanced pattern of development. An extensive growth model based on expanding capital stock must be replaced by an intensive growth model based on rising productivity. Domestic consumption, not savings and investment, should be the engine of this new economy. Money must be guided away from China’s bubbling housing market. Chinese industry must move up the value chain. A better balance must be struck between the development of China’s rich eastern seaboard and relatively poorer inner hinterlands. Pollution must be curbed. From this point forward the kind of growth China experienced must matter as much as the scale of this growth.

Xi Jinping would gather these ideas together into a schema he dubbed the New Development Concept. This schema urged cadres to recognize that the Chinese economy had entered a “new normal” [新常态] of lower growth rates, less competitive exports, and smaller returns to capital investments. Economic planning must adapt to these realities. In practice this meant a national campaign to slash over-capacity in industries like steel and aluminum, a crash-course industrial policy to propel China to the cutting edge of high technology, a renewed focus on reducing pollution even if it came at the cost of easy growth, and numerous attempts to direct Chinese savers away from an overheated real estate market and towards direct consumption.

This New Development Concept was not originally justified by or conceptually linked to the language of security. However, the two tracks always had complimentary objectives: the Total National Security Paradigm and the New Development Concept both affirmed the basic Dengist vision of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics while rejecting, for distinct but parallel reasons, the growth-at-all-costs mindset that the Dengist reforms begot. It was not until Xi's second term these two lines of policy began to merge. The Study Outline describes one reason for their fusion:

The trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states [across the globe]. The cycle of international markets and natural resources has clearly slowed and the old environment conducive to importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new development pattern; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensuring the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed.

The growth-at-all-costs mindset had been premised on a benign international environment that no longer exists. Party leaders had long claimed that the early 20th century would offer a limited window—a “period of strategic opportunity”—where the Party could safely rely on globalization to speed China’s rise. In this period there was no distinction between securing China and growing its economy. Tariffs, export controls, COVID closures, and growing hostility towards the PRC across the developed world signaled that this period was ending.8 Thus the Study Guide’s warnings of outside powers set on “stifling” and “crushing” China’s future growth. In this threatening global environment, the manual maintains, it no longer suffices to rely on “development to advance security.” Now cadres must use “security to protect development” as well.

 The Study Guide suggests that this will require cadres to “weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state.” In the formalized language of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, this is described as “the integration of development and security.” This undertaking is not new: Xi Jinping described it as a core plank of the Total National Security Paradigm in 2014. However, the slogan did not migrate into economic planning documents until the late 2010s and was not officially endorsed by the Center as a key part of China’s development process until the 5th Plenum of the 19th Congress in 2021.9 In a speech given at the conclusion of that plenum Xi Jinping went out of his way to describe “the integration of development and security” as an official sub-component of the New Development Concept, decisively linking two streams of party policy into one whole.10

The Study Guide provides insight into what this whole is intended to look like. Many sections of this chapter simply justify long-standing development initiatives with the logic and language of security. Thus measures to reduce economic inequality, which Xi Jinping earlier justified in terms of “safeguarding fairness and justice” and “benefiting the people,” is described by the Study Outline as a safeguard against the “the rupture of the social fabric, political polarization, and rampant populism.”11 Cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations, once advocated by Xi Jinping to “fuel our economy… and build a beautiful China with blue skies, greenery, and clean water,” is here described as a “matter of our survival.”12 The list continues: Green development is necessary because “environmental problems are often those most prone to provoking discontent among the masses,” economic opening is necessary to “protect economic security,” and so forth. 

Since the New Development Concept’s introduction to China, party leaders have described the sort of development China seeks as “shared,” “innovative,” “open,” “coordinated,” and “green.” It is difficult to discern whether the Study Guide’s security-based arguments for each of these goals reflect genuine rationales for their adoption or if these arguments are simply post-hoc attempts to justify existing policy initiatives with the language of danger. The logic of peril and threat may simply be the easiest way to rally a recalcitrant bureaucracy (or a security minded General Secretary) behind a costly set of economic reforms. Few problems are left to fester when national survival is on the line.

The connection between economics and security are less forced in the Study Guide’s repeated arguments for self-reliance. Longstanding calls to rebalance the Chinese economy in favor of domestic consumption took a distinctly geopolitical edge when the Politburo announced in 2020 that China must henceforth adopt a “new development pattern” with the domestic market acting as “the mainstay” of the Chinese economy. While this new development pattern allows for the domestic and international markets to “boost each other,” the Study Outline is frank about the policy’s larger priorities: “The most essential characteristic of the construction of a new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency.”

The Study Outline provides several reasons for why self-sufficiency is so critical to China’s state security. By “cultivat[ing] a complete system of domestic demand” China will be able to “absorb both external shocks and the effects of decreasing foreign demand.” More important still, it will allow the Party to “ensure the stability of our state’s economy and social environment under extreme circumstance.” The exact extreme circumstances that the Office for Central National Security Commission has in mind are not made clear. But the manual does hint at some possibilities.

“The Achilles’ heel of China’s massive economy,” the Study Outline notes, are “strangleholds” [卡脖子] in Chinese supply chains where foreign powers have the ability to cut off Chinese firms from the technological inputs they need to thrive. Self-sufficiency is therefore not just a matter of raising domestic demand but also scientific and technological progress. “A new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology,” the Study Outline instructs. “If we cannot improve our capacity for innovation in science and technology we will not be able to transition the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition.”

The Study Outline makes clear this is not a call for strategic autarky: “Constructing a new development pattern is not a last resort or a measure of expedience. It is a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth.” The ultimate goal of self-reliance is not to cut China off from the world, but to make China more central to it. If it is realized the new development pattern should “allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources.” Thus even though “the protectionist zeitgeist is on the rise,” cadres must stand for “opening-up, cooperation, and planning for win-win development.” If China can no longer rely on globalization to power its journey to the center of the world stage, it can still hope to leverage international trade and development for its own ends. But this requires China to occupy a position of strength, not one of vulnerability.  

Thus “the more we open [our economy to the world], the more we must prioritize security,” and “the more necessary it becomes to properly integrate the planning of development with security, the more necessary it becomes to put greater effort into increasing our ability to compete self-sufficiently.” Under this schema, GDP growth cannot justify dependency. The overwhelming priority of the Party must be development that leads towards national self-sufficiency. “Only then,” the Study Outline concludes, “can we [navigate] constant fluctuations in international [affairs] and be filled with the vigor needed to survive and develop. At that point no one can cause us to fall.”

THE EDITORS

1. Joseph Fewsmith and Gao Xiang described the overlapping pressures that led to GDP growth targets being placed at the center of cadre responsibility system as follows:
This system proved highly effective in promoting growth, as China’s high-speed development over the past three decades attests; but its very focus on economic growth meant that other areas of governance–including health care, education, and environmental protection–were neglected. This imbalance was caused by four factors. First, the cadre system privileges targets that are easily counted. Thus the one-child policy could be implemented with remarkable effectiveness and, at times, ruthlessness. Similarly, economic development can be counted, albeit with some slippage, through the calculation of GDP figures. Second, pursuit of economic development has been relatively uncontroversial at all levels of government, which makes it a consensus target. Prioritizing economic development as the core task and weighing it heavily in the cadre evaluation system avoids arguments about how to measure and compare “softer” tasks. Focusing on economic development also aligns the personal interests of cadres–who often bene½t personally through privilege and corruption–with the goals of the state, making economic goals more likely to be attained. But again, the focus on development inevitably comes at the expense of softer social services. 
Joseph Fewsmith and Gao Xiang, “Local Governance in China: Incentives & Tensions,” Daedalus 143, No. 2 (2014): 172-173.

The extent to which economic performance actually matters for cadre promotion has produced an enormous literature with empirical studies coming down on both sides of the question. For a recent review, see Pang, Baoqing, Shu Keng, and Siyi Zhang. “Does Performance Competition Impact China's Leadership Behaviour? Re-Examining the Promotion Tournament Hypothesis.” The China Quarterly (2023) 1–18.

2. Deng Xiaoping pronounced his now-famous formula, “let some people get rich first” [让一部分人先富起来], during the height of Reform and Opening in 1985. In an interview with Time in October 1985, he explained that there was no fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism and that China's development strategy was a means to achieve the socialist ideal in the end: “Some areas and some people can get rich first, driving and helping other areas and other people, and gradually achieve common prosperity.” Deng reiterated this vision during a tour to Tianjin a year later, maintaining that allowing some to prosper before others is a “shortcut to attaining common prosperity.”
Deng Xiaoping, “There Is No Fundamental Contradiction Between Socialism and a Market Economy,” Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 23 October 1985. Deng Xiaoping, “Remarks During An Inspection Tour of Tianjin,” Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 19-21 August 1986.

3. See the CST glossary entries for INITIAL STAGE OF SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS and GREAT REJUVENATION OF THE CHINESE NATION and their respective sources longer explications of this theory.
4. Taken from “Zongti Guojia Anquan Xuexi Gongyao: Chuban Faxing 《总体国家安全观学习纲要》出版发行 [The Total National Security Paradigm: A Study Outline is Published],” Renmin Wang 人民网 [People’s Daily Online], 16 April 2022. In Chinese the passage reads干部群众学习贯彻总体国家安全观的重要权威辅助读物。
For broader overviews of the Total National Security Paradigm see Matthew Johnson, “Safeguarding Socialism: The Origins, Evolution and Expansion of China’s Total Security Paradigm,” Sinopsis (Prague: AcaMedia z.ú., June 2020); Jude Blanchette, “The Edge of an Abyss: Xi Jinping’s Overall National Security Outlook,” China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2022; Katja Drinhausen and Helena Legarda, “‘Comprehensive National Security’ Unleashed: How Xi’s Approach Shapes China’s Policies at Home and Abroad,” MERICS China Report, Mercator Institute for China Studies, 15 September 2022; and Samantha Hoffman, “Programming China: the Communist Party’s autonomic approach to managing state security,” (PhD diss., University of Nottingham, 2017).
5. The story of the CIA network in China has been reported in Zach Dorfman, “Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents,” Foreign Policy, 15 August 2018 and “China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe,” Foreign Policy, 21 December 2020; Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Matthew Apuzzo, “Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations,” The New York Times, 20 May 2017; and Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants,” The New York Times, 5 October 2021. The connection between this event and the anti-corruption drive that followed is outline in John Fitzgerald, Cadre Country: How China Became the Chinese Communist Party (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2022), 204-214.
6. See Joseph Fewsmith, Rethinking Chinese Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) for a compelling depiction of the weaknesses inherent in what Fewsmith calls “reform Leninism” and a description Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics as an intentional answer to these weaknesses.

7. Perhaps the most influential of these voices was the joint report issued by the World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council: China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society (The World Bank: Washington DC, 2013); an accessible overview to the issues involved is Arthur Kroeber, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 267-296.
8. See the CST glossary entry PERIOD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY for a longer explication; see also Alex Dessein, "Identifying Windows of Opportunity within China’s Rise: Problematizing China’s Hundred-Year Strategy toward Great-Power Status,” Military Review (September-October 2019), 64-82; Brock Erdhal, and Daid Gitter, “China’s Uncertain Times and Fading Opportunities,” CACR Occasional Report. Washington DC: Center for Advanced China Research, 2022.

9. The history of this slogan is traced in Howard Wang, “‘Security Is a Prerequisite for Development’: Consensus-Building toward a New Top Priority in the Chinese Communist Party,” Journal of Contemporary China (2022), 1-15.
10. Xi Jinping, Governance Of China, vol 4 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2022), 195-196.
11. Xi Jinping, Governance Of China, vol 2 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2017), 236-237.
12. Ibid., 221. See also p. 297.

Uphold the Integration of Development and Security: On a Necessary Requirement for National Security in the New Era

1.  Advancing the Complete Fusion of Development and Security

(36) Development and security are like two wings in flight or the two wheels that move a cart. One of our Party’s major principles for governing China1 is the integration of development and security, increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace.2 We must weave national security into all aspects of the entire work process of the Party and state, planning and deploying [national security policies] alongside economic and social development, [having them] work harmoniously in lockstep. We must organically harmonize the two goals of development and security; realize the positive interaction between high-quality development and security; and diligently establish long-lasting security and long-term stability. 

China at present is experiencing the grandest and most unique innovations in praxis that have yet occurred in human history. The task of reform, development, and stability is a heavy one; there are numerous contradictions, risks, and challenges, as well as great tests [of our ability to] govern the state. All are without precedent. Across the globe great changes unseen in a century are profound and unprecedented. We are now closer to, and more confident and capable of, realizing the goal of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation than at any point in history. At the same time, this will require preparing [ourselves] for onerous and painstaking effort. We must courageously sail in dire straits and turn a myriad of crises into opportunities, ceaselessly realize better quality, more efficient, more equal, more sustainable, and more secure development.3 History and reality have told us: as long as we ceaselessly liberate and develop society’s productive forces;4 ceaselessly increase our economic strength, scientific and technological strength, and composite national power;5 ceaselessly [work] so that our vast people's sense of achievement, happiness, and security grows fuller day by day; and ceaselessly [work so that] the material foundation for upholding and developing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and for realizing the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation grows more substantial day by day–then we will not fail to guide Socialism with Chinese Characteristics through wind and wave, steadfastly sailing into the distance. 

2.  Steadfastly Protect the Broader Landscape of Reform, Development, and Stability

(37) General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that “reform, development, and stability are the three pivotal fulcrums of our state’s socialist modernization. Reform is a powerful driving force for economic and social development. Development is the key to solving all our economic and social problems. Only with social stability can reform and development possibly advance without ceasing.”6 Only with the continuous advance of reform and development can there possibly be a strong foundation for social stability. Leave social stability behind and not only will reform and development no longer smoothly advance, but every gain we have already made will be lost.

 On a global scale, political unrest has not only caused many countries to pass up favorable opportunities for development, but has also brought grave disasters upon the peoples of these countries. To conclusively carry out the Total National Security Paradigm we must grasp firmly the formidable task of reform, development, and stability on all fronts. For the sake of constructing a favorable environment for Reform and Opening and socialist modernization, from the beginning of Reform and Opening our party has always given a high priority to correctly managing the relationship between reform, development, and stability, and on preserving the broader landscape of stability in our state and society.

Currently, our state faces an increasingly intricate and complex international dynamic. We must soberly recognize the complexity and protracted nature of the various adverse factors [we face] both internationally and domestically.  Development is still our Party’s top priority in the government and rejuvenation of the state; it is still our essential and foundational work. However, economic development and the improvement of material living [standards] is not everything. They are not the sole determining factor of the people’s support. 

It is necessary to uphold the worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. It is necessary to correctly manage the relationship between reform, development, and stability; to unify the force of reform, the speed of development, and the load-bearing capacity of [our] society. We must never shift in our course, stray from our path, or slacken our strength. Improving the livelihood of the people [should be] the nexus of reform, development, and stability. While guaranteeing social stability, [we must] advance reform and development. [We must] promote social stability through reform and development. It is necessary to strengthen reform measures, development measures, and stability measures; and to properly grasp the relationship between individual and collective interests, short-term and long-term interests, the interests of the parts and the interests of the whole.

Facing a complex and mutable environment for security and development, it is necessary to uphold [an atmosphere] where seeking progress in stability is the keynote of our work.7 The fundamental point of seeking progress in stability lies in stabilizing the broader landscape [while still] ceaselessly forging ahead. “Stability” and “progress” should mutually promote one another. It is necessary to uphold the smooth resolution of risks in the midst of development, and to optimize development in the midst of risk resolution. Thoroughly evaluate the circumstances and the tasks of reform. Synthesize the promotion of reform with the prevention and resolution of major risks.  Scientifically plan the promotion and implementation of reform with proper timing, means, and pace. Handle destabilizing and uncertain [risk] factors more actively and effectively. Strengthen our capacity for struggle,8 expand our policy space;9 improve the resilience of [our] institutions under stress; and ensure that reform [will] be steady and enduring. We must recognize that resolving long-standing difficulties in economic and social development will require a long and protracted effort, but we must never act with trepidation, passing our problems on to future generations. We must strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone,10 carry forward in the “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,”11 and press towards the future one step at a time. 

3. Grasping the New Development Concept with Risk Consciousness and a Problem Oriented Approach 

(38) The correctness of our development concept fundamentally determines the effectiveness and even the success or failure of development.  Since the Eighteenth Party Congress, we have introduced important theories and concepts for economic and social development. Among them, the New Development Concept is the most important and essential. The New Development Concept, [which calls for] innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared [growth], is based on a profound synthesis of the experiences and lessons of development [learned] both at home and abroad. It is [designed] to counter the prominent contradictions and problems that arise from development in China.

[We] need to follow a problem oriented approach, thoroughly analyze the reasons for the problems [we face], resolve contradictions and risks by carrying out the New Development Concept in a timely manner, and ceaselessly improve our state’s capacity in national security. [We] need to recognize that innovative development, coordinated development, green development, open development, and shared development are all premised on national security and social stability. We must use security to protect development and development to advance security. This will place our state's development and security on a safer and more trustworthy foundation.

Innovative development focuses on problems related to drivers of growth. After many years of concerted effort, China’s overall scientific and technological standards have improved considerably, but [our] capacity for innovation does not meet the requirements of high-quality development. Scientific and technological self-reliance will decide our state’s capacity for survival and development. There are many “strangleholds.”12 This is the “Achilles’ Heel” of our state’s massive economy.13 A new round of technological revolution has brought ever fiercer competition [in the realm] of science and technology. If we cannot improve our [capacity] for innovation in science and technology, we will not be able to transform the drivers of our growth. We will [then] be outmatched in global economic competition. It is necessary to uphold innovation’s central position in the overall modernization landscape; plan and advance innovation from a global perspective; thoroughly implement the “Strategy for Innovation-Driven Development”;14 accelerate the construction of a world-class great power in science and technology;15 advance the fusion of science and technology with economic and social development; cultivate new drivers of growth through education; and sculpt a leading-edge development with more first mover advantages.

The focus of coordinated development is resolving the problem of imbalanced development. China’s imbalanced development is a persistent problem that manifests in the relations among localities, [between] urban and rural areas, between material civilization and spiritual civilization, and between economic development and national defense. We must focus on adjusting these relationships and focus on the overall effectiveness of development. Otherwise the problem of the “Wooden Bucket Theory”16 will become increasingly prominent [in our society], and a series of social contradictions will continuously worsen. We must firmly grasp the broader configuration of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, unearth developmental potential through correcting and consolidating our shortcomings, strengthen our vigor [after the initial stages of this process], and ceaselessly strengthen the holistic nature of development. 

The focus of green development is resolving the problem of harmony between humanity and nature. A favorable ecological environment is the foundation for the continuous development of humanity and society. As socio-economic development [matures] and living standards rise, environmental problems are often those most prone to provoking discontent among the masses. We must steadfastly walk the path of civilized development that [combines] productivity growth, prosperity, and a clean environment. We must accelerate adjustments in the structure of industry, energy, public transport, and land use. 

We must coordinate socio-economic development with the population [level], natural resources, and the environment; ensure that the Chinese will develop sustainably; and make our due contribution for the security of the global ecosystem. 

At the present, there is already a high degree of consensus in regards to accelerating the green transition in [our] socio-economic development. However, our state’s energy system is reliant on coal and fossil fuels, and the systems of production and daily living are placing immense pressure on our green and low-carbon transition. Our targets to reach a carbon emissions peak before 2030 and to [become] carbon neutral by 2026 are extraordinarily challenging.  Realizing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is a basic condition for realizing high-quality development. While we must pursue [this goal] unwaveringly, we cannot accomplish this task in one fell swoop. Keep to the principles of integrated planning for the entire country, prioritizing conservation, and protecting against double risks. The phasing out of traditional energy [sources] must be built on the foundation of replacing them with secure and reliable new energy [sources].

The focus of open development is resolving the problem of the interrelations between domestic and international development. The state of international economic cooperation and competition has undergone profound changes. The global economy’s governance systems and regulations are facing drastic adjustments. The [challenge of] responding to foreign economic risks and the pressure we face protecting economic security has no precedents. Our state’s overall standard of [economic] openness is not high enough, and our ability to utilize both the domestic and international markets, as well as the resources [concomitant to each], is not strong enough. We must uphold our basic state strategy of [economic] opening; construct comprehensive and open [economic] systems that are diverse and balanced as well as secure and highly efficient; develop an open model of the economy at a higher level; and use the expansion of opening up to bring about innovation, promote reform, and advance development. The more we open [the economy], the more we must prioritize security, the more necessary it becomes to properly integrate development with security, and the more necessary it becomes to put greater effort into increasing our ability to compete self sufficiently, our ability to regulate an open [market],17 and our ability to manage risk.

The focus of shared development is resolving the problem of social equality and justice. Currently, the issue of global income inequality is very prominent. In some countries the middle class has crumbled and wealth disparities are gaping. This leads to the rupture of the social [fabric], political polarization, and rampant populism. All [of these countries] provide profound lessons for our state. When it comes to sharing the gains of reform and development domestically, whether it is the concrete situation or the design of [our institutions], there are still imperfections, and the road to realizing comprehensive development and common prosperity for all of the people is still heavy and protracted.

Shared [development] is a fundamental requirement for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Realizing common prosperity is not only an economic question. It is also an important political question related to the foundation of the Party’s governance. With the aim of serving the people with all of our heart and soul, we must seize the New Development Concept, resolutely prevent the polarization [of our society], and never allow the emergence of a chasm between the rich and the poor that cannot be bridged. To realize our target of common prosperity [we] must first create a larger and better “cake” through the people’s collective efforts. Then through appropriate institutional arrangements this “cake” will then be cut and divided properly. This is a long-term historical process, towards which we must proceed steadily.18

We must prioritize employment in the promotion of high quality development, ensuring that economic growth drives up employment. It is necessary to give full play to the purpose and effect of redistribution, persist in the major [principle] of “distribution according to one’s work,” and perfect the policies of “distribution according to the factors of production.”19 It is necessary to raise the strength of regulations on taxation, social insurance, transfer payments and the like; optimize income distribution structures; and expand the middle class. We must support corporations and social organizations that are willing and able to actively participate in the public good [provision] and philanthropy. We must persist in doing all in our power to perfect [both] public policies and the system of institutions that serve the public, and improve basic public services in education, medicine, retirement, housing and other areas that the people find most important. 

4. Firmly Safeguard the Bottom Line of Security and Development in Order to Construct a New Development Pattern 

(39) Accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, which takes a large-scale cycle in the domestic market as its mainstay with a dual cycle in the domestic and international markets boosting each other, is a vital strategic task that impacts the broader landscape of China’s development. General Secretary Xi Jinping indicated that “we must firmly safeguard the bottom line of security and development. This is the vital prerequisite and guarantee for constructing a new development pattern and is the key to an unimpeded large-scale domestic cycle.”20

In recent years, economic globalization has encountered headwinds and cyclical international economic structures have undergone profound adjustments. The outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated those headwinds, and the trend of turning inwards is on the rise in various states. The cycle of international markets and [natural] resources has clearly slowed. The [old] environment [conducive to] importing and exporting on a large scale has already changed. In an external environment characterized by the atrophy of global markets, we must concentrate our strength on properly handling our own affairs; accelerating the construction a new development pattern; strengthening our power to survive, compete, develop and [grow] sustainably in the face of various perilous circumstances, both foreseen and unforeseen; and ensure the course towards the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is neither stifled nor crushed. Constructing a new development pattern is not a last resort or a measure of expedience. It is a forward-looking gambit for seizing the initiative of future growth. This is a war of attrition that requires tenacious fighting spirit and strategic resolution.21

The key to constructing a new development pattern lies in unimpeded economic circulation. If [economic] circulation is blocked or cut off at any point, this obstruction will manifest at the macro level as a falling growth rate, rising unemployment, the accumulation of risk, and an unbalanced balance of payments; at the micro level it will manifest as excess production, a decrease in corporate profits, falling personal incomes, and other similar problems. In China’s present stage of development, the most important task [to encourage] unimpeded economic circulation is to ensure that the supply-side [of the economy] is efficient and unobstructed. An efficient supply side is able to pierce through blockages in circulation and remove the constraints imposed by bottlenecks. We must persist in deepening the paradigm of supply side reform and realize a high-level dynamic equilibrium.  

The most essential characteristic of the construction of a new development pattern is realizing a high-level of self-sufficiency and self empowerment. We must recognize that [the ability to] innovate on our own is a matter of our survival and development. On all fronts we must strengthen our deployments for scientific and technological innovation; strengthen the links between innovation and supply chains; create unique competitive advantages that are conducive to the rapid and large-scale application of new technologies and to iterative upgrades; accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity; increase standards for supply chains; protect the security of supply chains; open up a channel between scientific-technological strength and industrial, economic, and national strength; unleash new innovative vigor via reform; and accelerate the establishment of a robust country-wide system of innovation.

Forming a strong domestic market is an important pillar of the new development pattern. It is also a [natural] advantage for a large country’s economy. The cultivation of a complete system of domestic demand is advantageous for absorbing both external shocks and the effects of decreasing foreign demand, as well as for ensuring the stability of China’s economy and social environment under extreme circumstances. We must combine the implementation of our strategy of expanding domestic demand with supply side reforms in an organic manner. We must increase the interoperability of supply chain systems with domestic demand, so that production, distribution, circulation, consumption and other segments can rely more on domestic markets to realize a virtuous cycle.  

Only through self-sufficiency can we realize an unimpeded, large-scale domestic cycle, weave security and development into the entire process and all fields of national development, and tirelessly make ourselves invulnerable to all attacks.22 Only then can we [navigate] constant fluctuations in international [affairs], be filled with the vigor needed to survive and develop. Then no one can cause us to fall or place us in a stranglehold.23 Since Reform and Opening, we have suffered many shocks and external risks, but we have always been able to avert disaster by relying on properly handling our own affairs and keeping the foothold for our own development inside our [own] country.

(40) We must build a scientific understanding of the relationship between a large-scale domestic cycle and a dual cycle in the international and domestic [spheres]. To construct a new development pattern means the opening of a paired [dual] cycle in the domestic and international [spheres]–it does not mean a single, sealed-off, domestic cycle. Our state’s economy is already deeply fused with the global economy. It has a relatively high degree of mutual interdependence and association with the other country’s industry, and domestic and international market demand are [both] interdependent and mutually reinforcing. To build a new development pattern and implement high quality [market] opening requires a strong domestic cycle and a solid bedrock [on which to stand]. This will allow us to attract essential resources from across the globe, become powerful competitors in a fierce international competition, and become a powerful driving force in the allocation of the world’s natural resources. We must prioritize using the international cycle both to improve the standards and efficiency of the large-scale cycle in the domestic [sphere], and to improve the quality of our factors of production and our allocation of [resources]. It is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of China’s export products and services and promote the evolution of China’s industries by participating in international market competition.

At present, the protectionist zeitgeist is on the rise, but through opening-up, cooperation, and planning for win-win development, we shall stand on the right side of history. We will staunchly promote economic globalization in the direction of openness, tolerance, inclusivity, balance, and shared benefits;24 [we will] promote the construction of an open, global economy. At the same time, we must firmly establish security and development concepts, and accelerate our perfection of their respective systems and mechanisms, correct relevant shortcomings, preserve the security of production and supply chains, and actively manage and mitigate major risks.

1. The term zhìguó lǐzhèng [治国理政], translated here as “governing China” but more literally rendered as “state governance,” has special significance in the age of Xi Jinping. The phrase is incorporated into the title of Xi Jinping’s published speeches (a literal translation of the Chinese title would be Xi Jinping on State Governance [习近平谈治国理政]; our translation here follows the official English title of Xi’s book, On the Governance of China). Describing integrated planning of development and security as a “major principle” of state governance [治国理政] is thus an unsubtle way to emphasize the importance of this concept to Xi Jinping’s broader program.
2. “Increasing our consciousness of calamity, and being vigilant during times of peace” is an ubiquitous phrase in party documents that captures an important aspect of the Party’s psyche. As one People’s Daily article puts it, “the Communist Party of China is a political party born from calamities, grown in calamities, and is becoming stronger from calamities.” This call for awareness of constant danger dates back to Mao Zedong, who admonished his cadres not to become complacent after the success of the revolution. Today, Xi quotes the phrases often to emphasize the challenges ahead. “The brighter the future, the more it is necessary to increase the awareness of potential calamities,” the People’s Daily quotes Xi. One “must be constantly prepared for danger in times of peace, and fully understand and be prepared for major risks and challenges.” For a discussion of the calamity consciousness from a party source, see Chen Shifa, “Zengqiang Youhuan Yishi 增强忧患意识 [Increase our consciousness of calamity],” Renmin Ribao 人民日报 [People’s Daily], November 2022. 
3. This list of adjectives entered the party lexicon in 2015, when Xi Jinping provided guidance on how to implement the Thirteenth Five Year Plan in 2015. As part of his New Development Concept Xi exhorted the Party to pursue high-quality development–that is, development that is “more efficient, more equal, and more sustainable” [更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续]  than what had come before. In 2021, the Fourteenth Five Year Plan added the phrase “more secure” [更为安全] into the list of qualities characterizing high-quality development. This addition, paired with language about  “the integration of development and security,” signaled to the Party that it must take the role of national security more seriously in economic planning. The new consensus was codified at the highest level in 2022, when the 20th Party Congress amended the Party Constitution to include “secure development” as a goal of the Party’s economic work.

For a discussion of the relationship between Xi’s economic strategy and national security paradigm, see the CST glossary entries on the NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT and the NEW DEVELOPMENT PATTERN. For the text of the 13th and 14th five year plans, see Xinhua News Agency,  “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisan ge wu nian guihua 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十三个五年规划 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online]  March 2016; Xinhua News Agency, “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guomin jingji he shehui fazhan di shisi ge wu nian guihua he 2035 nian yuanjing mubiao gangyao 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和2035年远景目标纲要 [Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035],” Xinhua Wang 新华网 [Xinhua Online], March 2021. For the 2022 constitutional amendments, see Communist Web, “ershí da dangzhang xiuzheng an xuexi wenda 二十大党章修正案学习问答 [Q&A on the 20th Congress Party Constitution Amendments],” December 2022. 
4. In Marxist terminology, the phrase “productive forces” describes the combination of human labor and the means of labor (machinery, infrastructure, industrial techniques, natural resources, exploitable land, and so forth) available to society in any given stage of economic development. The exhortation to “liberate the productive forces” thus has a long history in the rhetoric of Chinese communism–Mao Zedong was urging cadres to  “liberate the productive forces” all the way back in 1944, adding that the Japanese must be defeated in order to “eradicate the old politics and military affairs that [currently] block the development of the productive forces” in China. The phrase would used many times in the decades that followed, though the obstacles that the productive forces must be liberated from would change: Mao would use later the phrase to justify collectivization; during the Deng era many reformists, arguing that China’s own sclerotic bureaucracy was the main force blocking China’s economic development, repurposed Mao’s phrase to justify marketization. Ye Jianying’s 1979 argument for market reforms provide a typical example of the phrase’s usage in this era:
First, for socialism to replace capitalism, we must liberate the productive forces and achieve a constantly rising labor productivity to meet the people’s material and cultural needs. This is the fundamental aim of socialist revolution. Once the proletariat has seized political power in a country, and especially after the establishment of the socialist system, it is imperative to place the focus of work squarely on economic construction, actively expand the productive forces and gradually improve the people's standard of living.
Today the phrase is associated with many of the same things Ye tied it to in 1979: economic development, rising productivity, and rising living standards. Under Xi Jinping the Center has argued that these things will be guaranteed by cutting edge innovations in science and technology; the phrase is thus often used today to justify state investment or intervention in those sectors.
For the Ye Jianying quote, see Bill Brugger, Chinese Marxism in Flux 1978-84: Essays on Epistemology, Ideology and Political Economy (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharp Inc, 1985), 46; Mao's comments are found in Mao Zedong, " Cultural Education Problems in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region'," in Stuart Schram, ‎Timothy Cheek, ‎and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds., Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, vol viii (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2015).
5. The term “composite national power” [zònghé guólì 综合国力] has been commonly used in Chinese geopolitical analysis since the 1980s. The term assumes that–as was true in the Cold War–military power is not the sole determinant of success in geopolitical competition. An accurate assessment of two countries’ strengths and weaknesses must integrate measures of military power with calculations of economic strength, scientific prowess, diplomatic acumen, cultural influence, and so forth. Such a cross-domain assessment would measure composite national strength. Though the term implies a formal and comprehensive accounting of the total resources a country can bring to bear, it is rarely used with any more rigor than phrases like “smart power” or “soft power” are used in Western debates. There are no recent English language discussions of this term; a lengthy discussion of its use in China’s policy debates in the 1990s is found in  Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security Environment (Forest Grove, Oregon: University Press of the Pacific, 2004), ch. 5. 
6. This quotation comes from a speech made by Xi Jinping during a Collective Study Session in 2012. For the text of that speech, see “Xi Jinping zai shiba jie zhonggong zhongyang zhengzhi jv dierci jiti xuexi shi de jianghua 习近平在十八届中共中央政治局第二次集体学习时的讲话 [Speech by Xi Jinping at the Second Group Study of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee],” Xinhua 新华, 31 December 2012.  However, it is an almost verbatim reiteration of a development strategy first endorsed by Jiang Zemin. In an address to the Central Committee in September 1995, Jiang stated that “there is an inseparable connection among reform, development and stability,” adding that “the key to solving all of China’s problems depends on its own development.” “Zhonggong Shisi Jie Wu Zhong Quanhui 中共十四届五中全会[The Fifth Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], December 2008. 
7. The phrase “seeking in progress in stability” dates to the immediate post-Tiananmen environment, a time when economic growth numbers were falling as the Party tried to slow down market liberalization in the name of regime security. The phrase would periodically return anytime far-reaching economic restructuring was on the national agenda: In the 2010s it has been closely associated with China’s drive to transition the country to a sustainable, consumption-driven economy. For that drive see the CST glossary entry NEW DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT; for a longer history of this term, Stella Chen, “Seeking Progress in Stability,China Media Project, 17 March 2022.
8. Translated here as “struggle,” the word douzheng [斗争] is also often translated as “to battle” or “to fight.” The list of forces Party members have been directed to struggle against over the course of the Party’s history is long: imperialism, liberalism, bureaucratism, factionalism, capitalism, revisionism, nihilism, corruption, crime, and even, in one famous statement by  Mao Zedong, against heaven and earth itself (“To struggle against heaven means boundless joy; to struggle against earth means boundless joy; to struggle against man means boundless joy  [与天斗,其乐无穷;与地斗,其乐无穷;与人斗,其乐无穷]”). Struggle suggests a righteous underdog triumphing against unjust powers. It is less a defined set of actions than an attitude: the word is associated with mental fortitude; unyielding tenacity; absolute commitment; a willingness to ruffle feathers, ruin friendships, or sacrifice pleasant comforts for the sake of the cause; and the determination to treat enemies with the hostility they deserve. 
Struggle has a distinctly Maoist flavor; the call to struggle was rarely issued in the Reform Era. Xi Jinping has resurrected these calls–most dramatically in a 2019 speech at the Central Party School where Xi used the word “struggle” more than 50 times. Xi Jinping instructed rising cadres that they must “dare to struggle” [敢于斗争] and “struggle well” [善于斗争].  “Struggle is an art,” he would go on to say, “and we must be adroit practitioners.” See Xi Jinping, Governance of China, vol III (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2020), 264. For the concerns that led Xi Jinping to resurrect the call to struggle, see the CST glossary entry SOFT BONE DISEASE. For some of the difficulties with translating this word, see David Barduski, “The Party is Struggling,” China Media Project, 6 September 2019 and Todd Hall and Pu Xiaoyu, “Dare to Fight or Dare to Struggle? Translation of a Chinese Political Concept,” CSIS: Interpret China, 8 May 2023.
9. “Policy space” is a term imported into Chinese political rhetoric from the debates that shook international development organizations in the mid-aughts. The debate began when multiple observers from the developing world accused the IMF and World Bank of eroding the sovereignty of the nations they loaned to by tying their bail-outs to a restricted menu of the macroeconomic policies on the part of loanees. Denying the leaders of these countries the freedom to yield whichever macroeconomic policy tools they thought were most appropriate to their respective national conditions was “shrinking the policy space“ these leaders could operate in. In Chinese economic debates the term is used in a similar way, signifying the range and the effectiveness of macroeconomic measures available to policy makers in Beijing. For a recent discussion of Chinese macroeconomic policy in this framework, see Zhang Qidi, “Zhenshi Kongjina De ‘Da’ Yu ‘Buda’ 政策空间的 ‘大’与 ‘不大’[The Size of Chinese Policy Space],” Jinrong Jie, April 2022. 
10. Xi Jinping introduced the slogan “strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone” in 2013 at a meeting with the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the CPC’s highest institution for enforcing internal rules and combating corruption and malfeasance in the party. The point of the slogan is to emphasize the long term commitment and determination needed to build a new culture of intra-party discipline. As an official explanation of Xi Jinping Thought explains the matter: 
Therefore, in the face of these two tasks, only by making up your mind, strengthening your confidence, working hard, and constantly working hard can you see results. That is to leave footprints on the "stone" and scratch marks on the "iron". Emphasizing "stepping on stones to leave marks and grasping iron marks" is actually a reminder to all comrades in the party: comprehensively and strictly governing the party requires constant alarm bells to be grasped frequently and for a long time; comprehensively deepening reform requires overcoming difficulties and overcoming difficulties. Kan, there must be such a breath and energy. 
[所以,面对这样两项任务,只有痛下决心、增强信心,真抓实干、常抓不懈,才能见到成效。也就是要在“石”上留下足印,在“铁”上抓出痕迹。强调“踏石留印、抓铁有痕”,实际上就是提醒全党同志:全面从严治党需要警钟长鸣,做到经常抓、长期抓;全面深化改革需要攻坚克难、爬坡过坎,必须有那么一股气儿和劲儿。]
Li Zhen and Shi Chang, “Xijinping zhiguo li zheng guanjian ci (13): Ta shi liu yin zhua tie you hen 习近平治国理政关键词(13):踏石留印 抓铁有痕 [Keywords of Xi Jinping's governance of the country (13): strive to indent steel and leave our footprints in stone],” Remin Wang 人民网 [People’s Web], February 2016. 
11. Xi Jinping first told the Party that it needed to cultivate a “spirit of hammering a nail until the job is done,” in a speech at the second plenum of the 18th Central Committee on February 28, 2013. The speech was an exhortation for the party members to implement the decisions of the Central Committee in a diligent manner. “We have already got in our hands a good blueprint,” he said. “What we should do is to follow it through to the end and make it a success. In this regard, we need to have a ‘nail’ spirit. When we use a hammer to drive in a nail, a single knock often may not be enough; we must keep knocking until it is well in place.” Xi Jinping. “Follow a Good Blueprint,” in The Governance of China Volume I. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014), 445. 
12. Or more literally, a “strangling problem” [qiǎ bózi wèntí 卡脖子问题]. The term came to prominence in the late 2010s when the United States began threatening to use export controls to curb China’s technological advance. These problems are critical inputs in Chinese supply chains, such as semiconductors, engines, CNC machine tools, and other crucial technological components that must be sourced from abroad and thus are vulnerable to foreign sanctions.
13. This intentionally echoes Xi Jinping’s 2016 statement that  “The overall level of scientific and technological development in China is not high, and the ability of science and technology to support economic and social development is insufficient. This is the ‘Achilles Heel’ of China’s large economy.” See “chen li tan 《xi jin ping guan yu zong ti guo jia an quan guan lun shu zhai bian 》陈理谈《习近平关于总体国家安全观论述摘编》” [Chen Li Discusses Excerpts from Xi Jinping's Discussion on an Overall National Security View], People’s Daily, August 4, 2018.
14. Initially proposed in 2013, the “National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy” was formally adopted by the Central Committee and the State Council in May 2016. It offered a blueprint for a nationally organized innovation system that would develop a range of strategic emerging technologies and transform China’s development pattern in a fundamental way. This document marked a break from China’s earlier industrial policies. Between 2006 to 2016, China’s state-directed funds targeted a limited range of technologies and was primarily aimed at catching up to advanced economies in industrial capabilities. The 2016 strategy, by contrast, was built around the idea that a very specific wave of technological change was beginning, and that this change was going to give China a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to vault into the leading ranks of economic and technological powers. The adoption of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy thus marked the beginning of a new phase in China’s industrial ambition. 
See a full translation of the outline at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (trans.), “中共中央 国务院印发《国家创新驱动发展战略纲要》[Outline of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy],” Xinhua News Agency, 19 May 2016. 
For a lengthy discussion of the Innovation-Driven Development Strategy, see Barry Naughton, “Innovation-Driven Development Strategy: 2015-present,” in The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy: 1978 To 2020. (New York: Academic Network of Latin America and the Caribbean on China, 2021). 
15. The goal of making China into a “world-class great power in science and technology” by the middle of the 21st century was first endorsed by the “Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020),” published by the State Council in 2006.  
The State Council of the PRC, “Guojia zhongchangqi kexue he jishu fazhan guihua gangyao 国家中长期科学和技术发展规划纲要 (2006-2020) [Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020)],” The State Council Gazzete 9, 2006.

16. Also known as Cannikin’s Law, the “Wooden Bucket Theory” draws an analogy to a wooden bucket in organization theory. If a wooden bucket with wooden stave sides all at different heights is filled with water, the capacity for the bucket to hold water is determined only by its shortest stave. In the context of businesses or–in the case of the Study Guide–a government, Cannikin’s law suggests that output will never exceed the capacity of the weakest department. 
 17. The phrases “ability to regulate an open [market]” and “ability to regulate in an open [environment]” [开放监管能力] are commonly used in the context of China’s capital controls. Robert Kahn explains the logic behind these controls in “The Case for Chinese Capital Controls,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 2016.
18. The “cake theory” emerged in Chinese discourse in 2010 as thirty years of economic growth left China with an increasing gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” In 2010, then premier Wen Jiabao said in the People’s Congress that “we must not only make the cake of social wealth bigger through economic development, but also divide the cake well through a reasonable income distribution system.” This remark generated a debate among party members over the future path of the country’s development. On one hand, Bo Xilai, then party secretary Chongqing, insisted on prioritizing redistribution over economic growth. “Deng Xiaping once said ‘let some people get rich first and then we will achieve common prosperity,’” Bo reasoned. “In China, some people have indeed become rich. But we must also realize the second half of the sentence–common prosperity.” Others disagreed. Wang Yang, then party secretary of Guangdong, argued that economic development should still be the party’s priority. “Dividing the cake should not be the focus of our work right now,” he said, “but making the cake is.” 
In 2013, Xi Jinping ended this debate by staking out his own position in his address to the 18th Central Committee during its Third Plenum:
When we speak of social fairness and justice, we mean to proceed from the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, and view and address this problem from the larger picture of social development, social harmony, and the people as a whole…. We must take economic development as the central task, promote sustained and sound growth, and “make the cake bigger,” thereby laying a more solid material foundation for greater social fairness and justice. This does not mean that we should wait to address the problem of social fairness and justice until the economy is developed. The nature of the problems may differ from period to period, bearing the features of society–developed or not so developed–in which they are found. Even when the “cake” has indeed become bigger, we must cut it fairly.
Xi Jinping, The Governance of China, vol I (Beijing:  Foreign Language Press, 2014), 108. 
For a lengthy discussion of the debate over the “cake theory,” see Fang Ming, “Luxian Zhizheng? Wang Bo ‘Dangao Lun’ Ge ChuZhao 路线之争?汪薄“蛋糕论”各出招[The Battle over the Roads? Wang and Bo's Debates on the ‘Cake Theory’],” Duowei Xingwen 多维新闻 [Duowei News], 14 July 2011. 
19. The CPC adopted the dual principle of  “distribution according to one’s work” and “distribution according to the factors of production”  during the Reform Era to justify the emergence of a free market under a socialist system. During the Mao era, China’s economic system was built on the principle of “distribution according to one’s work” [按劳分配], which held that the state should distribute reward to workers according to their contribution to the total production. However, this principle impeded China’s economic reform in the 1980s because it discouraged factory managers from making autonomous decisions to reinvest their profits and enlarge productive capacities. To overcome this theoretical barrier to reform, Jiang Zemin proposed a secondary principle in the 1990s: “distribution according to the factors of production” [按要素分配]. He argued that land, labor, technology, and capital were all necessary factors of production and thus should receive a share of resources proportional to their contributions to total production. This principle, combined with the Party’s increasing recognition that the market is an efficient way for resource allocation, justified the CPC’s more aggressive market reform in the 1990s. Today, official documents still use this dual principle to reconcile the existence of the free market with China’s socialist system. For a lengthy discussion of this dual principle written shortly after it was introduced, see Ma Hongwei, “Rúhé lǐjiě àn shēngchǎn yàosù fēnpèi 如何理解按生产要素分配 [How to Understand Distribution According to the Factors of Production],” People’s Daily, 4 December 1997. 
20. This language is lifted directly from a speech made by Xi Jinping on the same subject at the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October 2020. For a full text of the speech see “Xin Fazhan Jieduan Guanche Xin Fazhan Linian Biran Yaoqiu Goujian Xin Fazhan Geju 新发展阶段贯彻新发展理念必然要求构建新发展格局 [Implementing a New Development Concept in this New Development Stage Will Inevitably Require the Construction of a New Development Structure],” Qiushi Zazhi 《求是》杂志 [Qiushi Magazine], 31 August 2022. 
21. Dìng lì 定力, translated here as resolution, is a term most often associated with the disciplined concentration Buddhist monks muster in meditation. By implication, the passage is less an exhortation to stand resolute in the face of fear or danger than instructions to steel yourself with a spiritual resolution capable of banishing distraction and temptation.
22. Literally, “cultivate a body that is invulnerable to a hundred kinds of poisons and that is as indestructible as gold and steel.”
23. See footnote 12.
24. This language is lifted directly from Xi’s address to the China International Import Expo in November 2020. Xi Jinping, “Keynote Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China At the Opening Ceremony of The Third China International Import Expo,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China, 4 November 2020.

坚持统筹发展和安全—关于新时代国家安全的必然要求

1. 推进发展和安全深度融合 

(36)  发展和安全是一体之两翼、驱动之双轮。统筹发展和安全,增强忧患意识,做到居安思危,是我们党治国理政的一个重大原则。要把国家安全贯穿到党和国家工作各方面全过程,同经济社会发展一起谋划、一起部署,做到协调一致、齐头并进。要让发展和安全两个目标有机融合,实现高质量发展和高水平安全的良性互动,努力建久安之势、成长治之业。

当代中国正在经历人类历史上最为宏大而独特的实践创新,改革发展稳定任务之重、矛盾风险挑战之多、治国理政考验之大都前所未有,世界百年未有之大变局深刻变化前所未有。我们比历史上任何时期都更接近、更有信心和能力实现中华民族伟大复兴的目标,同时必须准备付出更为艰巨、更为艰苦的努力。要勇于开顶风船,善于转危为机,努力实现更高质量、更有效率、更加公平、更可持续、更为安全的发展。历史和现实都告诉我们,只要不断解放和发展社会生产力,不断增强经济实力、科技实力、综合国力,不断让广大人民的获得感、幸福感、安全感日益充实起来,不断让坚持和发展中国特色社会主义、实现中华民族伟大复兴的物质基础日益坚实起来,我们就一定能够使中国特色社会主义航船乘风破浪、行稳致远。

2. 坚定维护改革发展稳定大局

(37) 习近平总书记指出:“改革发展稳定是我国社会主义现代化建设的三个重要支点。改革是经济社会发展的强大动力,发展是解决一切经济社会问题的关键,稳定是改革发展的前提”。只有社会稳定,改革发展才能不断推进;只有改革发展不断推进,社会稳定才能具有坚实基础。离开社会稳定,不仅改革发展不可能顺利推进,而且已经取得的成果也会丧失。

从世界范围看,许多国家由于政局动荡、不仅失去发展机遇,也给这些国家的人民带来深重灾难。贯彻落实总体国家安全观,必须全面把握艰巨繁重的改革发展稳定任务。改革开放以来,我们党始终高度重视正确处理改革发展稳定关系,保持了我国社会大局稳定,为改革开放和社会主义现代化建设营造了良好环境。

当前,我国面临的国际形势日趋错综复杂,我们要清醒认识国际国内各种不利因素的长期性、复杂性。发展仍然是我们党执政兴国的第一要务,仍然是带有基础性、根本性的工作,但经济发展、物质生活改善并不是全部,人心向背也不仅仅决定于这一点。

必须坚持辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义世界观和方法论,正确处理改革发展稳定关系,坚持把改革的力度、发展的速度和社会可承受的程度统一起来,坚持方向不变、道路不偏、力度不减,把改善人民生活作为正确处理改革发展稳定关系的结合点,在保持社会稳定中推进改革发展,通过改革发展促进社会稳定。要增强改革措施、发展措施、稳定措施的协调性,把握好当前利益和长远利益、局部利益和全局利益、个人利益和集体利益的关系。

面对复杂多变的安全和发展环境,要坚持稳中求进工作总基调。稳中求进的根本点在于稳定大局、不断进取,“稳”和“进”,要相互促进,坚持在发展中平稳化解风险,在化解风险中优化发展。要把推进改革同防范化解重大风险结合起来,深入研判改革形势和任务,科学谋划推动落实改革的时机、方式、节奏,更加积极有效应对不稳定不确定因素,增强斗争本领,拓展政策空间,提升制度张力,推动改革行稳致远。既要认识到解决经济社会发展中一些长期存在的难题需要久久为功,又不能畏首畏尾,把问题留给后人,要抓铁有痕、踏石留印,发扬钉钉子精神,一步一个脚印向前迈进。

3. 从问题导向和忧患意识把握新发展理念

(38)发展理念是否对头,从根本上决定着发展成效乃至成败。党的十八大以来,我们对经济社会发展提出了许多重大理论和理念,其中新发展理念是最重要、最主要的。创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享的新发展理念,是在深刻总结国内外发展经验教训的基础上形成的,也是针对我国发展中的突出矛盾和问题提出来的。

要坚持问题导向,深入分析问题背后的原因,在贯彻落实新发展理念中及时化解矛盾风险,不断提高国家安全能力。要认识到推动创新发展、协调发展、绿色发展、开放发展、共享发展,前提都是国家安全、社会稳定。必须以安全保发展、以发展促安全,把国家发展建立在更加安全、更为可靠的基础之上。

创新发展注重的是解决发展动力问题。经过多年努力,我国科技整体水平大幅提升,但创新能力还不适应高质量发展要求,科技自立自强成为决定我国生存和发展的基础能力,存在诸多“卡脖子”问题,这是我国这个经济大个头的“阿喀琉斯之踵”。新一轮科技革命带来的是更加激烈的科技竞争,如果科技创新搞不上去,发展动力就不可能实现转换,我们在全球经济竞争中就会处于下风。必须坚持创新在我国现代化建设全局中的核心地位,以全球视野谋划和推动创新,深入实施创新驱动发展战略,加快建设世界科技强国,推动科技和经济社会发展深度融合,通过创新培育发展新动力、塑造更多发挥先发优势的引领型发展。

协调发展注重的是解决发展不平衡问题。我国发展不协调是一个长期存在的问题,突出表现在区域、城乡、经济和社会、物质文明和精神文明、经济建设和国防建设等关系上。要注意调整关系,注重发展的整体效能,否则“木桶效应”就会愈加显现,一系列社会矛盾会不断加深。必须牢牢把握中国特色社会主义事业总体布局,通过补齐短板挖掘发展潜力、增强发展后劲,不断增强发展整体性。

绿色发展注重的是解决人与自然和谐问题。良好生态环境是人和社会持续发展的根本基础,随着经济社会发展和人民生活水平不断提高,环境问题往往最容易引起群众不满。

必须坚定走生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展道路,加快推动产业结构、能源结构、交通运输结构、用地结构调整,实现经济社会发展与人口、资源、环境相协调,确保中华民族永续发展,为全球生态安全作出我们应有的贡献。

当前,加快推动经济社会发展全面绿色转型已经形成高度共识,而我国能源体系高度依赖煤炭等化石能源,生产和生活体系向绿色低碳转型的压力都很大,实现二〇三〇年前二氧化碳排放达到峰值、二〇二六年前碳中和的目标任务极其艰巨。实现碳达峰、碳中和是推动高质量发展的内在要求,要坚定不移推进,但不可能毕其功于一役。要坚待全国统筹、节约优先、双防范风险的原则。传统能源逐步退出要建立在新能源安全可靠的替代基础上。

开放发展注重的是解决发展内外联动问题。国际经济合作和竞争局面正在发生深刻变化,全球经济治理体系和规则正在面临重大调整,应对外部经济风险、维护国家经济安全的压力也是 过去所不能比拟的。我国对外开放水平总体上还不够高,用好国际国内两个市场、两种资源的能力还不够强。必须坚持对对外开放的基本国策,建设多元平衡、安全高效的全面开放体系,发展更高层次的开放型经济,以扩大开放带动创新、推动改革、促进发展。越开放越要重视安​​全,越要统筹好发展和安全,着力增强自身竞争能力、开放监管能力、风险防控能力。

共享发展注重的是解决社会公平正义问题。当前,全球收入不平等问题突出,一些国家贫富分化,中产阶层塌陷,导致社会撕裂、政治极化、民粹主义泛滥,教训十分深刻。从国内看,在共享改革发展成果上,无论是实际情况还是制度设计,都还有不完善的地方,实现人的全面发展和全体人民共同富裕仍然任重道远。

共享是中国特色社会主义的本质要求,实现共同富裕不仅是经济问题,而且是关系党的执政基础的重大政治问题。必须从全心全意为人民服务的根本宗旨把握新发展理念,坚决防止两极分化,决不能在富的人和穷的人之间出现一道不可逾越的鸿沟。实现共同富裕目标,首先要通过全国人民共同奋斗把 “蛋糕”做大做好,然后通过合理的制度安排把“蛋糕”切好分好。这是一个长期的历史过程,要稳步朝着这个目标迈进。

要在推动高质量发展中强化就业优先导向,提高经济增长的就业带动力。要发挥分配的功能和作用,坚持按劳分配为主体,完善按要素分配政策,加大税收、社保、转移支付等的调节力度,优化收入分配结构,扩大中等收入群体。支持有意愿有能力的企业和社会群体积极参与公益慈善事业。要坚持尽力而为、量力而行,完善公共服务政策制度体系,在教育、医疗、养老、住房等人民群众最关心的领域精准提供基本公共服务。

4. 构建新发展格局要牢牢守住安全发展底线

(39) 加快构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局,是一项关系我国发展全局的重大战略任务。习近平总书记指出:“要牢牢守住安全发展这条底线。这是构建新发展格局的重要前提和保障,也是畅通国内大循环的题中应有之义”。

近年来,经济全球化遭遇逆流,国际经济循环格局发生深度调整。新冠肺炎疫情也加剧了逆全球化趋势,各国内顾倾向上升。市场和资源两头在外的国际大循环动能明显减弱,大进大出的环境条件已经变化。在当前全球市场萎缩的外部环境下,必须集中力量办好自己的事,加快构建新发展格局,在各种可以预见和难以预见的狂风暴雨、惊涛骇浪中,增强我们的生存力、竞争力、发展力、持续力,确保中华民族伟大复兴进程不被迟滞甚至中断。构建新发展格局不是被迫之举和权宜之计,而是把握未来发展主动权的战略性布局和先手棋,是一场需要保持顽强斗志和战略定力的攻坚战、持久战。

构建新发展格局的关键在于经济循环的畅通无阻。如果经济循环过程中出现堵点、断点,循环就会受阻,在宏观上就会表现为增长速度下降、失业增加、风险积累、国际收支失衡等情况,在微观上就会表现为产能过剩、企业效益下降、居民收入下降等问题。在我国发展现阶段,畅通经济循环最主要的任务是供给侧有效畅通,有效供给能力强可以穿透循环堵点、消除瓶颈制约。必须坚持深化供给侧结构性改革这条主线,实现经济在高水平上的动态平衡。

构建新发展格局最本质的特征是实现高水平的自立自强。要把自主创新放在能不能生存和发展的高度加以认识,全面加强对科技创新的部署,加强创新链和产业链对接,创造有利于新技术快速大规模应用和迭代升级的独特优势,加速科技成果向现实生产力转化,提升产业链水平,维护产业链安全,打通从科技强到产业强、经济强、国家强的通道,以改革释放创新活力,加快建立健全国家创新体系。

形成强大国内市场是构建新发展格局的重要支撑,也是大国经济优势所在。加快培育完整内需体系,有利于化解外部冲击和外需下降带来的影响,也有利于在极端情况下保证我国经济基本正常运行和社会大局总体稳定。要把实施扩大内需战略同深化供给侧结构性改革有机结合起来,着力提升供给体系对国内需求的适配性,使生产、分配、流通、消费各环节更多依托国内市场实现良性循环。

我们只有立足自身,把国内大循环畅通起来,把安全发展贯穿国家发展各领域和全过程,努力炼就百毒不侵、金刚不坏之身,才能任由国际风云变幻,始终充满朝气生存和发展下去,没有任何人能打倒我们、卡死我们。改革开放以来,我们遭遇过很多外部风险冲击,最终都能化险为夷,靠的就是办好自己的事、把发展立足点放在国内。

(40) 要科学认识国内大循环和国内国际双循环的关系。构建新发展格局是开放的国内国际双循环,不是封闭的国内单循环。我国经济已经深度融入世界经济,同全球很多国家的产业关联和相互依赖程度都比较高,内外需市场本身是相互依存、相互促进的。构建新发展格局,实行高水平对外开放,必须具备强大的国内经济循环体系和稳固的基本盘,并以此形成对全球要素资源的强大吸引力、在激烈国际竞争中的强大竞争力、在全球资源配置中的强大推动力。要重视以国际循环提升国内大循环效率和水平,改善我国生产要素质量和配置水平。要通过参与国际市场竞争,增强我国出口产品和服务竞争力,推动我国产业转型升级。

现在国际上保护主义思潮上升,但我们要站在历史正确的一边,以开放、合作、共赢胸怀谋划发展,坚定不移推动经济全球化朝着开放、包容、普惠、平衡、共赢的方向发展,推动建设开放型世界经济。同时,要牢固树立安全发展理念,加快完善安全发展体制机制,补齐相关短板,维护产业链、供应链安全,积极做好防范化解重大风险工作。

 

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