China News Agency, Beijing, July 4th, Question: How to realize Chinese-style modernization to "come from behind"?
——Interview with Jia Kang, Founding Dean of Huaxia New Supply Economics Research Institute
China News Agency reporter Wang Enbo
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, China continued to explore the path of modernization. After the reform and opening up, it created the "China Miracle" of rapid economic development and long-term social stability.
This kind of Chinese-style modernization has expanded the way for developing countries to modernize, and its innovations and challenges have also attracted attention.
What are the key indicators of modernization?
Compared with the pioneering Western countries, does China still have an advantage in modernizing it?
Can this path allow China to "come from behind"?
China News Agency "Dongxiwen" recently interviewed Jia Kang, the founding director of the Huaxia Institute of New Supply Economics and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: You mentioned in your latest book "The True Proposition of China's Reform: Towards High-quality Development" that "modernization" on the international stage is a never-ending dynamic process. How to measure the current process of modernization in China? What are the key metrics?
Jia Kang:
Modernization is a concept with the meaning of horizontal comparison between countries, and it is also a process of continuous dynamic evolution.
The realization of modernization means that it has come to the forefront in the trend of human civilization progress.
After the Industrial Revolution, China was clearly lagging behind, and it is catching up fast, and is still in the stage of climbing over the hurdle.
The central government's latest timetable design for the realization of modernization is a new "two-step process": the first stage, from 2020 to 2035, on the basis of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, and then striving for another 15 years to basically realize socialist modernization; In the second stage, from 2035 to the middle of this century, on the basis of basically realizing modernization, we will work hard for another 15 years to build a powerful modern socialist country.
At present, no systematic quantitative indicators of modernization have reached a consensus in the academic circle. Researchers mostly measure the level of modernization with basic horizontally comparable indicators such as comprehensive national strength, scientific and technological innovation capability, and manufacturing level.
The World Bank proposes a measure of limited significance, the per capita national income.
China's per capita national income has been catching up from around the 190th place in the world at the beginning of the reform and opening up to around the 70th place.
Not surprisingly, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China should be able to overcome the "middle-income trap" and reach the current high-income country standards by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
This is an important indicator that accompanies the first step in the "two-step".
On January 6, 2022, the Olympic version of the Fuxing intelligent EMU was launched on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jia Tianyong
China News Service reporter: You also mentioned in your work that catching up and surpassing are the inevitable demands and characteristics of the modernization process of late-developing countries. How can China reasonably implement the catch-up strategy while following the objective laws of the economy?
Jia Kang:
The reason why we emphasize the catch-up-catch-up strategy is that conventional development cannot solve the problem of China's modernization.
In the past two or three hundred years, China's development has lagged far behind the world. On the one hand, it needs to follow the principle of comparative advantage in economic growth and the objective law of progressive development. The modernization catches up with the strategic goal.
This extraordinary development has been reflected in previous years.
Through reform and opening up, China has liberated productive forces and achieved economic take-off. In the first 30 years, China has achieved high-speed double-digit annual growth.
Although the economic growth rate has slowed down after 2010, it is still necessary to pursue medium and high-speed growth, and pay more attention to high-quality development.
This high-quality mid-to-high growth rate is still more than double that of advanced economies.
If we can maintain high-quality sustainable development in a state of medium and high-speed growth, the gap between China and developed economies such as the United States, Europe, and Japan will gradually narrow, and gradually achieve the goal of modernization to raise the per capita national income to the level of the world's high-income economies. medium level.
At that time, China's comprehensive national strength should be among the best in the world.
In this process, it is necessary to further explore how to enrich the understanding and deepen the measurement of modernization, especially "soft power".
Some studies believe that modernization requires more consideration of "modernity".
In the process of forming the main measurement indicators, some commonalities deserve special attention.
The central government put forward the core values of socialism, and gave the value orientation from the three levels of individual (family), country and society. This has a logical connection with the modernity of the development of human civilization, and can be further refined to form indicators.
Another example is economic development, comprehensive national strength, scientific and technological innovation capabilities, competitiveness of manufacturing, social inclusive development, characteristics and measurement indicators of modern national governance, etc.
In April 2021, the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope "China Sky Eye" (FAST), located in Dawodang, Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, was opened to the world.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Qu Honglun
China News Service reporter: Compared with the first-mover Western countries, how does China's late-mover advantage in its modernization process manifest itself?
Jia Kang:
First of all, technically.
For example, the world has entered the era of information revolution, and other economies have developed into the era of central processor "586".
In this field where the principle of comparative advantage can work, China does not need to start from the "286" era, it can communicate with each other and directly promote the application of information technology from a higher level.
However, this latecomer advantage also has a ceiling. For example, the current Sino-US relationship has changed, and the US has imposed a technological blockade on China such as high-end chips, which has become a practical constraint.
Therefore, in the field where China's comparative advantage has hit the ceiling, it is surprisingly necessary to keep upright under the guidance of the catch-up strategy.
For example, the problem of high-end chips must be solved by the new national system under the socialist market economy.
The staff of Hefei High-tech Development Zone in Anhui Province conducts chip eutectic operations.
Photo by Xie Chen issued by China News Agency
From a broader perspective, China also needs to solve the possible "later disadvantage".
The "later-developing disadvantage" means that if a late-developing economy only learns and imitates technology, but fails to break through the bottleneck on the most difficult institutional issues, it will become a drag.
China has entered the deep-water zone of reform. As long as the reform will be hindered by vested interests, it is necessary to break through the barriers of solidified interests.
If the “strong man breaks his wrist” and makes good use of the “key move” to liberate productive forces through supply-side structural reform, and opens up space for technological innovation and management innovation through institutional innovation, the institutional “later disadvantage” can also be transformed.
The central government emphasizes that the main line of modernization is supply-side structural reform, which is what it means.
From a theoretical point of view, the reform must first solve the problem of effective institutional supply.
In terms of institutional structure, eliminating the shortcomings of the traditional system and carrying out transformation and optimization will help to promote the optimization of the overall supply system structure, thereby improving the quality and efficiency of supply.
China News Service reporter: In the history of the world economy, many major countries have been catching up with their original backwardness in their modernization. What is the difference between China's "come from behind" and the development path of Western countries?
Jia Kang:
From the perspective of commonality, China's modernization needs to engage in a market economy and accelerate the construction of a new development pattern of "dual circulation". It must not only connect the commonalities of world commercial civilization, but also consider China's individuality, that is, China's specific national conditions, resource endowments, and its own development. stage constraints and cultural traditions.
Therefore, the theory of summarizing and explaining China's modernization cannot simply be copied from Western textbooks and developed economies, but must be developed in China's innovative practice.
It is even more important to note that although China needs to absorb all the positive achievements of the development of human civilization, it does not have to wait for the innovation and development of the West.
Although there are different schools of economics in the world, it is common to focus on demand management and ignore supply management.
The theoretical innovation of new supply economics that we are committed to is to better establish the symmetry between demand management and supply management.
Moreover, it is necessary to pay special attention to how to clarify on the supply side the problem of the power source of China's development of maintaining integrity and innovation, that is, the optimal combination of factors on the supply side, under the assumption of imperfect competition theory.
Workers of a private enterprise in Lianyungang, Jiangsu produce children's down jackets for export to Middle Eastern countries.
Photo by Zhang Zhengyou issued by China News Agency
In terms of theoretical innovation, the academic circle already has the concept of "China School".
The "Chinese School" is the embodiment of individuality, but its basic principles are based on the commonalities of the development of human civilization. It pays more attention to China's practice based on China's practical problems that need to be solved urgently. In fact, it can also correspond to more developing economies. common problems in the world, and even in developed economies.
For example, supply management, the United States is also doing it at the practical level, but influential economists in the United States have been slow to raise its summary to the theoretical level.
Chinese scholars have taken the lead, summed up the cognitive framework of the new supply economics, focusing on the complementarity of supply management and demand management.
China News Service: Facing the future, how should China's modernization path be further improved? Towards high-quality development, what are the top priorities for reforming the revolution?
Jia Kang:
It will take a process to further enrich, develop, and upgrade on the "China Road", and move towards maturity and stability.
The most important thing now is to overcome difficulties.
From the market-oriented allocation of production factors proposed by the central government recently, to accelerating the construction of a unified national market, and to the previous "building a new development pattern with dual circulation as the main body", the central government has launched a series of documents around the reform, and clearly stated that " Reforms are allowed to have mistakes, but no reforms are not allowed.”
How to overcome difficulties and resolve various difficulties and obstacles in implementing this innovative development guideline is a historical test that China's modernization must accept.
For example, to build a unified national market, we must first create a high-standard and legalized business environment, and provide all market players with equal property rights protection in accordance with the law.
It is necessary to promote the full flow of factors, break the dual pattern of urban and rural division, eliminate fragmentation and regional barriers, connect with the international market, fully mobilize and give full play to the potential, vitality and creativity of market players and enable them to form long-term behaviors.
These important propositions of the underlying logic of the construction of a unified national market can never be understood as a unified command of corporate behavior.
It is difficult to solve these matters well, and it is necessary to gnaw hard bones in the supporting reforms.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Jia Kang, member of the 11th and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Former Dean, Researcher and Doctoral Supervisor of China Academy of Fiscal Sciences, Ministry of Finance, Dean of Huaxia New Supply Economics Research Institute.
Member of the National "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" Expert Committee, and a high-level academic leader of the National Hundred Thousand Talents Project.
Winner of Sun Yefang Economics Prize, Huang Dayi Mundell Economics Prize and China Soft Science Prize.
Wrote and published many books, such as "General Theory of Finance", "New Supply Economics", "China's Difficulties: How to Overcome the "Middle Income Trap") (2016 "China Good Book" Award), "Double Circulation New Development Pattern" (Won the 2021 "China Good Book" Award).