“New productive forces”: This is the new buzzword in Chinese politics, the new concept of party chief Xi Jinping that should push the Chinese economy to greater heights. The term is everywhere: in state media, in government documents, and in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where thousands of representatives are gathering this week for the People's Congress, the annual gathering of China's mock parliament.
This concept features prominently in Premier Li Qiang's inaugural report, as the first of the “ten major tasks” for 2024. The mission is to “seek the modernization of the industrial system and accelerate the development of new productive forces.” Xi Jinping will hold a meeting on this topic on the first day of the People's Congress. It was on the front page of all state media the next day.
It is clear that “new productive forces” constitute the absolute priority of Chinese policy. But what kind of forces are those? What does the new term mean? What should you do with him as a Chinese actor?
Red carpet
“As I understand it, it is about increasing productivity by stimulating development through technological innovation,” said Fang Xiaohong, a researcher at the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine and a representative to the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress. She is surrounded by filming Chinese journalists, to whom she has just told how important the new productive forces are.
Thousands of representatives were transported to the heavily guarded Tiananmen Square in large convoys of buses on Tuesday morning – the day of the opening session – from government hotels in the city. They walk the red carpet into the grand entrance of the Great Hall of the People. First the soldiers in their ornate uniforms, then the regulars in their black uniforms, and the ethnic minorities in colorful uniforms.
The NPC is one of the few places where foreign journalists can ask questions of Chinese officials. But not all actors feel that way. Some turn around and say they are in a hurry. One young woman says: “I have not studied this term enough, and my knowledge is insufficient.” “Baidu Another says: “Google it yourself,” which is the Chinese equivalent of: “Google it yourself.”
Other actors are on hand to explain. “It is technological innovation that drives development forward, in order to design the industry of the future,” said Chen Yiguang, professor of biology at Tsinghua University and delegate of Jiangxi Province. It also emphasizes the importance of this term. “I think this is really important for people across the country. Everyone knows what to do and knows the direction of our development.
As the representatives explained, the term seems to mean more or less the same thing as technological innovation. This has been the spearhead of Chinese policy for years, under slogans such as “Made in China 2025,” “Technological Self-Sufficiency,” and “High-Quality Development.”
“revolutionary”
But why all this interest in a term that does not mean anything new? “It's very important, it's a hot topic this year,” said Fan Jie, a journalist from a party newspaper in Shanghai, who is also present at the People's Congress. “We are all studying the meaning of this word, and interviewing actors about it.”
The importance of the new productive forces is fundamentally linked to their creator: Xi Jinping himself. This term was launched in September during an inspection visit to Heilongjiang Province. It is a variation on the Marxist concept of “productive forces”: workers, means of labor (machines and tools) and tools of labor (raw materials). Xi adds technology to this, saying in short that innovation must happen in all three areas simultaneously.
“New productive forces” according to Xi Jinping: “The new productive forces are characterized by innovation playing a leading role, breaking away from traditional economic growth methods and productivity development paths, and displaying the characteristics of high technology, high efficiency and high quality, in line with the advanced quality level of the new era. Development concept. They are produced through revolutionary technological breakthroughs, “Innovative allocation of production factors, profound transformation and upgrading of industries, based on the improvement and leapfrog of the combination of workers, working means and working tools, and a significant increase in total factor productivity. As a basic indicator.”
At first this term faded into the background, but two weeks before the People's Congress all kinds of analyzes by party theorists about this “great innovation of Marxist doctrine” suddenly appeared. Since then, all state media have been filled with articles about the term, filled with words like “pioneering,” “revolutionary,” and “advanced.” Chinese people who have to produce these types of texts in private conversations admit that they sometimes resort to ChatGPT-like software for this purpose.
This is not the first time that a mysterious term from Xi has taken over the entire Chinese administrative apparatus. Previously, the Chinese leader promoted concepts such as “dual circulation” and “shared prosperity” as guiding principles of Chinese policy. It was not at all clear what Xi meant by these terms, except that every official had to abide by them.
“They are pure word games,” said Chen Daoyin, a former professor of political science at the University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai. “It's a new package of what everyone was already doing. Under Deng Xiaoping (Leader of China from 1978 to 1989, ed.) The same proposals were for industrial modernization and new technology. But Xi cannot simply reuse old terminology. If he did that, he wouldn't be able to show his greatness.
The use of new terms and slogans is rooted in the Chinese Marxist-Leninist system. Xi Jinping was not elected, and must continue to legitimize the reasons he is the better leader. This can be done through power plays and repression, for example through anti-corruption campaigns and censorship. But it can also be done through a “story”, for example about how China can become a world technological leader, thanks to new productive forces.
“You can't really say what it is,” says Ness Grünberg, a political analyst at German think tank Merex. “But it tells us a lot about the absence of anything new in terms of policy, of language that economists can understand or that officials can use. These officials now have to find something on Beijing’s wish list, recast it in a foreign language with no concrete content, and try to get away with it.”
The new term is not without consequences. In a system where all officials are under great pressure to comply with the orders of a great leader, vague instructions can unleash enormous forces. This could lead to impressive results, such as the emergence of electric cars and green energy. But it can also turn into intolerance, as happened during the coronavirus eradication policy in 2022. It remains to be seen whether Xi's obsession with technology will work well for the Chinese economy.
The only brain in China
The problem is that the new conditions under Xi were strict orders that the entire country must obey. During the era of reform and opening-up under Deng Xiaoping and his successors, new words were also coined, but there was more room for interpretation between local governments and businesses. “Xi Jinping is now the only mastermind in all of China,” Chen says. “If he has an idea, everyone must follow it, otherwise they will violate his authority.”
The actors in the Great Hall of the People confirm that image. They say, without exception, that they are convinced of the great importance of the new productive forces, even if they do not really know what they mean. “It is about new innovative technology, which creates new types of production, such as digitalization and new future-oriented sectors,” says a delegate from Jiangsu enthusiastically. And also: “This affects all of us.”
But when asked how he would apply this term concretely, as it applies to everyone, he receives a sobering answer. “I don't work in this business,” he says. “I don't really understand it.”
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