The twenty-first major report of the party indicates that high-quality development is a primary task for the full building of a socialist modernization State. The Secretary-General for Near-Population, in the course of his twenty-stage seminar on the follow-up to the party, re-emphasized the overall deepening of the opening of reforms, the promotion of high-quality development, the further orientation of business leaders to build confidence, stabilize social expectations and work towards the overall improvement of economic performance. Development is the key to resolving all problems, with high-quality development, which is the first engine of innovation, the intrinsic characteristics of coordination, the greening of universal patterns, the essential path of openness, the sharing of development for fundamental purposes, the ability to fully meet the requirements of the Chinese-style modernization for the common prosperity of all people, the harmony of human beings and nature, the reconciliation of physical civilization and spiritual civilization, and the strengthening of Chinese-style modernization.

High-quality development is the basis for Chinese-style modernization. The core of high-quality development lies in high-quality economic development, driving the engine of economic growth from factor-driven to innovation-driven, building modern industrial systems and fostering new economic growth points. Over the past 10 years, our country has been implementing a new development concept, building new development patterns and growing economic aggregates, increasing the share of the global economy from 11.4 per cent in 2012 to more than 18 per cent. In 2022, our economy in total surpassed 1.2 billion yuan renminbi, with a new ladder; and in general, the contribution of our economy to world economic growth has remained at about 30 per cent, becoming the main source and stabilizing instrument of world economic growth. This is not only the case, but the industrial structure of the country has been increasingly optimized as new business models have flourished. According to NSO data, production in 2022 in the areas of new energy vehicles, mobile communications base station equipment, industrial control computers and systems grew by 97.5 per cent, 16.3 per cent and 15.0 per cent, respectively, in order to give new impetus to economic growth.

Quality development brings together the forces of Chinese modernization. Chinese-style modernization has always been people-centred, people-centred, people-centred and development-oriented. China-style modernization is a rich modernization of all people, and the people’s aspirations for a better life are the starting point and the footprint of Chinese-style modernization. In contrast to traditional development paths, high-quality development is more balanced, coordinated and shared, in line with the essence of Chinese-style modernization. On the one hand, sustained economic growth, based on high-quality development, provides favourable conditions for “eggs” and, on the other hand, high-quality development as a means of optimizing the system and providing strong guarantees for “severe eggs”. Over the past 10 years, our inhabitants have achieved a cumulative real growth of 78 per cent of their disposable income and a continuing decline in the relative income gap between urban and rural populations. According to the Common Wealthy Blue Book: China’s Common Wealth Study (2022), in 2013-2020, our Common Wealth Index grew from 24.67 to 44.23, increasing by 79.3 per cent, especially in the seven secondary indices of economic development, social structure, income and property of the population.

Quality development expands the Chinese-style modernization path. Chinese-style modernization is the modernization of material civilization and spiritual civilization, which is a life of harmony between human beings and nature. High-quality development not only focuses on economic growth, but also on areas such as environmental protection, human security and social construction, which provide an alternative path to China-style modernization. On the one hand, high-quality development, with innovation as the first driving force, promotes economic development as soon as possible into innovative development-driven models, with higher scientific and technological content, greater value and less environmental pollution, and promotes economic development in environmental protection and the achievement of both. On the other hand, high-quality development fully mobilizes enterprise as a social development entity, providing high-quality jobs and raising the income level of the population. Moreover, enterprises, as market agents, provide social service guarantees, cultural and recreational products, etc. to enrich the spiritual world of the population. Over the past 10 years, we have built the world’s largest education system, the social security system, the health system and the entire life of the people.

Of course, in high-quality development, my country still has problems such as weak scientific and technological innovation, poor modern industrial structures and inadequate regional development imbalances, and the key to overcoming these problems remains high-quality development, both quantitative and qualitative. The Chinese-style modernization path can be achieved only if high-quality development is advanced in depth. In this process, there is a greater need for integration, adherence to the centrality of innovation in the context of modern construction, the full transition of economic development to innovative development models, and the shaping of new growth poles for the future; a comprehensive deepening of reforms to focus on optimizing the business environment, particularly through digitization reforms to drive systemic changes that stimulate the inner dynamics of economic growth; the creation of modern rural systems, the acceleration of new, people-centred urbanization, the promotion of coordinated development between urban and rural areas and between regions; and a high level of external openness, accelerated construction of large domestic markets, and the expansion of intra- and supply-sided structural reforms that create new drivers of economic growth.