How can Shanghai elevate its urban functions from "existence" to "strength"?, Faced with unprecedented changes in a century | Reform and Opening up | Changes
On July 4, 2013, the headline on the front page of Liberation Daily was eye-catching: The overall plan for China's pilot free trade zone was approved, becoming another landmark event of reform and opening up.
This may be a coincidence -10 years later, on July 4, 2023, the third Plenary session of the 12th Municipal CPC Committee was held to examine and approve the "opinions of the Shanghai Municipal CPC Committee on thoroughly studying and implementing Xi Jinping's thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New era, deepening High-level Reform and opening up, and promoting High-quality Development." closely revolving around the "four major functions", it defines the development goal and direction of high-level reform and opening up in the next three years.
This is even more inevitable - no matter how the environment changes, our determination to promote high-level reform and opening up has never changed, and our determination to promote high-quality development has never changed. "This is a mobilization order to hold high the banner and forge ahead, a declaration to remember the mission and bravely shoulder heavy responsibilities, and a construction drawing with clear tasks and specific measures." Members of the Municipal Party Committee, alternate members, and attending comrades have expressed their commitment to using practical actions and persistently transforming "construction drawings" into "real-life scenes" with high quality.
Strengthen responsibility, find the right coordinates, and bravely lead the way
At present, the world's unprecedented great changes are accelerating, and China has embarked on a new journey of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country. The Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China has drawn a grand blueprint for comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese path to modernization, made it clear that high-quality development is the primary task of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, and made new arrangements for deepening high-level reform and opening up.
From the development and opening up of Pudong, to the construction of the country's first pilot free trade zone, and then to the promotion of three new major tasks, Shanghai has always been the forefront of China's reform and opening up in the past few decades. With the tremendous changes in the world economic situation and China's economic development pattern, the connotations of being the vanguard of reform and opening up and the pioneer of innovative development are also constantly being updated. The members of the Municipal Party Committee stated that in the face of the current new situation, Shanghai faces more unique challenges and undertakes a more unique mission. However, what remains unchanged is that it must remain steadfast in eating the rice of reform, following the path of opening up, and playing the card of innovation.
"Looking at the world, today's world has formed a global resource allocation network composed of major countries and central cities. The position of high-quality development in Shanghai depends on its node position," said Gao Yun, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Huangpu District Party Committee.
Hangzhou Yingwei, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and the Mayor of Pudong New Area, stated that Pudong, which has been entrusted with the new mission of building a leading area for socialist modernization construction, should play a central role in the global market system, innovation ecology, and consumption network, and create a functional highland for global resources; At the same time, a unique strategic channel is formed in terms of rules, elements, industries, etc., further enhancing international cooperation and competitiveness.
Embarking on a new journey, modernization construction has put forward higher requirements for deepening reform and opening up. The plenary session emphasized that only by continuously enhancing the "four major functions" can Shanghai find the main direction for deepening the construction of the "five centers", concentrate on overcoming difficulties, enhance the overall, collaborative, and creative nature of reform and opening up, and drive the comprehensive upgrading of the "five centers". Only by deepening high-level reform and opening up, and carrying out greater policy and institutional innovation, can the "four major functions" continuously achieve breakthroughs and leaps.
How to be a pioneer in high-level reform and opening up? In the view of the committee members, it is important for Shanghai's development goals to always anchor the world's highest standards and the best level, have a higher vision, and always have a "great country" in mind, strengthen benchmarking, and always think and act in the overall situation.
Gu Jun, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, stated that Shanghai is benchmarking against international first-class standards and is making every effort to develop and promote an action plan to benchmark against the World Bank's new evaluation system for business environment. Through practice, efforts are being made to grasp the underlying logic of the evolution of international economic and trade rules, enhance the overall ability to participate in international rule construction, and better represent the country in international cooperation and competition.
Deepening high-level reform and opening up, promoting high-quality development, is also an inevitable choice for Shanghai's development at this stage. At present, the urban functions of Shanghai are in a critical stage of breaking through from "existence" to "strength", and the increasing demand for functional enhancement requires more qualitative improvement. Cheng Xiangmin, member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Songjiang District Party Committee, pointed out that in order to seize opportunities and cultivate new ones, Shanghai needs to adhere to open innovation in areas such as science and technology innovation ecology and power formation mechanism, and enhance global competitiveness. "In the critical stage, if we do not advance, we will retreat. If we do not stabilize the industrial chain and do not gather innovation power, we will face systemic risks in the later stage.".
Face the challenges head-on and solve key problems with a systematic approach
Currently, Shanghai's economy has reached the level of 4 trillion yuan for two consecutive years, but there is still a considerable gap between the mission and tasks entrusted by the country and the world's advanced level. During the discussion, a committee member sighed, "Upon receiving the 'Opinions', it was all a problem. Upon closer inspection, a period represents a reform measure and a solution."
Facing problems directly is to truly solve them. Today, Shanghai is already a mega city, an extremely complex giant system that moves the whole body. In the view of the Municipal Party Committee members, this requires us to grasp the development logic and practical logic behind the primary task, adhere to system integration, and promote overall planning.
"The opinions reflect strong systematic thinking in all aspects, for example, they do not stay at the level of discussing innovation, but effectively connect the macro and micro dimensions of reform measures." Chen Jie, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Baoshan District Party Committee, said that some of the measures proposed in the opinions are very specific, such as the requirements for the construction of warehouses for storing hazardous chemicals. Although it may seem inconspicuous, in the eyes of industry insiders, it is a key move that directly points to the key. "There are many similar measures that cannot be ignored in promoting technological innovation and leading high-end industries."
Faced with the shortcomings in Shanghai's technological innovation, the Opinion has put forward multiple targeted measures from a global perspective, which has left a deep impression on Mei Bing, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University. She said that current universities also need to undergo transformation and development, face their shortcomings, take hard measures, adjust their professional disciplines and talent training models, and promote the construction of an education powerhouse.
He Qing, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Chairman of Guotai Junan Securities, proposed that Shanghai should strive to achieve coordinated linkage and mutual promotion of the construction of a global science and technology innovation center and an international financial center. "Compared to the well-known Silicon Valley, I think the one with more learning and reference significance is Silicon Alley in New York." He said that Shanghai can learn from how New York leverages resources to gather dividends, allowing traditional financial institutions and traditional financial centers to leverage platform integration advantages, and overall promote the development of technology and industry.
The plenary session also emphasized the need to organically unify the logic of technology, market, and governance, and take daring to take risks and try as the most important mission and responsibility to deepen high-level reform and opening up on the new journey, forming a systematic and systematic plan design. The decisive role of the market in resource allocation and the better role of the government are also the essence of "synergy".
Yan Shuang, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Secretary General of the Municipal Party Committee, said that practice has proven that innovation mainly comes from market-oriented enterprises, and we should fully trust the power of market entities. "Shanghai should provide equal support for the development of various types of ownership enterprises, so that private enterprises can also take the forefront of reform, innovation and development, and foreign enterprises can have more confidence in investing in China."
Some members also expressed that the government should promote effective markets with a proactive approach. By guiding market entities through rules, policies, and services, and shaping industrial directions, the government should increase investment in areas such as high-risk, uncertain returns, and insufficient social capital investment in basic research, so that good projects and enterprises do not lack funds. Liu Xiangmin, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Director of the Municipal Audit Bureau, suggested that Shanghai should make good use of the country's legislative authorization, amplify the comprehensive effect of national strategy superposition, and introduce more good policies within its jurisdiction, using policy dividends to activate enterprise vitality.
Strengthen implementation and turn "construction drawings" into "real-life paintings"
Focusing on system integration is not only a conceptual approach in planning and layout, but also an important guideline in implementation. It is unanimously agreed that the most important task at present is to take action and implement it vigorously, ensuring that the various tasks proposed at this plenary session take root and transform construction drawings into real-life drawings. In the process of promoting implementation, it is necessary to change the previous situation of "nine dragon water control" and "single soldier breakthrough", establish a coordinated promotion mechanism, strengthen collaborative cooperation, and focus on grasping key points, overcoming difficulties, and overcoming obstacles in the same direction.
At the same time, the Opinion provides detailed "construction drawings" and schedules, and also requires each region and department to decompose tasks item by item, tighten and compact responsibilities, actively benchmark and benchmark tables, and quickly come up with more detailed, specific and actionable execution plans.
Wu Jincheng, member of the Municipal Party Committee and Director of the Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said that in leading the high-end industry, Shanghai should represent the country in international competition and cooperation. In the three leading industries of integrated circuits, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence, as well as the five future industries, Shanghai should accelerate the construction of world-class industrial clusters. We should focus on leveraging the innovative role of industries, addressing shortcomings in key technologies, materials, and processes, enhancing the resilience of industrial and supply chains, and continuously improving the modernization level of industries.
Li Ruxin, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai University of Science and Technology, gave an example of basic research. The establishment of basic research funds through corporate donations is a new model that not only brings funds but also changes in production relations, helping to establish a fast link channel from basic research to applied research and then to industrialization. In the future, we need to more effectively combine market and government forces to solve innovation challenges, while further increasing the openness of scientific research platforms to enterprises and improving service levels.
Maintaining strategic composure is particularly important on the road to overcoming difficulties. Liu Jian, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Jinshan District Party Committee, stated that "transformation and development is not a single dimensional project, but a comprehensive system engineering. It cannot be achieved overnight, nor can it be neglected due to temporary difficulties. It is necessary to maintain composure, coordinated development, and long-term achievements.".
Chen Yujian, member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Minhang District Party Committee, said that we need to promote the higher-level and high-quality development of the Hongqiao Business District, increase efforts to open up domestically and externally, and create a higher quality international trade platform and a better international business district. Xu Jian, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Qingpu District Party Committee, said that we should carefully study the breakthroughs in deepening high-level reform and opening up and high-quality development, and make good use of the carriers of the China International Import Expo, the Hongqiao Open Hub, and the Yangtze River Delta Integration Demonstration Zone to empower high-quality economic development, high-quality living for the people, and efficient urban governance.
A new round of high-level reform and opening up has put forward a series of innovative, leading, and pioneering measures. The committee members believe that in order to effectively implement these major measures, it is necessary to always maintain the courage to innovate, the courage to take the lead, and the vigorous and upward momentum.
"Climbing Mount Everest from the south slope is easier than from the north slope, but when faced with difficulties in basic research, we need to be the one who dares to climb from the north slope." Qiu Xin, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Party Committee of Fudan University, said that we should play the role of the main force of high-level university basic research, dare to tackle tough challenges, dare to venture into dangerous beaches, actively lead the construction of an innovation community, build new research and development institutions, promote discipline adjustment and scientific research organizational paradigm reform.
"To be a good vanguard and pioneer, one must be ahead and proactive, adept at exploring and innovating, opening up new opportunities, and daring to tackle tough challenges," said Ma Lesheng, a member of the Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection.
