The Security Implications of New Quality Productive Forces

Security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security. Coordinating development and security is an important component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and a major strategic principle of our Party’s governance. New quality productive forces run through the dual dimensions of development and security: developing new quality productive forces is the intrinsic requirement and key focus for promoting high-quality development; security is an inherent attribute of new quality productive forces, rooted in the material, social, and technological determinations of productive forces, and generated internally from their technical characteristics and organizational forms. In this sense, the process of developing new quality productive forces is also a process of continuously generating security capabilities.

安全是发展的前提，发展是安全的保障。统筹发展和安全，是习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的重要内容，是我们党治国理政的一条重大战略原则。新质生产力贯通发展和安全双重维度：发展新质生产力是推动高质量发展的内在要求和重要着力点；安全是新质生产力的内在属性，根植于生产力的物质性、社会性、技术性等内在规定，内生于其技术特征与组织方式之中。在此意义上，新质生产力的发展过程，也是安全能力持续生成的过程。

1 New Quality Productive Forces Inherently Contain Security Attributes

1 新质生产力内在蕴含安全属性

Marxism holds that productive forces are the actual productive capacity formed by the combination of laborers and means of production, and their inherent attributes are always concretely unfolded under specific historical conditions. New quality productive forces are characterized by innovation, key in high quality, and essentially advanced productive forces, with distinctive features of high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. High technology, high efficiency, and high quality are not only clear markers of the level of development but also contain deep-seated stipulations of the security dimension. High technology points to the frontier nature of technology; independently mastering frontier technology is the core marker of security capability. High efficiency reflects a leap in the efficiency of resource utilization; structurally reducing dependence on external resources is a key path to building security advantages. High quality signifies a fundamental transformation in the mode of development, capable of resolving at the source the security risks accumulated by extensive development. Only by adhering to promoting quality through the new and shaping security through quality can we drive the intrinsic unity of development and security within the advanced form of productive forces.

马克思主义认为，生产力是劳动者与生产资料相结合形成的实际生产能力，其内在属性始终是在特定历史条件下具体展开的。新质生产力的特点是创新，关键在质优，本质是先进生产力，具有高科技、高效能、高质量的鲜明特征。高科技、高效能、高质量，不仅是发展水平的鲜明标识，更内含着安全维度的深层规定。高科技指向技术的前沿性，自主掌握前沿技术是安全能力的核心标志；高效能体现资源利用效率的跃升，从结构上降低对外部资源的依赖是构筑安全优势的关键路径；高质量意味着发展方式的根本转变，能够从源头上化解粗放发展积累的安全风险。坚持以“新”促“质”、以“质”塑“安”，方能推动发展与安全在先进生产力形态中实现内在统一。

Scientific and technological innovation is the core engine for developing new quality productive forces and the core source for the iterative upgrading of national security capabilities. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Core technologies in key fields cannot be obtained by asking, buying, or begging for them.” New quality productive forces “are spawned by revolutionary breakthroughs in technology, innovative allocation of production factors, and deep industrial transformation and upgrading.” Every leap in the process of technological breakthroughs, factor allocation, and industrial upgrading lays a solid foundation for the generation of security capabilities. The cultivation and enhancement of security capabilities resonate and advance in the same direction as the qualitative leap in the form of productive forces, following the dialectical laws of the development of productive forces, and are the inevitable requirement and internal logic of developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions. The cultivation and growth of new quality productive forces will inevitably be accompanied by a systematic improvement in the national security system and security capabilities. Accelerating the development of new quality productive forces centers on concentrating advantageous forces to carry out original and leading scientific and technological research, resolutely winning the battle for core technologies in key fields, and firmly grasping the initiative in technological development, industrial upgrading, and economic operation. The depth, breadth, and precision of scientific and technological innovation directly determine the level of independent control over core technologies, thereby consolidating the security foundation of national development. The more solid the independent innovation and the more stable the technological advantages, the more solid the foundation of national economic security, technological security, and industrial security.

科技创新是发展新质生产力的核心引擎，也是国家安全能力迭代升级的核心源泉。习近平总书记指出：“关键核心技术是要不来、买不来、讨不来的。”新质生产力“由技术革命性突破、生产要素创新性配置、产业深度转型升级而催生”。技术突破、要素配置、产业升级进程中的每一次跃升，都为安全能力的生成夯实根基。安全能力的培育、提升与生产力质态跃升同频共振、同向同行，遵循生产力发展的辩证规律，是因地制宜发展新质生产力的必然要求与内在逻辑。新质生产力的培育壮大，必然伴随着国家安全体系与安全能力的系统性提升。加快发展新质生产力，核心在于集聚优势力量开展原创性、引领性科技攻关，坚决打赢关键核心技术攻坚战，牢牢把握科技发展、产业升级、经济运行的主动权。科技创新的深度、广度、精度，直接决定核心技术自主可控水平，进而筑牢国家发展的安全根基。自主创新越扎实、技术优势越稳固，国家经济安全、科技安全、产业安全的基础就越牢靠。

At the level of industrial organization, laying out the industrial chain around the development of new quality productive forces must take independent controllability and security and reliability as its goals. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed: “We should lay out the industrial chain around the development of new quality productive forces, promote the supplementation of weak links in the industrial chain, the extension of advantageous industrial chains, the upgrading of traditional industrial chains, and the establishment of emerging industrial chains, enhance the resilience and security level of the industrial chain and supply chain, and ensure that the industrial system is independently controllable, safe, and reliable.” “Supplementing the chain” focuses on making up for shortcomings and eliminating security vulnerabilities; “extending the chain” highlights expanding advantages and enhancing security redundancy; “upgrading the chain” aims at transforming and upgrading traditional industries and raising the level of security development; “establishing the chain” aims at laying out emerging fields and seizing the commanding heights of security development. Only by promoting the coordinated发力 of the “four chains” can we systematically enhance the security resilience of the industrial chain.

在产业组织层面，围绕发展新质生产力布局产业链，必须把自主可控、安全可靠作为目标。习近平总书记提出：“要围绕发展新质生产力布局产业链，推动短板产业补链、优势产业延链、传统产业升链、新兴产业建链，提升产业链供应链韧性和安全水平，保证产业体系自主可控、安全可靠。”“补链”重在补齐短板，消除安全脆弱性；“延链”突出拓展优势，增强安全冗余度；“升链”着眼改造提升传统产业，提升安全发展能级；“建链”旨在布局新兴领域，抢占安全发展制高点。只有推动“四链”协同发力，才能系统提升产业链安全韧性水平。

2 New Quality Productive Forces Fundamentally Resolve the Traditional Tension between Development and Security

2 新质生产力从根本上化解发展与安全的传统张力

Productive forces are the most fundamental and revolutionary factor driving social development. Their revolutionary nature stems from the contradictory movement between old and new elements within the productive forces. This contradictory movement continuously breaks through the boundaries of existing modes of production, driving productive forces from lower to higher levels, from quantitative to qualitative change. Traditional productive forces are characterized by resource-dependent driving, dependence on core technologies, and extensive scale expansion, and their internal structure contains a deep tension between development and security. New quality productive forces, in the overall leap of productive forces, break through the above structural limitations, driving development and security from confrontation to synergy, and opening up a new path for their coordinated coexistence.

生产力是推动社会发展最根本、最革命的因素，其革命性源于生产力内部新旧要素之间的矛盾运动，这种矛盾运动不断突破既有生产方式的界限，推动生产力从低级向高级、从量变到质变演进。传统生产力具有资源依赖驱动、核心技术依附、粗放规模扩张的特点，其内在结构存在发展与安全的深层张力。新质生产力则在生产力的整体跃升中突破了上述结构性局限，推动发展与安全从对抗走向协同，开辟了二者协调共生的崭新路径。

Breaking the security vulnerability caused by resource-dependent development. Under the traditional growth model, economic development comes at the cost of excessive resource consumption, the rigid constraints of resources and the environment continue to tighten, and sustainability faces severe challenges. New quality productive forces, with a significant increase in total factor productivity as their core marker, rely on scientific and technological innovation to drive the innovative allocation of production factors, fundamentally reversing the resource-driven extensive development path. This fundamental change effectively solves the problem of resource and environmental constraints, resolves at the source various security risks caused by resource shortages and ecological degradation, and achieves a two-way gain of improving development quality and consolidating security foundations.

破除资源依赖型发展导致的安全脆弱性。传统增长模式下，经济发展以过度消耗资源为代价，资源环境刚性约束持续收紧，可持续性面临严峻挑战。新质生产力以全要素生产率大幅提升为核心标志，依靠科技创新驱动生产要素创新性配置，从根本上扭转了资源驱动的粗放发展路径。这一根本性变革，有效破解了资源环境约束难题，从源头化解了资源短缺、生态退化所引发的各类安全风险，实现了发展提质、安全固本的双向增益。

Solving the security subordination caused by technology-dependent development. Historical experience shows that even if late-developing countries successfully introduce external advanced productive forces, if there are limitations in the relations of production, it is difficult to fully release their development potential. If core technologies in key fields are controlled by others, “it is like building a house on someone else’s foundation; no matter how big or beautiful it is, it may not withstand wind and rain.” Developing new quality productive forces focuses on bottlenecks in key fields, continuously increasing the intensity of original and leading scientific and technological research, providing solid scientific and technological support for the independent, secure, and controllable nature of important industrial and supply chains.

破解技术依附型发展导致的安全受制于人。历史经验表明，后发国家即便成功引入外部先进生产力要素，若生产关系存在局限性，也难以充分释放其发展潜力。如果关键领域核心技术受制于人，“就好比在别人的墙基上砌房子，再大再漂亮也可能经不起风雨”。发展新质生产力，聚焦关键领域瓶颈制约，持续加大原创性引领性科技攻关力度，为重要产业链供应链的自主安全可控提供坚实科技支撑。

Preventing the accumulation of systemic risks caused by scale-expansion development. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that developing new quality productive forces “must proceed from reality, establish the new before abolishing the old, adapt to local conditions, and provide classified guidance.” New quality productive forces transcend the old path of scale expansion and achieve a fundamental transformation in the mode of development. This transformation drives development no longer at the cost of accumulating systemic risks, but achieves the coordinated advancement of development and security under the guidance of quality priority. By “first establishing” a new development model driven by innovation and independent control, and “then abolishing” the traditional path dependence of extensive expansion and risk accumulation, in the dialectical unity of “establishing” and “abolishing,” the overall coordination of improving development quality and efficiency with preventing and controlling security risks is achieved.

防范规模扩张型发展导致的系统性风险累积。习近平总书记强调，发展新质生产力“要坚持从实际出发，先立后破、因地制宜、分类指导”。新质生产力超越了规模扩张的旧有路径，实现了发展方式的根本性转变。这一转变推动发展不再以累积系统性风险为代价，而是在质量优先导向中实现发展与安全的协同共进。通过“先立”创新驱动、自主可控的新型发展模式，“后破”粗放扩张、风险累积的传统路径依赖，在“立”与“破”的辩证统一中，实现发展提质增效与安全风险防控的统筹协同。

3 New Quality Productive Forces Demonstrate Security Effectiveness in the Practice of Chinese-Path Modernization

3 新质生产力在中国式现代化实践中彰显安全效能

Currently, the world is undergoing changes unseen in a century, accelerating in intensity. Anti-globalization sentiments continue to rise, unilateralism and protectionism are markedly increasing, and the external security risks facing our country are continuously accumulating. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan [n1] has made comprehensive arrangements for “accelerating high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and leading the development of new quality productive forces.” This is a key measure to actively shape a secure development environment by relying on the development of new quality productive forces, promoting a fundamental leap in the concept of coordinating development and security from “security as a constraint” to “security as an enabler.” The multiple security effects released by new quality productive forces in the practice of Chinese-path modernization are a concentrated manifestation of this governance leap.

当前，世界百年未有之大变局加速演进，逆全球化思潮持续抬头，单边主义、保护主义明显上升，我国面临的外部安全风险不断累积。“十五五”规划纲要对“加快高水平科技自立自强、引领发展新质生产力”作出全面部署，这是依托发展新质生产力主动塑造安全发展环境的关键举措，促进统筹发展和安全的理念实现从“安全约束”向“安全赋能”的根本性跃升。新质生产力在中国式现代化实践中释放的多元安全效能，正是这一治理跃升的集中体现。

Consolidating the foundation of secure development with high-level scientific and technological self-reliance. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “Scientific and technological self-reliance is the foundation of national strength and the key to security.” New quality productive forces take original and leading scientific and technological research as their core driving force. One specific path for developing new quality productive forces is to promote the whole-chain research on core technologies in key fields such as integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, basic software, and advanced materials. This process of independent innovation is also a process of generating the national capacity to withstand shocks and prevent risks, promoting the mutual integration, two-way empowerment, and integrated improvement of independent innovation and secure controllability in the iterative upgrading of productive forces.

以高水平科技自立自强筑牢安全发展根基。习近平总书记指出，“科技自立自强是国家强盛之基、安全之要”。新质生产力以原创性引领性科技攻关为核心驱动力，发展新质生产力的一条具体路径，就是全链条推进集成电路、工业母机、高端仪器、基础软件、先进材料等重点领域关键核心技术攻关。这一自主创新发展过程，同时也是国家抗冲击、防风险安全能力的生成过程，推动自主创新与安全可控在生产力迭代升级中相互贯通、双向赋能、一体提升。

Enhancing national security resilience through the autonomous and controllable industrial chain. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed, “Safeguard economic security, especially food security, energy security, and the security of the industrial and supply chains,” and “strive to enhance the resilience and safety level of the industrial and supply chains.” Promoting the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation is the basic path for developing new quality productive forces. At present, the global industrial and supply chains are undergoing accelerated restructuring. Some countries, by generalizing the concept of national security, engage in “building walls and erecting barriers” and “decoupling and severing supply chains,” posing real challenges to the security of China’s industrial chain. Developing new quality productive forces, driven by the deep transformation and upgrading of industries, pushes the industrial chain to leap from low-end embedding to high-end leadership, from passive integration to autonomous deployment. The stronger the resilience of the industrial chain, the greater its ability to withstand external shocks, and the more solid the guarantee of secure development.

以产业链自主可控增强国家安全韧性。习近平总书记强调，“维护好经济安全特别是粮食安全、能源安全、产业链供应链安全”“着力提升产业链供应链韧性和安全水平”。推进科技创新和产业创新深度融合，是发展新质生产力的基本路径。当前，全球产业链供应链加速重构，部分国家泛化国家安全概念，搞“筑墙设垒”“脱钩断链”，给我国产业链安全带来现实挑战。发展新质生产力，以产业深度转型升级为牵引，推动产业链实现从低端嵌入向高端引领跃升、从被动接入向自主布局的转变，产业链韧性越强，抵御外部冲击的能力就越强，安全发展的保障就越牢固。

Building a solid security support through the two-way empowerment of development and security. Adhering to a new security architecture to safeguard the new pattern of development requires consolidating the foundation of security in the course of development, planning development within the overall context of security, promoting the deep integration of development and security, and transforming security from an external constraint on development into an internal driving force for development. New quality productive forces have the distinctive characteristics of efficient integration and two-way pull, possessing comprehensive advantages such as shared technological origins, co-rooted industries, and a common pool of talent. Scientific and technological innovation not only spawns new industries and new drivers of growth but also shapes new means of security; industrial upgrading not only enhances development efficiency but also strengthens the overall capacity to maintain and shape national security. This internal mechanism of two-way empowerment between development and security is the most concentrated manifestation of the security attributes of new quality productive forces in the practice of Chinese-path modernization.

以发展与安全双向赋能筑牢安全支撑。坚持以新安全格局保障新发展格局，需要做到在发展中巩固安全基础、在安全大局中谋划发展，推动发展与安全深度融合，促进安全从发展的外部约束转化为内在发展动力。新质生产力具有高效融合、双向拉动的鲜明特征，具备技术同源、产业同根、人才同池的综合优势。科技创新既催生新产业新动能，也塑造新的安全手段；产业升级既提升发展效能，也增强维护和塑造国家安全的整体实力。这种发展与安全双向赋能的内在机制，是新质生产力安全属性在中国式现代化实践中最为集中的体现。

Seizing the strategic initiative in security through the certainty of high-quality development. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, “China’s economy has strong resilience, ample potential, and broad room for maneuver.” Faced with the uncertainty of the external environment, new quality productive forces, driven by innovation, continuously raise the level of development, accumulate security potential through the sustained leap in development quality, and strengthen security guarantees by constantly expanding their own development strength, gradually shedding passive dependence on the external environment. The more prominent the new quality attributes of development, the more adequate the endogenous guarantee of security, thereby continuously enhancing China’s viability, competitiveness, development capacity, and sustainability, persistently expanding the development space for Chinese-path modernization, and injecting stability into world development through the certainty of China’s high-quality development.

以高质量发展的确定性掌握安全战略主动权。习近平总书记指出，“中国经济韧性强、潜力足、回旋余地广”。面对外部环境的不确定性，新质生产力以创新驱动持续提升发展能级，以发展质量的持续跃升积蓄安全势能，以自身发展实力的不断壮大强化安全保障，逐步摆脱对外部环境的被动依赖。发展的新质属性越突出，安全的内生保障就越充分，从而不断增强我国生存力、竞争力、发展力、持续力，持续拓展中国式现代化发展空间，以中国高质量发展的确定性为世界发展注入稳定性。

4 Consolidating the productive forces foundation of the new security architecture with new quality productive forces

4 以新质生产力夯实新安全格局的生产力根基

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: “We must pay greater attention to coordinating development and security, comprehensively consider internal and external risks and challenges, improve the national security system, enhance the capacity to maintain security, promote a positive interaction between high-quality development and high-level security through high-efficiency governance, and safeguard the new pattern of development with a new security architecture.” New quality productive forces integrate development and security throughout the entire process and in all fields of the leap in productive forces. They not only consolidate the material and technological foundation of high-level security through high-quality development but also expand the strategic space for high-quality development through high-level security, promoting a virtuous cycle and dynamic balance between the two in the iterative upgrading of productive forces, thereby building the most solid productive forces support for the new security architecture.

习近平总书记指出：“要更加注重统筹发展和安全，通盘考虑内外部风险挑战，健全国家安全体系，增强维护安全能力，以高效能治理促进高质量发展和高水平安全良性互动，以新安全格局保障新发展格局。”新质生产力将发展与安全贯通于生产力跃升的全过程、各领域，既以高质量发展筑牢高水平安全的物质技术根基，又以高水平安全拓展高质量发展的战略空间，推动二者在生产力迭代升级中形成良性循环、动态平衡，构筑起新安全格局最坚实的生产力支撑。

Consolidating the material and technological foundation of the new security architecture through the development of new quality productive forces. The materiality of productive forces determines that the foundation of security must ultimately be built on material things. Constructing a new security architecture must be premised on the development of advanced productive forces; its degree of stability depends on the level and quality of productive forces development. New quality productive forces, driven by innovation, reshape the material and technological conditions of national security, pushing the foundation of security to be built on the solid support of independent innovation capabilities. The more fully new quality productive forces develop, the thicker the material and technological foundation, and the firmer the foundation of the new security architecture. This foundation is endogenous to the entire process of developing new quality productive forces and is a concentrated manifestation of the deep synergy between development and security at the strategic level.

通过发展新质生产力夯实新安全格局的物质技术基础。生产力的物质性决定了安全的基础归根到底要建立在物质之上。构建新安全格局必须以发展先进生产力为前提，其稳固程度取决于生产力发展的水平与质态。新质生产力以创新驱动重塑国家安全的物质技术条件，推动安全根基建立在自主创新能力的坚实支撑之上。新质生产力发展越充分，物质技术基础就越厚实，新安全格局的根基就越牢固。这一基础内生于新质生产力发展全过程，是发展与安全深度协同在战略层面的集中体现。

New quality productive forces embed security into the entire process of development, achieving a positive interaction between development and security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, “If the foundation of security is not solid, the edifice of development will be shaken.” The key to achieving a positive interaction between development and security lies in consolidating the foundation of security with development quality and expanding development space with security capabilities. New quality productive forces, driven by innovation, raise the level of development, strengthening the material guarantee of security at the source; at the same time, the synchronous enhancement of security capabilities creates favorable conditions for development to break through external constraints and expand strategic depth. This two-way empowerment mechanism pushes development and security from static interdependence to dynamic mutual promotion, forming a virtuous cycle in the process of developing new quality productive forces.

新质生产力将安全内嵌于发展全过程，实现发展与安全良性互动。习近平总书记指出，“如果安全这个基础不牢，发展的大厦就会地动山摇”。实现发展与安全良性互动，关键在于以发展质量夯实安全基础、以安全能力拓展发展空间。新质生产力以创新驱动提升发展能级，从源头上强化安全的物质保障；同时，安全能力的同步提升又为发展破解外部约束、拓展战略纵深创造了有利条件。这一双向赋能机制，推动发展与安全从静态依存转向动态互促，在新质生产力的发展过程中形成良性循环。

Promoting the development of new quality productive forces and the construction of a new security architecture in a coordinated manner through a systematic approach. The development of new quality productive forces and the construction of a new security architecture cover various fields such as science and technology, industry, and talent, reflecting the dialectical unity of productive forces and relations of production. It is necessary to adhere to systematic planning and overall consideration. During the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan [n], the development of new quality productive forces must be placed in a more prominent strategic position, adhering to the guidance of scientific and technological innovation and the foundation of the real economy, advancing the development of education, science and technology, and talent as an integrated whole, and consolidating the fundamental and strategic support for the development of new quality productive forces. For areas vital to the national economy, strategic emerging fields, and international frontier areas, we must continuously strengthen the institutional design, policy supply, and legal guarantees for security, build a security support system covering all fields, promote a comprehensive improvement in the capacity to safeguard national economic security, and with a more solid security foundation, escort the steady and long-term progress of Chinese-path modernization.

以系统观念统筹推进新质生产力发展与新安全格局构建。新质生产力发展与新安全格局构建涵盖科技、产业、人才等各个领域，体现了生产力与生产关系的辩证统一，必须坚持系统谋划、统筹兼顾。“十五五”时期，必须把发展新质生产力摆在更加突出的战略位置，坚持以科技创新为引领、以实体经济为根基，一体推进教育科技人才发展，筑牢新质生产力发展的基础性、战略性支撑。针对国民经济命脉领域、战略性新兴领域、国际前沿领域，持续加强安全保障的制度设计、政策供给与法治保障，构建覆盖全领域的安全支撑体系，推动国家经济安全保障能力全面提升，以更为坚实的安全底座护航中国式现代化行稳致远。

(Author: Qi Guang, Distinguished Researcher of the Jiangsu Provincial Research Center for Xi

（作者：亓光，系江苏省习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心特约研究员，中国矿业大学党委宣传部部长、教授）