How China drives high-quality development through technological innovation

According to the newly released "Nature Index 2025 Science Cities" supplement, Chinese cities now make up more than half of the world's top ten scientific research hubs for the first time. In particular, Beijing continues to lead as the top global science city – a position it has maintained since 2016.

Innovation in China today is no longer confined to a handful of major cities. Instead, it has entered a new stage marked by regional coordination, multi-level advancement, and nationwide impact.

Coordinated regional development

Instead of developing alone, Beijing has fully leveraged its role as a hub of technological innovation and strengthened coordination with Tianjin and Hebei, driving the continuous upgrading of innovation capacity across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, a regional city cluster known as "Jing-Jin-Ji."

The coordinated development of the Jing-Jin-Ji region, a national strategy put forward in February 2014, has led to a steady increase in technological innovation in the region.

Today, the region has seen the establishment of 14 innovation platforms and seven national advanced manufacturing clusters. In 2024, the region's combined GDP reached 11.5 trillion yuan (about $1.6 trillion).

At the Zhongguancun Science Park in Xiong'an New Area, 11 platform institutions from Beijing, covering science and technology, finance and industrial research, have been integrated into a one-stop service system, enabling enterprises to access high-quality innovation resources without leaving the area.

The Jing-Jin-Ji region is not an isolated case. Located around the mid-point of China's coastline, the Yangtze River Delta, encompassing the Shanghai Municipality and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, remains rooted in its profound industrial history while its strong innovation capability is today lending fresh steam to the development of new quality productive forces.

Today, high-tech enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region account for over 30 percent of the national total. The National Innovation Center par Excellence, a comprehensive national technology innovation center based in the delta, has set up strategic partnerships with more than 200 domestic and foreign universities and research institutes and has established joint innovation centers with nearly 600 leading enterprises.

In the southern part of China, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has seen a leap in its technological innovation capacity. The country has established nine major technological infrastructure projects in the area. A total of 31 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao joint labs have been established, forming the foundation for the GBA's technological innovation.

Driving high-quality development

Attaching great importance to promoting high-quality, coordinated regional development, Chinese President Xi Jinping has traveled to various regions and chaired symposiums, charting the course for how different regions can better leverage their comparative advantages, achieve complementary advantages, and enhance the balance and coordination of regional development.

In recent years, China has deepened its implementation of the coordinated regional development strategy, with clusters such as the Jing-Jin-Ji, the Yangtze River Delta and the GBA driving the country's overall innovation level and high-quality development.

For instance, the GBA, with less than 0.6 percent of the country's total land area, has generated one-ninth of the nation's total economic output, making it one of the most open and economically vibrant regions in the country.

Currently, the GBA, focusing on new sectors such as the low-altitude economy and biomanufacturing, is set to create five more emerging industrial clusters worth 100 billion yuan (about $14.2 billion) each and promote the high-end and intelligent transformation and upgrading of advantageous industries, such as electronic information and advanced equipment manufacturing.

During an inspection tour in Guangdong in November this year, Xi urged the province to focus on developing new quality productive forces, strengthen the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, and build a modernized industrial system with international competitiveness, calling for advancing the development of the GBA with sustained efforts.

In the just-concluded annual Central Economic Work Conference, China pledged to develop international technological innovation centers in Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region), Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta), and the GBA.

"The expansion of the three international technological innovation centers – from individual cities to broader city clusters – marks a strategic upgrade, showing that China's efforts to build innovation hubs now place greater emphasis on regional coordination," said Gong Chao, a researcher at the National Institute of Innovation and Development at Tongji University.