How can China’s technology- and innovation-driven growth draw strength from its culture, and vice versa? That question was at the center of the Third Jiangshan Forum, held this week at Renmin University of China. Scholars and officials argued that new quality productive forces and cultural soft power must develop in tandem for Chinese modernization to succeed.

“New quality productive forces” is a term proposed by the Chinese leadership to describe a growth model driven by scientific and technological innovation rather than traditional resource-intensive industry.

And China’s push to build a strong country and advance national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization demands both formidable material strength and robust spiritual strength, as former vice chairman of the country’s top legislature Arken Imirbaki explained.

Two reports, one argument

Two reports were released at the forum. The flagship report, "New Quality Productive Forces and Cultural Soft Power Synergistically Empowering Chinese Modernization," explained how the two forces reinforce each other. Drawing on cases from Beijing, Shanghai and other places, it proposed policy paths in innovation mechanisms, governance systems, resource allocation, green governance, and international communication and cooperation.

A companion volume, the "China Modernization Index Report (2026)", builds an indicator system to track the country's modernization from 2020 to 2025. It finds the overall level rising steadily and regional gaps narrowing, with coordinated progress across economic, political, cultural, social and ecological dimensions. Its recommendations center on high-quality development, balancing development and security, improving livelihoods, raising the quality of cultural services and deepening the green transition.

Innovation as a cultural question

The forum's most concrete argument was that China's innovation bottleneck is not merely technological.

Wang Yiming, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said innovation culture is the soil that nourishes original innovation, able to produce breakthrough results, sustain researchers' motivation and foster cross-disciplinary integration. He called for a systematic effort on four fronts: reshaping how education and teaching are conducted, deepening reform of research evaluation, fostering an environment that encourages exploration and tolerates failure, and inheriting the creative genes of traditional Chinese culture.

The discussion sharpened around artificial intelligence, where speakers warned against technology untethered from human values.

Shi Yong, a counsellor of the State Council and director of the Research Center on Virtual Economy and Data Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, described AI as a central driver of new quality productive forces and urged China to strengthen data openness and protection, build a rule-of-law and credit-based economy, coordinate algorithm research, and pursue "self-controlled" algorithmic processes.

Wang Jiangping, a former vice minister of industry and information technology, drew on the Taoist maxim that the highest good is like water, arguing AI should be governed as one governs water — built to be altruistic, inclusive, universally beneficial, trustworthy, fair, just and agile, and aligned with human values rather than left to its own logic. 

Soft power as a bridge

On the cultural side, speakers argued that Chinese culture offers both a source of innovation and a channel for engagement with the world.

Wu Weishan,  Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, framed the question as new in what sense, for what purpose, and toward what future. He located the answer in culture, arguing that education builds the foundation of innovation, culture steers its direction, and aesthetic education elevates its horizon, insisting that human wisdom must remain the ultimate measure of technology in the intelligent age.

Ahead of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, Zhang Donggang, Party Secretary of Renmin University of China, noted that the university stands ready to deepen exchanges and cooperation with all partners, deliver more research outcomes with solid academic depth and global influence, and contribute wisdom and strength to fully advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese modernization.

(Cover photo: The Third Jiangshan Forum held in Beijing/ Renmin University of China)