A Review and Outlook of the Centennial of China’s Industrialization: The CPC’s Industrialization Strategy

Liu Jiejiao1* and Sun Qin2

1 Institute of Industrial Economics (IIE), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China
2 University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (UCASS), Beijing, China

Abstract: Industrialization has been a dream for the Chinese nation since modern history and a goal of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Ever since its founding in 1921, the
CPC has been exploring a path for China’s industrial development based on socialism as the political and institutional premise. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese people have established a socialist system under the CPC’s leadership and carried out industrial development for over seven decades in the world’s most populous country, blazing a new trail of socialist industrialization with Chinese characteristics. Under the CPC’s leadership, China established an independent and complete industrial system in less than three decades from 1949 to 1978, and developed into the world’s largest industrial power with the most complete industrial sectors in over three decades from 1979 to 2016. In its future industrial development, China aims to complete new-type industrialization by 2035, build a modern economic system, reach the level of moderately developed countries in terms of GDP per capita, and develop into a major world industrial power by the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2049.

Keywords: centennial industrialization, manufacturing industry, economic structure, large industrial nation, industrial powerhouse

JEL Classification Code: O38

DOI: 10.19602/j.chinaeconomist.2021.09.01