On December 13, Sub-forum II of the 2025 International Academic Forum on Chinese Modernization was held in Lingang, Shanghai. Centered on the theme The World Economy and China amid Multi-polarity, the session brought together more than 50 participants, including international scholars from the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and other countries; academics and students from Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Nanjing University, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE), Liaoning University, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Northwest University and other universities and research institutions; as well as editorial representatives from journals such as Academic Monthly and Marxism in the 21st Century. This sub-forum was jointly organized by the School of Economics of SUFE, the School of Marxism of Tsinghua University and the School of Economics and Management of Northwest University.
The first panel session was chaired by Professor Mao Peihua, Vice Dean of the School of Economics, SUFE. Six experts engaged in in-depth discussions on global capitalist crises, national innovation systems, digital technological change, national planning and governance, offering important theoretical insights for understanding the profound shifts unfolding across the world.
Professor Zhu Andong, Dean of the School of Marxism at Tsinghua University, delivered the presentation The Rule of Financial Monopoly Capital and the Systemic Crisis of Global Capitalism. He emphasized that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation, rooted in the deep control exercised by financial monopoly capital over Western economies, politics and culture. Long-standing financialization and deindustrialization in advanced capitalist economies represented by the United States and Europe have eroded industrial vitality. Coupled with political polarization and cultural strains, these trends have deepened systemic crises. History shows that unless capitalism breaks free from the grip of financial monopoly capital, its crises will keep accumulating and may slide toward more extreme outcomes.
Professor Alan Freeman, Chief Economist of the Greater London Authority, spoke on The Legacy of Christopher Freeman: Modernization and China’s National Innovation System. He noted that his father Christopher Freeman’s theories align more closely with Marx than with Schumpeter. Drawing on a critical reassessment of Schumpeterian economics, the historical experience of technological catch-up in Japan, and theories from scholars such as Friedrich List, Freeman developed the theory of national innovation systems. China’s institutional strengths and modernization achievements validate the relevance of Marxism and Freeman’s framework, which differ substantially from Schumpeter’s innovation paradigm.
Researcher Shen Kaiyan, Director of the Institute of Economics at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, presented Theoretical Reflections on Optimizing the Business Environment in the Digital Age. He pointed out that digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the institutional foundations of economic activity, turning the business environment from a set of standalone institutional arrangements into an ecosystem integrating technology and institutions. He stressed the need to rebuild a market-oriented, law-based and internationally competitive business environment in the digital era. Greater institutional flexibility, agile governance and multi-stakeholder co-governance can foster the co-evolution of institutions and technology and lift the overall competitiveness of the business ecosystem.
Andrea Catone, Editor-in-Chief of Marxism in the 21st Century, delivered an online talk titled The Revival of Western Colonialism and the New Multi-polar World Order. He argued that capitalist globalization has empowered emerging economies and undermined the long-standing Western-dominated international order. Driven by crisis and zero-sum thinking, Western powers seek to sustain hegemony through “re-colonization”, a trend that intensifies internal social contradictions. China plays a pivotal role in advancing decolonization, exploring new models of democracy and building a multi-polar order, which in turn facilitates the reform and adjustment of Western liberal democracy.
Professor Lin Muxi, Director of the National Economic Research Institute at Liaoning University, presented China’s Planning and Chinese Modernization. He observed that China’s successive five-year plans let the market play the decisive role in resource allocation while enabling better government guidance. This embodies institutional strengths including centralized, unified leadership of the Communist Party, a people-centered approach and nationwide coordinated planning. Scientific, democratic and law-based planning systems translate institutional strengths into governance capacity, laying a solid foundation for advancing Chinese modernization and the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan.
Professor Juan Pablo Mateo Tomé from the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain delivered the talk China amid the Restructuring of the World Economy: Between Peripheral Integration and Geopolitical Confrontation. Based on indicators such as labour value and surplus productivity, he argued that China remains a “Global South” country with distinctive and rapid development. Geopolitically, China has emerged as a major power with robust defensive capacity, fundamentally distinct from imperial expansion. Frictions between China and the United States are essentially structural competition over control of production technologies and working-class agency, extending far beyond mere trade disputes.
The second panel session was chaired by Professor Kang Rong, Vice Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Northwest University. Five experts continued to delve into the theoretical essence, core propositions and realization pathways of Chinese modernization, as well as its role and status amid a multi-polar global order.
Professor Ge Yang from the School of Economics, Nanjing University, presented The “Chinese People’s Economy” and Chinese Modernization. He put forward the new concept of the “Chinese People’s Economy”, advocating a shift from GDP orientation to GNI orientation that prioritizes human wellbeing and all-round development. Centered on gross national income, the “Chinese People’s Economy” highlights income earned by domestic factors overseas, innovation-driven growth and livelihood security. It serves as an important pillar for the path of Chinese modernization and reflects a profound conceptual shift from enriching the nation to enriching its people. He concluded by outlining a Chinese modernization pathway oriented toward the “Chinese People’s Economy”.
Professor Fan Xin, Vice Dean of the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, delivered the presentation The Essence and Realization Path of Chinese Modernization. He noted reversals in global modernization trajectories, rooted in weak governance quality, unsustainable growth dynamics and high economic vulnerability. Chinese modernization is both distinctive and universal in nature, defined by core commitments such as Party leadership and a socialist orientation. On the new journey, China must seize strategic opportunities, unclog bottlenecks in the new development paradigm, and advance national modernization steadily supported by urban-rural integration, supply-side structural reform and scientific and technological innovation.
Keith Bennett, co-editor of the “Friends of Socialist China” website, delivered an online speech titled Chinese Modernization as a Cornerstone of the Multi-polar Order. He fully endorsed the strategic judgment that the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. He pointed out that the combined GDP of BRICS nations has surpassed that of the G7, marking the relative decline of the West and the growing importance of multilateral frameworks. Drawing on its socialist institutional strengths, China is emerging as a leading force for multi-polar development. Chinese modernization not only underpins the multi-polar order but also charts a path toward building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Professor Wang Chaoke from the School of Marxism, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, presented Key Propositions in the Theoretical System of Chinese Modernization. Grounded in historical and institutional benchmarks, he elaborated core propositions of the theoretical system: Chinese modernization takes Party leadership as its political precondition, the Party-driven revolution in production modes as its driving force, the development of productive forces as its central theme, the creation of a new form of human civilization as its Chinese hallmark, and national rejuvenation and ultimately the realization of communism as its historical mission.
Associate Professor Francesco Marchedda, Head of the Department of International Relations at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, delivered the talk Imperialism and the Reproduction of Economic Inequality among Nations. Drawing on Marxist scholarship, he framed imperialism as a hierarchical global economic structure in which prosperity at the core relies on subordination in peripheral regions. Within this framework, China’s technological catch-up and defensive military build-up raise the costs of external intervention and contribute to sovereign modernization and the formation of a multi-polar order.
The sub-forum concluded successfully after rich exchanges and vigorous intellectual debate. Adopting a Marxist political-economy perspective, participating scholars systematically analyzed the internal logic and practical challenges of structural adjustment in the world economy under multi-polarity, and unpacked the theoretical connotations and practical pathways of Chinese modernization. The experts unanimously agreed that Chinese modernization provides institutional support for China’s own development and offers valuable intellectual resources and Chinese solutions for building a more equitable, inclusive and stable multi-polar world order.
