Cross-province manufacturing industry chain is a strategic move

Developing new quality productive forces—how do you avoid repeatedly working harder? How do you form a unified force to tackle hard problems? Liaoning and Jiangsu, our matched cooperative partners, have recently launched a key industrial chain co-linking initiative. Between industries and among enterprises, multiple matchmaking and docking events have already been held. Two manufacturing powerhouses “CP”—this time, it’s a real match.

Where is the “real vibe”? It shows up in adapting to local conditions and making the most of each other’s strengths—working to complement advantages and coordinate breakthroughs. Cross-domain co-linking helps enhance the resilience, competitiveness, and security level of the industrial chain.

The partners’ chemistry depends on fit. Liaoning has a complete range of industrial categories, abundant application scenarios, and strong resource endowments. Jiangsu has clear advantages in high-end manufacturing, technological innovation, and market-oriented operations. Both provinces are manufacturing-driven, with many points of coupling across the industrial chain, and both face the task of shifting from old to new drivers. They are both committed to building a modern industrial system led by advanced manufacturing. When the time is ripe for industrial upgrading in traditional industrial strongholds, and when the demand for expanding innovation depth is strong in economic powerhouse provinces, a “two-way pursuit” between “hard equipment” and “soft strength” has emerged.

Take the robotics industry as an example. Liaoning has a broad range of robot product lines and deep innovation foundations. For instance, the embodied intelligence training simulation platform developed by the National Robotics Innovation Center effectively addresses the industry challenge of long smart training cycles. Meanwhile, in Jiangsu, key components such as sensors and reducers for robots have matured. It has been deeply pursuing the demand for integrating large embodied-intelligence models with robot technology, which is, in many ways, complementary to Liaoning—truly a match made in heaven. Robot enterprises in both provinces sign major orders with each other: moving from product cooperation to technological collaboration, breaking through R&D barriers, and jointly tackling the “bottleneck” problems of critical core technologies. Starting from this, the co-linking initiative in which both provinces work in the same direction has begun shifting from “single-point matchmaking” toward “full-domain integration.”

This approach of playing to each other’s strengths and pooling efforts to overcome tough challenges is not entirely driven by market-oriented self-interest. It comes with a mission as well—it is a responsibility-driven approach. Strengthening capabilities to safeguard the country’s “five major types of security” requires the “broad shoulders” to take on responsibility across regions. Building national strategic science and technology forces requires innovation breakthroughs in a planned, organized way—and also requires cross-regional technological innovation to come together into a unified force.

Take the new materials industry. Liaoning is well prepared in basic research and original innovation, with broad application scenarios such as aerospace and the low-altitude economy. But original technologies can’t be like museum exhibits—beautiful, yet lacking real application scenarios. Jiangsu, on the other hand, has strong capabilities in technology transformation and experience in market-oriented operations. Even within the new materials sector alone, the world’s first 1,000-ton-per-year T1100 carbon fiber production line has already been put into operation in Jiangsu. This ultra-high-strength carbon fiber—its diameter is less than one-tenth of a hair’s diameter—has a strength ten times that of steel. It will bring disruptive changes across many fields such as aerospace, shipbuilding, vehicle manufacturing, and consumer electronics, powerfully driving upgrading across the entire industrial chain. Liaoning’s proposal to deepen cooperation with the Suzhou National Laboratory is precisely a strategic move to proactively integrate into the frontiers of scientific and technological innovation.

Liaoning’s “industrial rich mines” meet Jiangsu’s “market-savvy handiwork.” Jiangsu is home to clusters of specialized and innovative enterprises, with abundant “single-item champions.” Different from how some cities in Liaoning aim to scale up in certain places, Jiangsu’s “fighting strength” is balanced across different localities under its jurisdiction. When provinces pair up and cities reach out to each other, Liaoning’s “overweight mode” of industrial structure may find a solution in cooperation focused on “extending the chain, and making what’s small into what’s refined and strong.” “Raw materials” will become “components,” and then become terminal consumer products sold around the world. We look forward to “Liaoning products going out of Liaoning” and “Jiangsu’s quality going global,” each empowering the other to create mutual benefits and win-win outcomes. (Author: Sun Qian-tong; Source: Economic Daily)