QIN Yibo, GAO Qi, MA Shuangyuan, LIU Weitao
As a traditional heavy industry base in China, Liaoning Province possesses a solid industrial foundation in both traditional materials and advanced basic materials. However, it also faces challenges in transforming its manufacturing sector toward high-end, intelligent, and green development. Based on the perspective of industrial chain synergy and framed within the theoretical context of New Quality Productive Forces driving industrial upgrading, this paper systematically examines the current status of China's new materials industry, the strengths and weaknesses of Liaoning's new materials sector, and the driving mechanisms and implementation pathways for its upgrading. This paper finds that Liaoning holds significant advantages in the manufacturing of advanced basic materials and their application in equipment manufacturing. Nonetheless, the industry suffers from structural issues such as disrupted industrial chains, regional development imbalances, and delayed green transformation. Empowering the industry with New Quality Productive Forces can help reconstruct the value logic of the industrial chain: digital and intelligent technologies enhance production efficiency and responsiveness through data-driven R&D, flexible manufacturing, and full life cycle management; industrial chain synergy networks improve industrial resilience through vertical integration and horizontal collaboration; and green transformation promotes sustainable development through low-carbon process innovation, circular economy systems, and green standards. This paper further proposes that Liaoning should leverage its institutional advantages to improve top-level designs that promote the development of New Quality Productive Forces and the new materials industry; utilize the capital and technological strengths of large state-owned enterprises to drive collaborative innovation among small and medium-sized private enterprises within upstream and downstream of the industrial chain; encourage universities, research institutions, and enterprises to establish collaborative innovation platforms for new materials, thereby strengthening the deep integration of industry, academia, research, and application, optimizing regional factor allocation, and promoting talent mobility; and the government should coordinate the division of labor across the industrial chain, establish dedicated funds to support breakthroughs in core technologies, promote the development of pilot testing platforms for new materials, and improve green finance and insurance compensation mechanisms.