The following is a summary of Qiu Bin's comments during a rountable discussion at the Eighth Annual Conference of Government and Economics held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, on May 23, 2026. Qiu Bin is Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute of International Economics at Southeast University.

On May 27, 2026, the Eighth Annual Conference of Government and Economics, co-hosted by the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics (SAGE) along with Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences and the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT), was broadcasted online. Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute of International Economics at Southeast University, Qiu Bin, participated in a lively roundtable discussion where he stressed the importance of excelling in the most advanced industry areas of the future.

Qiu argued that: "whomsoever establishes a hold over the industries of the future, amasses highly skilled professional talents, leverages its demographics and puts the post-2000s generation into best use will achieve a dominant position worldwide."

He also mentioned that there are many rumors swirling around in Western countries, with some even going so far as to claim that China's population size is only 800 million people, after extrapolating from a limited number of estimates on foodstuff consumption. China's economic performance does indeed face some downward pressure, but this is not owing to its population size amounting to 800 million."

Qiu further compared the differences in industrial structures among several key domestic cities, analyzing the developmental advantages and potential risks for each region. "Last year, I raised some concerns about Guangzhou, which also caught the attention of some local leaders. Only 26% of Guangzhou's GDP comes from manufacturing."

In view of the Yangtze River Delta's unique industrial advantages, Qiu concluded by sketching out the basic features that have come to define the country's domestic industrial landscape. "The world's manufacturing industry looks to China, China's manufacturing industry looks to Jiangsu, and Jiangsu's manufacturing industry looks to Suzhou," he explained. At the same time, Qiu also noted the rising momentum and high development potential of Hangzhou's digital economy. He stated that Hangzhou is keeping pace with global trends in terms of the latest cutting-edge technologies, establishing the foundations for emerging industry niches, such as the metaverse, and cultivating the "Six Little Dragons" of the digital economy. These achievements have already made a strong push towards contending with the potent advantages as set by traditional first-tier cities, with Qiu further proposing a new prospective vision for the country's top areas of leading-edge development as defined by the four cities of "Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen."