The following is a summary of Dong Zhiyong's keynote address to attendees at the Seventh Annual Conference of Government and Economics held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, on June 7, 2025. Dr. Dong serves as Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice President of Peking University, Professor and Dean of the School of Economics at Peking University, and Editor-in-Chief of Economic Science.

On June 10, 2025, the Seventh 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. Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice President of Peking University, Dong Zhiyong, who serves concurrently as Professor and Dean of the School of Economics at Peking University and Editor-in-Chief of Economic Science, delivered a keynote address to attendees at the conference that surveyed the historical relationship between government and the market.

Dong evaluated the relationship between government and the market from a historical perspective. He explained that the relationship between the two has arisen from the various challenging issues and main areas of concern that have always existed throughout the history of economic thought in both China and the West, with its common thread also following a periodic course of evolution and iteration over time. During the pre-modern era in China, thinking on the relationship between government and the market was long concerned with the "theory of weights" (i.e., monetary and pricing systems) and the "state interventionism" school of thought. From an objective point of view, China's climatic and geographical conditions necessitated that the government assume certain special functions; whereas from a more subjective standpoint, there was the notion within Confucianism that the government is to serve as "the parents of the people" given its benevolent approach to administering the state. In modern-day times, meanwhile, the dual doctrines of laissez-faire non-interference and government interventionism emerged in China. During the worldwide economic downturn of the 1930s and the subsequent World Anti-Fascist War, the government interventionism faction ascended into the mainstream, having at the same time touched off a series of problems associated with encroachments into significant areas of the market, with a revitalized market having only begun to emerge in the 1940s. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, shifts in the relationship between government and the market occurred in the process of its quest for modernization. On the one hand, the country's institutional advantages were leveraged to achieve major undertakings; while on the other hand, a management system was actively trialed and put into practice for the emerging socialist market economy. At present, amidst the strong push towards developing "new quality productive forces," repeated lines of thought have materialized on a variety of subjects, such as reforms to the market for production factors and reforms to state-owned capital as well as the building of a unified national market and a high-standard market system.

In addition, Dong emphasized the quintessential role that entrepreneurs play in the market economy. Policymakers need to not only stimulate the initiative of market players, but also give full scope to the comparative advantages under the government's sway. The government should work towards spurring innovation, fostering markets and revamping regulations, while simultaneously avoiding overstepping any boundaries in exercising its authority.