Abstract: The seminal discourse of General Secretary Xi Jinping on educational modernization systematically addresses the fundamental questions of the new era–“what kind of persons to cultivate, how to cultivate them, and for whom to cultivate them”–while constructing a distinctively Chinese socialist approach to educational development. This framework is strategically anchored in three cardinal objectives: building a leading educational nation, achieving national rejuvenation, and responding to global transformations. This theory, fundamentally guaranteed by the Party’s comprehensive leadership, insists on transforming people-centered educational values into practice. Rooted in Chinese cultural heritage, it advances educational evaluation reform while promoting the localized innovation of Marxist pedagogical principles. Through practical pathways emphasizing faculty development and digital empowerment, it constructs a new “human-machine synergy” educational paradigm. This theory not only balances educational equity development with the fostering of national identity, but also emphasizes building a coordinated development mechanism integrating education, science, technology, and talent cultivation. Empirical evidence demonstrates that under the guidance of this theory, China’s educational modernization has effectively facilitated intergenerational leapfrogging in human capital and advanced the goal of building a leading educational nation, thereby providing substantial support for Chinese-style modernization.

Key words: Xi Jinping, education modernization, leading educational nation