The 15th Five-Year Plan period is not only an important stage for advancing Chinese-style modernization but also a critical period for realizing the transformation of China’s development strategy paradigm. Catching-up has been the development strategy for latecomer countries to follow the lead of developed countries since the Industrial Revolution, exerting significant influence on global economic and social development. Constrained by the global capital accumulation structure, latecomer countries’ catch-up efforts have generally fallen into the predicament of being unable to achieve overtaking. The Communist Party of China, taking the Soviet Union as a model, established a catch-up development model led by heavy industry and defense industry. This not only effectively expanded and elevated the social space for catch-up development in underdeveloped countries in the East but also laid a solid material and social foundation for the transformation of the development strategy from catch-up to leading. Through the continuous development of reform and opening up, especially in the new era, China has achieved a historic leap in its global industrial division of labor status and role, accelerating the process of transforming its development strategy toward a leading paradigm. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will accelerate its transformation from partial to comprehensive leading, and at the same time, it will provide development demonstrations for the world in terms of the national innovation system, industrial system transformation, and emerging and future industries. To this end, it is necessary to scientifically understand the paradigm shift of the development strategy that takes into account both catch-up and leading, to coordinate key technologies and new tracks in light of the new round of technological and industrial revolution, to promote the construction of a global governance system that highlights economic justice and value, and to comprehensively promote the paradigm shift of China’s development strategy in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, in order to accumulate strength for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.