To position China as a global leader in education, higher education must be a central driver. The 2024-2035 Master Plan for Positioning China as a Global Leader in Education, issued resently by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, prioritizes the development of a “self-reliant and excellence-oriented higher education system” as a critical element of this vision. Achieving this goal requires optimizing the structure and quality of higher education to meet the demands of innovation-driven growth and emerging productive forces. First, universities should pursue differentiated development based on their fundamental educational missions—whether research-oriented, application-oriented, or skills-focused institutions. Second, the talent development structure requires optimization through strategic expansion of high-quality undergraduate enrollment, increased graduate program capacity, gradual enhancement of doctoral student proportions, and robust growth in professional degree programs—ultimately transforming the talent cultivation paradigm from a “pyramid structure” to an “olive-shaped distribution.” Third, efforts to build world-class universities and disciplines with distinctive Chinese characteristics must be accelerated, with strategic concentration on areas of excellence while judiciously expanding the scope of the “Double First-Class” Initiative. Fourth, responsive mechanisms for discipline configuration and talent development models should be established that directly align with technological advancement trajectories and critical national strategic imperatives.