Based on China industrial enterprise database and China Customs database at the enterprise level and UN Comtrade data at the product level, this paper uses a gravity model that includes technological progress and export product quality to explore the impact of different technological progress paths on the heterogeneity of manufacturing export product quality and its mechanisms. The results show that independent innovation and imitative innovation have significantly promoted the quality of manufacturing export products, but the effect of pure technology introduction on the quality of exported products is not obvious. And after overcoming the endogenous problem，the above conclusions are still robust. It is found that independent innovation mainly promotes the upgrading of export product quality through the effects of the optimization of industrial structure and the improvement of manufacturing service level. Further research finds that the impact of independent innovation on the quality of export products is regulated by enterprise ownership, industry factor density, regional economic development level and export destination countries.