Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 03/2012

Is China's Indigenous Innovation Strategy Compatible with Globalization?

Xielin Liu, Peng Cheng

January 2011

East-West Center

Abstract

National innovation policies currently attract intense interest throughout the international community, particularly so in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. China is among those countries now relying heavily on government resources to drive innovation—a policy that directly challenges the prevalent theory that government powers have limited effects on a nation’s innovation systems. Indeed, China’s new indigenous innovation strategy has transformed the country’s innovation systems. China’s current indigenous innovation strategy is both constructive and efficient for an economy with clear targets for industrial innovation and working to catch up to international standards. For China to succeed as an innovative country it needs to provide more opportunity for market competition to incubate and generate radical innovations.