A rigorous examination of the motivations, sources, obstacles to and consequences of China's drive to become a leading innovative nation.

China's extraordinary economic development is explained in large part by the way it innovates. Contrary to widely held views, China's innovation machine is not created and controlled by an all-powerful government. Instead, it is a complex, interdependent system composed of various elements, involving bottom-up innovation driven by innovators and entrepreneurs and highly pragmatic and adaptive top-down policy. Using case studies of leading firms and industries, along with statistics and policy analysis, this book argues that China's innovation machine is similar to a natural ecosystem. Innovations in technology, organization, and business models resemble genetic mutations which are initially random, self-serving, and isolated, but the best fitting are selected by the market and their impacts are amplified by the innovation machine. This machine draws on China's multitude manufacturers, supply chains, innovation clusters, and digitally literate population, connected through super-sized digital platforms. China's innovation suffers from a lack of basic research and reliance upon certain critical technologies from overseas, yet its scale (size) and scope (diversity) possess attributes that make it self-correcting and stronger in the face of challenges. China's innovation machine is most effective in a policy environment where the market prevails; policy intervention plays a significant role when market mechanisms are premature or fail. The future success of China's innovation will depend on continuing policy pragmatism, mass innovation, and entrepreneurship, and the development of the 'new infrastructures'.

This book argues that China must become an innovation-based economy to avoid the middle-income traps, and examines both the opportunities and challenges in meeting this goal.

A pressing investigation into the global implications of China's shift to an innovation economy. As China shifts to an economy driven by innovation and productivity growth, the global implications of this transition will be significant. Amid the rise of techno-nationalism and a changing strategic calculus around the world, the manner and means of China's transition faces a high degree of scrutiny. China is attempting to balance a reliance on overseas sources of technology alongside efforts to strengthen domestic innovation capabilities as a hedge against the risks of a United States-led "decoupling." In these circumstances, it is essential to understand the many different forces of change within China, and the way China responds to outside changes. The evolution of China's innovation economy will be one of the key economic stories of the early twenty-first century, and the world will need China as a source of innovation in the decades ahead. The aim of this book is to help build a better framework for policymakers to find a new equilibrium in negotiating the terms of an oncoming shift in geopolitics.

A book for everyone who does business with China or in China. The history-making development of the Chinese economy has entered a new phase. China is moving aggressively from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation. Driven both by domestic needs and by global ambition, China is establishing itself at the forefront of technological innovation. Western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China that is about to hit Western markets, and Chinese businesses need to understand the critical importance of innovation in their future. Experts George Yip and Bruce McKern explain this epic transformation and propose strategies for both Western and Chinese companies. This book is for everyone who does business with China or in China, or is interested in the development of the world's fastest-growing economy. Western CEOs can learn from Chinese companies and can create an effective innovation process in China, for China and the world. Chinese CEOs can benefit from understanding the strategies of their peers as they strive to enter foreign markets. And all Western businesses should prepare for disruption from their new competitors. Yip and McKern provide case studies of successful firms, outline ten ways in which the managerial and innovative capabilities of these firms differ from those of Western firms, and describe how multinationals doing business in China can become part of the Chinese ecosystem of new knowledge and technology. Yip and McKern argue that these innovation capabilities will be the basis for creating world-class products and services to meet the challenges of a new era of global competition.

This title offers an in-depth look at the status and trajectories of innovation in major Chinese technological sectors such as machines, tools, railroad, automobile, information, communication technology, and wind and solar energy. The book expands our understanding of the industrial foundations of China's attempt to become an innovation nation.

A key question for China, which has for some time been a leading global manufacturing base, is whether China can progress from being a traditional centre of manufacturing to becoming a centre for innovation. In this book, Shang-Ling Jui focuses on China’s software industry and examines the complete innovation value chain of software in its key phases of innovation, standards definition, development and marketing. He argues that, except for software development, these key phases are of high added-value and that without adopting the concept of independent innovation as a guiding ideology, China’s software enterprises – like India’s – would have an uncertain future. In other words, the lack of core competence in the development of China’s software industry might restrain the industry from taking the leading position and drive it towards becoming no more than the software workshop of multinationals over the long term. Shang-Ling Jui contends that China’s software industry should and can possess its own complete innovation value chain. Having worked in China’s software industry for many years, the author provides an inside-out perspective – identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the industry and defining the challenges in China’s transition from "Made in China" to "Innovated in China."