Has China Caught up in the Global Innovation Race?

Abstract

This chapter shows how much China caught up in the global innovation race, using international indices of innovation performance, and data on R&D expenditures, higher education, scientific outputs, and patents. Frameworks such as ‘windows of opportunity’ are used to explore how China catches up in innovation and is changing policies from importing innovation to developing ‘indigenous innovation’. The bottlenecks confronting China’s catch-up and leadership are examined using the case of semiconductors, Huawei, and 5G, and the chapter poses the question whether the country can overcome such bottlenecks in core technologies. To do so, it is argued that greater investment is needed in basic research, especially by enterprises.