Science and Technology in China: implications for innovation

Bruna Santos

The successful implementation of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies has a very important role in the prosperity of any nation in the global market. Technological innovation is one of the factors which contribute to economic development, establishing ties between science and business in a rapidly changing global environment. 

Of course In China is not different.  Innovation is an important element of the technological and overall development of the country. The comprehensive goal ofthe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is to make China an “innovation-oriented” society by 2020. To achieve this objective, the government has put a range of policies in place. A key priority of its current Five Year Plan (2011-15) is to transition the country from “Made in China” to “Created in China.”

Land of contrasts: Beijing’s astonishing CCTV Headquarters
 building alongside with the worker riding a bicycle.

China’s first patent law was passed in the same year as urban reforms began in 1984. China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and adopted the associated trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) agreement along with the harmonization of its IPR system with the strictures of the international standards. On the other hand, ineffective enforcement has been an issue in China, and the patent laws are no exception. The imperfect legal system characterized by weak enforcement has represented a big challenge for innovation in the country. Innovation as captured in the form of patents is indeed growing in China despite an imperfect legal system.

From 1995 to 2005, the spending on research and development increased at an annual rate of nearly 19% and reached USD 30 billion (at current exchange rates) in 2005. Currently, China state’s Science and Technology Development Plan suggests 2.5 percent of GDP to be spent on research and development by 2020.

Contrasts of Shanghai: Cheap China is fading fast, 

and innovative China is emerging. 

Looking back in the Chinese history we see that the 1950’s was featured by the Marxist ideas of science and technology as a tool to the development of productive forces and by the assistance from Soviet Union. Based on this idea, Chairman Mao believed that communist ideas should guide scientific work. In 1955 was formulated the first Science and Technology (S&T) Plan for 1956-67. In this period, more than 10,000 Soviet and East European experts worked in China and thousands of Chinese engineers trained in Soviet Union.

From 1958 to 1960, the Great Leap Forward represented the strong ambition to catch up quickly with the Western industrialized nations.  Mao Zedong wanted to encourage more construction of industries in rural areas. The idea of “walking on two legs” was based on a technological dualism: combining large-scale, capital-intensive industries with small-scale, labor-intensive industries.

As history shows us, the Great Leap Forward had disastrous consequences: hunger and inefficiency.  In early 60’s a period of Readjustment took place from 1961 to 1965. 

It happened just after Soviet Union withdrew its assistance in 1960 and at the same time we can observe the emergence of new principles, such as balanced growth – less investment, in order to support consumption – and agriculture emergence the foundation of economic development. Furthermore, during this period of readjustment, one of the key features was the idea of market socialism – the idea that profit motivation is important to promote science and technology. In 1962 the second S&T plan defined more resources devoted to military research and is possible to notice a reduced emphasis on ideological work and more emphasis on professional expertise.

In the period of Cultural Revolution, people had to be classified according to whether they were “red” or “experts”. Policy-makers had to answer few questions at this time.  Is Science and Technology the “superstructure” or the “basis” of society?  Are scientists members of the working class? How to ensure that scientists or engineers work for socialist revolution and not bourgeois capitalism? Education should be ideological or professional?

This period was extremely detrimental for the promotion of science and technology expertise in China. Scientific research was badly disrupted. Research institutes were closed and scientists were sent to the countryside. Important western scientific theories (such as Einstein’s relativity theory) were denounced. Furthermore, education was increasingly emphasized on ideological persuasion, instead of scientific expertise. As a result of this, engineers lost power in industrial enterprises and only socialist scientists could build a socialist nation.

China has established fundamental changes after the Cultural Revolution. Chinese policymakers realized the importance of science, technology and innovation policy.   Besides that, the development of neighbors such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore made clear that industrialized world was doing better and reforms[1] were needed in the mainland. In the 1980’s the implementation of a reformed STI policy was clear with the establishment of the Ministry of Science& Technology (MOST) and laws such as “Law for Promoting Commercialization of Science & Technology”, “Technology Contract Law”, “The law for Agricultural Technology Diffusion”. Since this first movement of reforms, China has begun the road to intellectual property and innovation became profit-oriented.

It is important to note that Chinese economy has depended mainly on structural changes – shift from agriculture to manufacturing and that’s why is important to keep the pace of economic and scientific and technological growth.  From the end of the Cultural Revolution onwards (2000’s) China’s development of scientific and technological capability has lagged behind its economic growth. From 2000 onwards we see a significant progress been made towards developing the country’s scientific and technological capabilities. This is a period in which Chinese leaders put into place policies trying to raise the level of scientific and technological expertise within China and its enterprises. Policymakers started to emphasize that the development of technology in a developing country has important economic and strategic roles. Currently, government policy encourages Chinese working overseas to return home by rewarding return­ees who bring back foreign technology.  Training technicians and scientists has been at the heart of China’s nation­al economic plan for the next years.

---

[1] OECD defined a timeline to better understand the evolution of reforms on S&T in China:  experimentation (1978-1985), the structural reform (1985-1995), the deepening period (1995-2005), and the development of a firm-centred innovation system (2005- ).