Must Read For Smart People: China, Indigenous Innovation and the Role of Government Procurement


photo: CC // xiaming

 

"Current Chinese policies embody an entrenched belief that protecting domestic companies from foreign competition gives them time to innovate and capture enough market share to scale up their production."

Nat Ahrens, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Innovation and the Visible Hand: China, Indigenous Innovation, and the Role of Government Procurement

 

Sorry if the title of the post sounds snooty. Made you look. So you might as well read.

I get credited with knowing a lot about China. Assuming that's true and you're wondering how I manage to pull that off, the answer is quite simple.  I am lucky to have good friends who are really smart and drop a lot of knowledge on this stuff. I'm like that bird who picks up the crumbs dropped by smart cookies.

One such example is Nat. We go way back to the late 90s when we were both living and working in Shanghai. These days, he spends his time at a think tank in DC coming up with papers like this. Good stuff for anyone interested in some serious insight into the Chinese government's role in indigenous innovation in China.

You can find an overview at Carnegie's site with link to the full PDF here. Or I've gone ahead and included it below.

(download)