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Introduction
China's Innovation System and the Move Toward Harmonious Growth and Endogenous Innovation
Shulin Gu
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Bengt-Åke Lundvall
University of Aalborg, Denmark
Article Text
Observers around the world are impressed by the rapid growth of China's economy, some with hope and others with fear. Some hope that China will offer the unique experience of successful economic growth and catch-up under the new WTO regime; some see the rise of China as a threat to the current world order and to the powers that currently dominate the world in terms of economy, technology and politics.
While outside observers tend to focus on the success story of unprecedented growth policy documents and recent domestic debates in China have pointed to the need for a shift in the growth trajectory with stronger emphasis on 'endogenous innovation' and 'harmonious development'. In this paper we make an attempt to capture the current characteristics of China's production and innovation system; how they were shaped by history and what major challenges they raise for the future.
In Section 2 we present data on China's post-war growth experience. We show how the shift in policy toward decentralization, privatization and openness around 1980 established an institutional setting that, together with other factors such as the presence of a wide 'Chinese Diaspora', has resulted in extremely high rates of capital accumulation especially in manufacturing. The section ends with pointing to some inherent contradictions in the current growth pattern.
In Section 3 we take a closer look at how the policy shift in the eighties affected the institutional framework shaping R&D activities in particular, and learning and innovation in general. The attempt to break down the barrier between the science and technology infrastructure on the one hand and the production sphere on the other was highly successful as compared to the development in the former Soviet Union. But the original intentions were not fully realized. Rather than establishing markets for science and technology, the reforms led knowledge producers to engage in mergers or forward vertical integration and they became to a large extent involved in production activities.
Referring back to the analysis of the sustainability of the growth model and the unfinished reform of the innovation system Section 4 introduces the recent decision by China's government to promote endogenous innovation and harmonious development. Applying the innovation system perspective we argue that these broadly defined objectives can be realized only through a strategic adjustment towards 'innovation driven growth and learning based development' and we discuss what important policy elements such a strategic adjustment needs to encompass.
In Section 5 we conclude that imperfections in the division of labor and in the interaction between users and producers of knowledge and innovation that was behind the reforms of the eighties remain central concerns. In order to raise the long-term efficiency of the massive accumulation of production capital it is necessary to promote the formation of social capital and to be more considerate when exploiting natural capital.
2. The transition of China's economy
How do we explain the extra-ordinary growth performance of China? What are the unique features of the production system? In this section we will see how the development paths of the past define the strengths and weaknesses of the national production systems as well as the bottlenecks and challenges that confront China today.
It is useful to distinguish between two periods in China in the second half of the 20th Century. The crucial shift takes place in 1978 when DENG Xiaoping took over the political leadership after Chairman MAO and initiated economic reform and the opening of the economy to international trade. The first was a period of development under a centrally planned economic regime and the second a period with market-oriented reforms and economic transition. To characterize economic performance of the two periods, we use the data summarized by Angus Maddison (1998) depicted in Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2.
Figure: Per Capita GDP in Comparison
Figure: GDP Structure of China's Economy
Table 1: Growth of China's economy 1890-1995 (At constant prices)
| |
1890-1952 | 1952-1978 | 1978-1995 | 1952-1995 |
| Farming, Fishery & Forestry | 0.3 | 2.2 | 5.1 | 3.4 |
| Industry | 1.7 | 9.6 | 8.5 | 9.2 |
| Construction | 1.6 | 7.2 | 11.1 | 8.7 |
| Transport & Communications | 0.9 | 6.0 | 10.0 | 7.6 |
| Commerce & Restaurants | 0.8 | 3.3 | 9.9 | 5.9 |
| Other Services (incl. Government) | 1.1 | 4.2 | 6.7 | 5.2 |
| GDP | 0.6 | 4.4 | 7.5 | 5.6 |
| Per Capita GDP | 0.0 | 2.3 | 6.0 | 3.8 |
| Export Volume | 1.6 | 6.4 | 13.5 | 9.2 |
At the time of the revolution the economy was still dominated by agriculture; in 1952 about 60 percent of GDP was generated by the agricultural (primary) sector, as shown in Figure 2. Both the first and the second period were dominated by industrialization, rather than 'post-industrialization' that took place after WWII in developed and most less developed countries. As a result, China ends up being highly 'industrialized' by the end of the century. In 2003, the GDP structure of China was 12.5 per cent primary, 46 per cent secondary and 41.5 per cent tertiary. The growth in manufacturing and the relative shrinkage of agriculture went on also in the 1990s, and the value added-share of the service sectors remained almost unchanged until the second half of the 1990s.
But as we shall see below the economic structure looks quite different when the focus is employment rather than value added. The proportion of the labour force working in agriculture remains as high as 50percent in the beginning of the new millennium. The growth in manufacturing value added reflects more than anything else a very high rate of accumulation of fixed capital accompanied by high rates of growth in labour productivity.
Behind the high growth rates and the restructuring of the economy in the second period lie extraordinary rates of savings and capital accumulation. In order to understand how these could be realized in a poor country like China it is necessary to look at the institutional changes that took place with the shift in the political climate.
Reforms and development performance in the 1980s and 1990s
The policies transforming the economy from a centrally planned towards a market-oriented regime may be seen as following two parallel and mutually reinforcing lines of action aiming at decentralization and privatization (Wu 2003, Chapter 2).
The first line of action, 'bureaucratic decentralization', began with increasing the autonomy of firms in decision-making on production planning, investment and acquisition of technology, marketing, pricing and personnel and with more autonomy to local governments in financial, budgetary and administrative issues. Initially decentralization was based on ad hoc negotiations in individual cases. It was not until the mid-1990s, that nation-wide reforms formalized the relationships and introduced more transparent and coherent rules. This was the period when reforms of taxation, banking system and governance structure of state-owned enterprises - ie 'corporatization' of previously state-ownership - were initiated. This dynamic of policy learning where experiences from local and regional experimentation were gradually diffused at the national level has been one major characteristic of the reform period.
The second line of action loosened the restrictions first for township and village enterprises in the early 1980s and later also for private initiatives in the mid-1990s. It included the creation of 'Special Economic Zones' for FDI related investment with various favorable regulations. In provinces like Zhejiang this led to private initiatives by entrepreneurs. Here limited arable land, poor mineral deposits, high population density and little accumulation in modern industry in combination with local historical experience in commercial activities led to the start-up of private firms based on small family workshops (Wang; Xu et al; Bao et al, this issue, in press).
But most importantly it gave the local governments bigger opportunities to engage in initiatives promoting the local accumulation of capital. They did so through establishing and expanding TVEs (Township and Village Enterprises) sometimes owned by the local governments, sometimes representing joint enterprises with private capital or through initiatives attracting private capital from local, national or international sources.
'Diaspora networks' played an important part in re-enforcing the rapid capital accumulation from foreign investment (Kuznetsov, this issue, in press). Throughout the 1980s, the opening to FDI and international trade attracted partners mainly from the Greater China area-Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and overseas Chinese from other continents. It was not until the second half of the 1990s that multinational companies from North America and West Europe came into China on a large scale. And still, by 2003, Hong Kong, together with Taiwan, remains the first and primary source of FDI, holding about half of the total FDI in China. The fact that the members of the Diaspora could communicate directly with local authorities reduced investor uncertainties.
The second line of action, also called 'incremental reform', opened up new spaces for economic activities outside the entities inherited from the central planning era. As a result, the ownership structure of industrial enterprises changed rapidly. As can be seen from figure 3 below, by 2003, each of the three types of ownership - the state-owned, FDI related and other domestic - were responsible for roughly one-third of output.
Figure: Ownership Structure: Industry by 2003
It is important to note that a big share of the firms belonging to the category of 'other domestic' enterprises primarily reflects rapid growth in the number and size of township and village firms over which local governments have some influence. The township and village enterprises that played a major role for industrialization in many regions in China outnumber both the domestic private and the state-owned firms; they underwent a transformation from collective ownership to become private owned since the mid-1990s.
Export led growth
International trade was initially pushed by favourable policies and gradually pulled by FDI and intra-trade within global value chains. Today China's economy has reached a much higher level of openness than all other large economies in the world, developed or developing (Table 2 and Figure 4).
Table 2 Openness of China to the Global Economy
|
1978 |
1989 |
1997 |
2002 |
2003 |
|
|
GDP (￥100 million) |
3624.1 |
16917.8 |
78973 |
120333 |
135823 |
|
Sum import and export |
355.0 |
4156.0 |
26967.2 |
51378.2 |
70483.5 |
Figure: Openess to Global Economy
Figure: Export Structure
Export structures have been upgraded (Figure 5). The share of primary products, such as foodstuffs, agricultural products and mineral fuels, have been reduced from half of the total in 1980 to less than 10 percent by 2002, while the share of manufactured goods increased to more than 90 percent. In manufactured exports, electric and machinery products including electronic products, demonstrated the fastest growth rate. But light and textile products and apparel increased considerably as well.
Beyond quantitative growth, qualitative or structural change has been radical. It is useful to make a distinction between global production chains that are driven mainly by demand factors-buyer driven chains, and those driven mainly by supply factors-producer driven chains (Gereffi 1999; UNIDO 2002). In the products of 'buyer-driven' chains such as apparel, footwear and toys, contained in category 3 and partly in category 5 in Figure 5, China has become the preferred manufacturing location of a global 'Triangle' relationship. The consumption sites are largely in North America and West Europe while Hong Kong and Taiwanese businesspeople play roles as relational coordinators. Many of these goods are produced in factories owned by Taiwanese or Hong Kong investors; some are produced in Chinese owned firms but produced in sub-contracting relationships (see Zheng and Sheng, this issue, in press).
In the 'producer driven' industries such as computer and IT products which are included in category 4 in Figure 5, exports are mainly manufactured in factories owned by Western and Taiwanese investors. For 2003 it is reported that 61.9 percent of high-tech export was produced by fully foreign-owned and 21.4 percent by partly foreign-owned firms; altogether FDI-related manufacturing produced more than 80 percent of high-tech export from China (China S&T Indicators 2004). This reflects overall trends of the innovation system of China characterized by easy access to foreign technology, while remaining weak in local and domestic clustering. We will turn to this point in Sections 3 and 4.
Domestic demand and investment
The domestic market has also played a role for the development in the period. Domestic demand experienced at least two rounds of surge and growth. The first round appeared through the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, and it was led by household durables and necessities, as illustrated by color televisions in Table 3 and Figure 6. The centrally planned economy had left huge areas of shortage in consumer goods industries. The combination of bureaucratic decentralization and incremental reforms stimulated investment in the supply capacity of these industries.
The second round begun around 1999 and was focused on real estate, passenger cars and personal computers and telecommunications, as illustrated by microcomputers and passenger cars in Table 3 and Figure 6. Cement and rolled steel products are intermediate products and both rounds stimulated demand for them. The second period of demand-led growth was strongly weighted towards large-scale activities such as construction and car production, which consume them in great quantities; hence one sees accelerated growth in the latter years. To expand production capacity, a very high rate of growth in investment was necessary.
The second surge of manufacturing was more directly induced by central monetary and industrial policies. In order to cope with the stagnation and deflation that appeared in 1998-1999, diagnosed as caused by lack of effective demand, the government engaged in 'active fiscal policies', to increase public investment in highways, telecommunications and power generation stations. The banking system was also engaged in stimulating 'domestic demand' in consumption. It created loans for individual housing and car consumers at reduced interest rates.
Figure: Growth in Representative Products
A unique pattern of economic growth
In about a quarter of a century China's economy has been characterised by high rates of economic growth and capital accumulation. Some of the mechanisms behind that growth pattern are unique while some have parallels with the institutional set up that promoted capital accumulation in England in the 18th century (Qian 1996).
The reforms that were initiated more than 25 years ago unleashed restrained material needs. It was explicitly argued that getting some concentration of wealth among the few was a first step toward making everybody better off; this made the strife for material wealth ideologically legitimate. Slumbering entrepreneurship was awoken to engage in production and trade both within and outside the public sector. The most important driver behind capital investment and economic growth was a specific local fusion of political and economic interests. Local authorities and local entrepreneurs were able to promote simultaneously their political career and their own economic interests by stimulating industrial growth in their region, province, town or village. Most of the extra income created remained under local control and the incentives to reinvest the surplus were strong.
Foreign direct investment initially emanating primarily from overseas Chinese investors and subsequently from wider sources should be added to this as an important factor. Joint ventures offer good opportunities for public and private rewards for local policy makers. The same is true for attracting direct investment in purely foreign-owned enterprises to the locality. Building infrastructure and supplying cheap labour, energy and land has become a key concern for local administrators. This mixture of political and economic interests constitutes a new kind of concentration of power at the local level not always balanced by local political democracy and local rule of law and it may explain why the local administration is less popular than the central government among Chinese citizens (Saich 2004).
The dynamics of reform has also been driven by the competition between localities to offer the most attractive framework conditions. This sometimes takes the form of offering cheap resources and lax regulations in relation to environment and workers' safety. But there are also examples of forward-looking ideas developed locally and then spread nation-wide.
Limits to growth
The development trajectory behind the high speed of growth is now confronted with barriers for further growth. Some of these are external and refer to potential trade conflicts. Others reflect domestic problems with social and ecological sustainability. There are indications of serious weaknesses of the innovation system. The call for 'harmonious development' may be interpreted as an attempt to give new direction to the recognized unsustainable growth patterns.
Remarkable global impact and trade disputes.
China's economic growth has had a very visible impact on the global economy. When China's exports and imports grow with double digit rates it makes a major difference for the rest of the world. The impact upon other countries' trade balances is such that there is an upper limit for how far the trade surplus can be increased without triggering trade quotas or other forms of retaliation. The current trend of massive penetration into global markets may not be lasting much longer.
'Jobless growth'
In terms of GDP structure (Figure 7 and Figure 8 compare China with four big developing or transitional economies: Brazil, South Africa, India and Russia) China appears to be overwhelmingly 'industrialized'. However, China is faced with the challenge from 'jobless growth' in the manufacturing sector. Figure 8 shows that in terms of employment structure, China appears as an agricultural economy, with half of its labour remaining in this sector. Only India has a bigger proportion of its labour force in agriculture. Combining the two sets of data, it is obvious that China is characterized by a high and rapidly growing capital-labour ratio in the manufacturing sector. While there was net job creation in the first years of the reform period, the increase of employment slowed down in the 1980s and stagnated since the 1990s.
Figure: GDP Structure in Comparison
Figure: Employment Structure in Comparison
This displacement of employment exacerbates 'structural unemployment' (Lewis 1955). 'Jobless growth', in addition to inequality in wealth distribution and redistribution entails social instability and endangers sustainable development.
Widening income gaps and negative environmental externalities
Gaps between the urban and the rural, between regions, and between the rich and poor in the same region are widening. Working conditions and workers' safety have been largely neglected. Negative externalities also include environmental degradation such as pollution of air and water and exploitation and wasteful use of other non-renewable resources. The current development mode entails intense consumption of non-renewable raw materials and energy sources. Especially when these inputs are under the control of local groups with vested interests there may be a tendency to set prices too low and to be lax in terms of safety regulations.
Slow pace in competence and competitiveness upgrading
The industrialization process has not resulted in building a widespread and robust indigenous innovation capability in Chinese firms. After twenty years of being the origin of manufactured goods 'made-in-China', China's economy has not been able to embark upon the track of competence upgrading. This contrasts with the catch-up history of the US and Japan where 'made-in-US' and 'made-in-Japan' were preludes to the two countries, within a time span of one generation, reaching the world frontier in innovativeness and competitiveness. China remains specialized in low value-added products with profit margins trapped at meager 2-5 percent, or in some areas even lower.
Recent policy documents and the general debate have pointed to these problems and contradictions, and to the need for a shift in the development strategy with stronger emphasis on 'harmonious development' and 'endogenous innovation'. What adjustments of the development strategy are needed to realize the intentions signaled by these concepts?
Before we discuss this issue in Section 4, it is necessary to analyze the reform of the innovation system that accompanied decentralization and privatization. The analysis of the reform and its outcome points to weaknesses of the current innovation system and it helps us to specify what reforms are required in order to make innovation endogenous and to make it contribute to harmonious development. We will argue that efforts to stimulate endogenous innovation may go hand in hand with promoting harmonious development.
3. The Transformation of China's Innovation System
We now turn to the transformation of the innovation system of China, in the context of market-oriented economic reform. It is interesting to note that the motivation for the reform of the R&D-system initiated in 1985 was 'highly systemic' in the sense that the focus was on re-shaping the division of labour and the interaction between producers and users of knowledge and innovation. As we shall see the problems that remain after the reform can also be defined as 'highly systemic'. The fundamental weakness of the system, having a negative impact both on the absorption of foreign technology and on domestic innovation, has to do with an economic structure that does not support learning by interaction in organized markets.
The attempt to re-configure the user-producer relationships
China has an old civilization and historically has made important contributions to global science and technology (such as the compass, gunpowder and paper). In the older history of China, however, science and technology as it evolved in Western Europe was not regarded as important or as carrying social status. While Confucious' heritage gave high prestige to intellectuals, it was to those engaged in humanistic science and in political and administrative affairs. Scientific and technological knowledge was seen as based upon practical experience, rather than as a modern type of scholarship. Whereas Research and Development (R&D) establishments started to be organized in the 1920s to 1930s, China only began the process of institutionalization of modern science and technology nationwide in the 1950s.
The R&D system established in the first period of development was designed in accordance with the centrally planned regime. One prominent feature was the huge size that was a reflection of the Marxist idea of science as a societal force of production and also a result of the self-reliance development strategy in the centrally planned period (see Table 4).
Table 4 China's Investment in R&D
|
Year |
Percentage of R&D Expenditure Based on National Income |
Year |
Percentage of R&D Expenditure Based on GDP |
|
1953 |
0.1 |
1978 |
1.5 (1.8 of national income) |
|
1954 |
0.2 |
1979 |
1.5 |
|
1955 |
0.3 |
1980 |
1.5 |
|
1956 |
0.6 |
1981 |
1.3 |
|
1957 |
0.6 |
1982 |
1.3 |
|
1958 |
1.0 |
1983 |
1.4 |
|
1959 |
1.6 |
1984 |
1.4 |
|
1960 |
2.8 |
1985 |
1.2 |
|
1961 |
2.0 |
1986 |
1.3 |
|
1962 |
1.5 |
1987 |
1.0 |
|
1963 |
1.9 |
1988 |
0.8 |
|
1964 |
2.1 |
1989 |
0.8 |
|
1965 |
2.0 |
1990 |
0.8 |
|
1966 |
1.6 |
1991 |
0.8 |
|
1967 |
1.0 |
1992 |
0.7 |
|
1968 |
1.0 |
1993 |
0.7 |
|
1969 |
1.5 |
1994 |
0.7 |
|
1970 |
1.6 |
1995 |
0.6 |
|
1971 |
1.8 |
1996 |
0.6 |
|
1972 |
1.7 |
1997 |
0.6 |
|
1973 |
1.5 |
1998 |
0.7 |
|
1974 |
1.5 |
1999 |
0.8 |
|
1975 |
1.6 |
2000 |
1.0 |
|
1976 |
1.6 |
(2001) |
1.1 |
|
1977 |
1.6 |
2002 |
1.2 |
|
1978 |
1.8 (1.5 of GDP) |
2003 |
1.3 |
Sources: China Statistical Yearbook on Science and Technology various issues; National Statistics Bureau 1990: 207, and http://www.sts.org.cn/KJNEW/maintitle/MainTitle.htm
The second feature was the separation of industrial R&D centres from productive enterprises. The centrally planned regime had introduced particular mechanisms to link up R&D activity with production: All the R&D institutes, except those belonging to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (which was assigned to be the national top organization for comprehensive natural and engineering science) were organized under the jurisdiction of sector specific ministries or bureaus, independently outside enterprises. The ministries or bureaus took the responsibility for planned production tasks as well. They were hence in command of both R&D and production (Gu 1999: 151-176).
It is interesting to note that this model of specialization according to product category both for R&D centres and enterprises, and separation of firms from innovative activities was common for all the former centrally planned economies. The organizational separation between innovation and production blocked the system from vital and intimate interactions between producers and users, which are important especially for innovation in sophisticated producer goods technology (von Hippel 1994; Kline and Rosenberg 1986; Lundvall 1988).
The institutional setting was reflected in innovation characteristics. For example, the machinery industry of China was apt at 'general purpose' machinery, and weak in technologies fulfilling particular machining tasks since these could only be developed through interactive learning and close producer-user communications (Gu 1999: 127-135). The low degree of effectiveness of the centrally planned institutional settings was well acknowledged at the end of the 1970s. This became one important motive for the launch of reforms.
The crucial event for R&D system reform came in 1985, slightly lagging the agricultural and industrial reforms, which were started in 1978 and 1984 respectively. A 1985 Decision made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China initiated the reforms in Science and Technology System Management. The central theme for the reform was to rearrange the relationship between knowledge producers and users and their relationships with the government. In a context where demand, supply and coordination factors were changing, reform of the S&T system was seen as essential.
The size and complexity of the S&T system made reform crucial for the success of economic growth. By 1980, there were 4,690 research institutes affiliated to administration bodies higher than the 'county' level, ie to central, provincial, and regional/city governments, with some additional 3000 institutes at the county level, the lowest level of the nation's administration hierarchy with an independent budget ('White Paper' No 1: 232, 235). 323,000 scientists and engineers worked in these institutes. The then Prime Minister Mr Zhao Ziyang interpreted the reform as follows:
The current science and technology institution in our country has evolved over the years under special historical situations. The advantages embodied in this system manifested themselves in concerted efforts to tackle major scientific and technological projects, which were achieved with great success. However, there is growing evidence to show that the system can no longer accommodate the situation in the four modernizations programme, which depends heavily on scientific and technological progress. One of the glaring drawbacks of this system is the disconnection of science and technology from production, a problem, which is a source of great concern for all of us...
By their very nature, there is an organic linkage between scientific research and production. For this linkage a horizontal, regular, many-leveled and many-sided channel should be provided. The management system as practiced until now has actually clogged this direct linkage, so that research institutes were only responsible to the leading departments above, in a vertical relationship, with no channels for interaction with the society as a whole or for providing consultancy services to production units. This is the root cause of the inability of our scientific research to meet our production needs over the years.... This state of affairs can hardly be altered if we confine ourselves to the beaten track. The way out lies in a reform.
(Zhao Ziyang 1985)
The adaptive policy process and the recombination of competences
For reforming the S&T system, a two-pronged policy was designed. On the one hand, 'technology markets' were established to function as distributive institutions for R&D outputs (Decision: Section III). On the other hand excellence-based allocation mechanisms were introduced for the allocation of public R&D funds (Decision: Section II). In order for R&D institutes to be able to respond to opportunities arising at the market place, some degree of autonomy, in terms of hiring personnel, engaging in contracted projects, and acceptance and use of contractual fees, were assigned (Decision: Section VII). At the same time subsidies from the government were gradually reduced (Decision: Sections I and II). It was expected that by push and pull, the previously publicly funded R&D institutes would move to serve their clients via regular and multiple linkages.
The actual process of S&T system reform, as the reforms of the overall economic system, unfolded through trial and error and entailed continuous adjustment of policies (Gu 1999). The technology market solution, central in the initial design, was soon recognized as being difficult to realize in its original form. The users were not capable of absorbing transferred technology, and the market was too small to secure R&D institutes with enough earnings. Buyers and sellers experienced serious uncertainty in assessing the use value of technology giving rise to disputes when writing and implementing contracts. As a response, in 1987 reform policy began to promote the merger of R&D institutes into existing enterprises or enterprise groups. The merger process was also difficult to realize, however. Huge gaps between the merging parties, from differences in work culture and administrative affiliations, were hard to overcome immediately.
In the next year (1988) the Torch Programme was launched to encourage organizations akin to spin-off enterprises - called NTEs (New Technology Enterprises) - from existing R&D institutes and universities. Local governments contributed to investment in infrastructure and supporting institutions for the New and High-Tech Industry Zones that became incubation bases for the NTE-startups. Scientists and engineers, often with support from their parent institutions, went into commercial application of their inventions and expertise by means of the creation of NTEs. And by the early 1990s, reform policy included another solution to change individual R&D institutes into production entities. This, as well, was an adaptation to an actual evolution already realized by many industrial R&D institutes.
At the end of the 1990s, the reforms came to a form of conclusion. In 1999 an official decision pointed to the need to clarify the actual character of the previously government-run industrial technology R&D institutes. By 2001, some 1,200 industrial technology R&D institutes had re-registered their business type. Of them more than 300 were merger cases, these institutes have canceled their independent position and become a part of an enterprise. 600 plus have changed to become profitable firms in themselves. A few have entered into a university. Table 5 indicates the changed structure of R&D performers. In 2000 the proportion of R&D performed by 'enterprises' leaped up abruptly (see line 3, Table 5) largely because a number of previous R&D institutes became registered enterprises or part of existing enterprises. Table 4 also depicts the scope of technology market and spin-offs, both grew steadily over time (lines 1 and 2), illustrating the complementary effects of various transformation means. Lines 4 and 5 and 3 show a changed structure in technology sources. China, not so long ago nearly closed to international exchange in technology and knowledge, has become a widely open innovation system, with enormous inflows of technology in forms of international capital goods and FDI.
Table 5 Selective indicators to changes of the China NIS
All the measures at current price
|
1985 |
1990 |
1995 |
2000 |
|
|
(1) Technology Market |
2.30 |
7.51 |
26.83 |
65.07 |
|
(2) Spin-offs |
1,690 |
12,937 |
20,796 |
|
|
(3) Domestic R&D expenditure (RMB Billion) |
6.74 (1987) |
12.54 |
34.87 |
89.57 |
|
(4) Import of capital goods (USD Billion) |
16.24 |
16.85 |
52.64 |
69.45 (1999) |
|
(5) FDI (USD Billion) |
1.96 |
3.49 |
37.52 |
40.72 |
Adaptive policy evolving though trial and error characterizes 'gradual reforms' in the whole process of economic transition in China. The great uncertainties associated with foreseeing the impact of major political reform made adaptive policy learning necessary. Only policy-making that was responsive and adaptive to the feed-back information on the impact could preserve the feasibility for success of any radical social innovation program (Metcalfe 1995; Gu & Lundvall 2006).
A review of the transformation of the innovation system
On the basis of the discussion above, Figure 7 illuminates the National Innovation System of China as it looked before (part A) and after (part B) the transformation. It embraces:
- Innovation actors - R&D institutes, capital goods industries that provide embodied technology for user sectors, domestic end-product manufacturers
- Inflows of technology-by means of technology licensing (TL), sample machine procurement (SMP), equipment procurement (PE), foreign direct investment (FDI), and original equipment manufacturing (OEM); and
- Interactive relationships between actors and with domestic and international markets, we use arrows with different line boldness to illustrate the intensity of the various links. It gives a first impression of what significant changes that the transformation has brought into the system
The transformation was constructive in safeguarding and recombining technological capabilities in the context of market reform and opening to the global economy. It has supported the rapid growth in the economy as a whole. For example, a number of NTEs like Huawei, Datang and Linovo, grew to become key ICT enterprises and this led to a fundamental restructuring of China's ICT industry (Gu & Steinmueller 1996/2000). The achievements are especially impressive when comparing with Russia where scientific and technological capabilities were destroyed on a huge scale. It nonetheless leaves the system with some prominent weakness.
Easy access to foreign technology while remaining weak in local and domestic clustering
First of all, the resulting system developed weaker domestic links and interactions than international links, although the mastery of the latter links remains rather passive, dominated by the import of foreign technology embodied in machinery and other process equipment. The capital goods industry has not played a role as an innovation centre for the whole economy by providing appropriately advanced production means for various users; they were instead largely integrated into the respective global value chains. Many regions of China, for which the autonomy of policy decision-making was strengthened during the market reform, are weak in geographical proximity-based clustering or networking even when there is some firm agglomeration (Wang & Tong 2003). In general potential local or domestic links along and between value chains have been slow to develop and hard to expand. Small firms in traditional manufacturing sectors, and agriculture and rural development have received inadequate support from national and regional technological infrastructure, showing a separation between the modern and the traditional part of the system (Tylecote, this issue, in press).
Missing technological infrastructure and supportive institutional development
Second, the transformation ignored the development of technological infrastructure and supportive institutions. The remarkable aspect of the reform is that the initial intention - to establish markets for technologies for existing R&D institutes and existing enterprises - was not realized. Instead other unforeseen adaptations 'saved' the reform. A general tendency was vertical integration of R&D and design with production activities - either through merger into enterprises or through the establishment of downstream production. This was true not only for R&D institutes for industrial technology but also for institutes engaged in health and agricultural R&D and even for universities. As a result, the reconfiguration of the scientific and technological infrastructure was not complete during the market reforms. This has resulted in a weak capability to provide S&T inputs and supportive services to innovation in firms; a capability that is fundamentally important for knowledge based growth (Nelson 2004; David 2003).
There were several reasons for the drive toward vertical integration. One reason was the peculiar pattern of division of labour for R&D institutes inherited from the centrally planned system in which they had already been involved in many 'down-stream' activities. Weak absorptive capacity and less developed social capital were other reasons for the difficulties in establishing markets for technology.
The phenomenon of factories that integrated vertically within themselves all stages in the production process were common in all centrally planned economies (Granick 1967). Kornai (1980) explained this with a combination of the factories' hunger for investment and paternalistic relations with the planning authority. The vertically integrated factories were left almost untouched by the market reforms, and this obstructed networking in the core part of the economy. Vertically integrated enterprises survived, mainly in what had been seen as strategic sectors and especially in the machinery industry that was given high priority before the reform.
4. Problems, debates and challenges
By the second half of the 1990s, symptoms increasingly indicated that the development dynamics created by reforms was about to be exhausted and negative sides of the growth model came more into focus. The accession to WTO added to the need for China to move into a new period of economic and NIS transition. This was the background for the 1999 Decision by the Communist Party and the State Council, where it declared the need for 'enhancing technological innovation, developing high technologies and promoting commercial production of S&T achievements. However there has not been much change in economic policy and in the orientation of development, except 'active fiscal policies' which targeted material infrastructure construction and a considerable increase in public investment in R&D.
Distribution of Innovation Activity
With the further accumulation of problems the government now has decided to make 'endogenous innovation' and 'harmonious development' key components of a renewal of the development strategy. In this section we analyze the problems and introduce the policy debate around 'endogenous innovation'. Starting from the innovation system perspective and taking into account the historical transition of the system we propose an interpretation of endogenous innovation where it is understood as a move toward innovation driven growth and learning based economic development.
...continues...
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