China ready to leap from industrial to information-age economy

Can its creativity and innovation be centrally planned?

from the September 5, 2007 edition

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Though Chinese R&D is rich in government funds and researchers, scientists "are not well connected with [business] enterprises," says Professor Lan. "China's national innovation system has not been very efficient: The different pieces are not well connected."

The government is seeking to remedy this by creating "grand alliances" between government-funded labs and key industries, and the authorities have offered tax incentives and other funds to encourage firms to innovate.

Many analysts, though, say that what the government does not do is as important as what it does, and that officials should not interfere with research, allowing scientists more freedom.

"The system must have a certain flexibility and adaptability," says Zhang. Chinese scientists who have moved abroad, he points out, have thrived "in an environment that allows them to be creative and free thinking."

"Chinese are not inherently uncreative," adds Dr. Simon, who is technology adviser to the coastal city of Dalian. "It's the institutional milieu" in both state-owned and private Chinese firms, "that does not promote innovative behavior," he argues. "The system does not reward you for taking the risk to go outside the lines."

Scientists returning from abroad could be the key to changing Chinese corporate and government attitudes to scientific research. "They understand what kind of creative juices are stirred by a free and open environment," says Simon. "If they can bring that culture in, they will become vanguards for change."

The government itself seems to have adopted this thinking. Earlier this year a former engineer with Audi in Germany, Wan Gang, was appointed minister of science and technology, the first in that position who did not to belong to the ruling Communist Party.

Mr. Wan has much to change, not least the fear of failure that is built into the education and research system and which inhibits scientists from going out on a limb. He has started by promoting a new law, currently before the National People's Congress, China's parliament, that promises "scientists and technicians who have initiated research with a high risk of failure will still have their expenses covered if they can provide evidence that they tried their best when they failed to achieve their goals."

Cultural changes go deeper than legislation, Lan acknowledges, and "this kind of thing always takes time, but China is changing." Simon agrees. "There is tremendous room for opening up parameters of individual thinking that is not being utilized," he says. "Fundamental cultural changes take a long time, but China is constantly being bombarded by pressures that make this a necessity."

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