Patterns of Chinese Policies on Technology Transfer

This article analyzes several principles that have defined China''s technology acquisition strategy since the mid-1950s, and the ways in which these principles continue to shape technology transfer behavior amid the wide-ranging transformations associated with economic globalization.  The key themes are policy continuity and the persistence among certain Chinese policy constituencies of ideas rendered increasingly anachronistic by globalization.  Although dramatic changes in Chinese economic and technology policy since the late 1970s are well documented, less clear are the assumptions and state-led development strategies of a bygone era that continue to define Chinese attitudes.  Continuities from the pre-Reform to the Reform (1978-     ) period explain why so many Chinese companies and bureaucracies still pursue blatantly nationalistic policies of technology indigenization.  They may also reveal why China continues to face enormous obstacles in its effort to absorb technologies essential for infrastructure and production modernization.  The article also sets Chinese technology transfer policy into the context of an American strategic debate about the emergence of Chinese power, pitting those who place their faith in the transforming powers of commercial liberalism against skeptics of Chinese ambitions in East Asia, who anchor many of their arguments in technology issues.  The way that China organizes its quest for technology is central to the assumptions that all sides make in this debate.