New book from Constructor University professors reveals how Chinese bureaucracy has played a critical role in driving technological innovation

Constructor University’s Dr. Alexandre De Podestá Gomes and Professor Dr. Tobias ten Brink have released a pathfinding book investigating how the Chinese party-state bureaucracy acts as a powerful driver of innovation. The book titled, "A Chinese Bureaucracy for Innovation-Driven Development?" was published in August by Cambridge University Press.

The book focuses on the recent past of the world's second-largest economy, underscoring the country’s long-term developments. In doing so, it challenges the negative headlines and the broader perspective that today’s China is all about low growth and high debt, with weakening exports and consumption. "In the past 20 years, the Chinese economy has developed enormously compared to all other emerging markets. Companies in selected industrial sectors have become more innovative. This is new and we were interested in the reasons for this," said Professor ten Brink.

Using the semiconductor and electric vehicle industries as examples, the two authors show how the Chinese bureaucracy has driven so-called "innovation-driven development" over the past two decades. They attribute this comparative success to two main factors: First, the bureaucracy has reduced interministerial conflicts in this area and achieved greater internal party-state coherence in the implementation of industrial policy projects. Subsidies are now used in a much more targeted manner than in the past. Second, it has succeeded in forging alliances and institutionalizing the exchange of information, both with companies and with scientific institutions. "Whether we like it or not, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs often interact in ways that are productive for technological upgrading," ten Brink said.

According to ten Brink, there is a tendency to deny non-democratic countries the ability to innovate technologically in Western countries. "But Chinese technology and industrial policy is by no means ossified; the authorities have shown themselves capable of learning." The book, written in English, and also targeted to non-scientists, is a result of the project "Challenges for the Chinese Growth Model," funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). It was published in the internationally renowned "Elements" series by Cambridge University Press and costs 19.84 euros.

Further information:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108975902

Questions answered by:
Dr. Tobias ten Brink | Professor of Chinese Economy and Society
ttenbrink@constructor.university | Tel.: +49 421 200-3383

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