Perhaps because these are not splashier, fundamental breakthroughs, the West tends to discount China’s high-tech achievements by ascribing them to copying or to protectionism. While these practices did give China’s economy traction early on, they are no longer the primary drivers of Chinese innovation, for the simple reason that such cruder types of opportunities have already been fully exhausted. Instead, China is replete finding new ways to monetise their services, attract customers, and encourage them to buy, which is a good thing for a country with the world’s highest saving rate and a global trade imbalance on the export side. What we’re seeing here is that when it comes to innovation, Chinese companies are remarkably clever at taking existing technologies and applying them in new ways, expanding them from one to N.
Although some may dismiss these adaptations and new implementations of existing technologies as mere tinkering, they are significant so long as they contribute to growth by increasing productivity and generating income, which is certainly the case in China. Electricity was a zero-to-one technology, for example, but its countless spin conditions our homes, have allowed us to be far more comfortable and more productive. Cheap smartphones loaded with features may…
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