In China, dreams of bright ideas [The Washington Post]
The Washington Post has a long story about innovation in China and what the Chinese leadership is doing to stimulate it.
“Instead of millions of Chinese youths assembling somebody else’s inventions, the party leadership has concluded, the time is right for China to come up with its own ideas and sell them to everyone else. The question of whether China can pull off this transformation — from workshop of the world to cradle of invention — is key to the giant country’s future. The answer will help determine whether a government anchored in 150-year-old Marxist ideology can pursue economic expansion, satisfy the needs of 1.3 billion people and take a place among global powers in an age when knowledge is the highest-earning product.”
“Although political dogma here seems stuck in the past, economic innovation has become a new Communist Party catchword. Even while they enforce political conformity, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao rarely let a speech go by these days without urging their countrymen to think up new products. Most recently, Hu told scientists and engineers they must make China ‘a nation of innovation.'”
“”Innovation is an overall strategy for maintaining China’s economic security,” said Hu Shuhua, who heads the Product Innovation Management Center at Wuhan University of Technology. “Now should be the time for us to innovate,” he added, pointing out that China has been importing other countries’ know-how for the last 20 years. “Now we have the economic and technical base to do it.””
