Industrial Policy and Technology Innovation under the US Trade War against China

Kevin Honglin Zhang

Chinese Economy, 2020, vol. 53, issue 5, 363-373

Abstract: Industrial policy (IP) toward technology innovation (TI) is a focus of the US trade war against China. The US is forcing China to stop IP uses in promoting TI that directly threaten the US technology leaders, like its reaction to China’s plan of “Made in China 2025”. Does China have too many IP? Does the US use IP? What TI patterns affect IP? This paper develops the following points as conclusions: (a) Due to market failures, all countries implement IP in their economic development; (b) original innovation (OI) involves a lot of risks and uncertainties such that entrepreneurship rather than government plays a key role, while imitation innovation (II) is much less risky and uncertain so that more rooms are left for IP; (c) technology-leading countries like the US has to conduct OI to maintain their advantages, and catching-up countries like China do more II, thus more IP are adopted in China than the US; and (d) the US engaged substantially IP in the history and is deploying various IP to meet challenges from China; and (e) economic and political institutions matter.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/10971475.2020.1730553

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