ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an analytical framework to examine the relationship between technology transfers and China’s defense innovation. The concept of absorptive capacity is explored along with mapping the imitation to innovation environment to provide the context and benchmarks in which to identify the Chinese defense industry’s progress. The contemporary mainstream definition of innovation is the introduction of a novel product or process through invention and/or commercialization. The successful technological catching up by Japan and South Korea between the 1950s and 1990s can also be attributed to their implementation of highly effective industrial absorption and combination policies. The Soviet Union stands out as the chief exponent of this parallel approach of indigenous development coupled with an extensive industrial espionage effort that was undertaken throughout the entire lifespan of the Soviet regime, and which also appears to have continued afterwards.
