ABSTRACT
For around 1500 years from the Han Dynasty through at least until the sixteenth century China was at the forefront of global innovation. Even on the eve of the British Industrial Revolution in the early eighteenth century it is unclear that European technology was more advanced than that of China. Many of the key technologies that led to the British Industrial Revolution made their way to Europe from China through international trade along the Silk Road by Land and Sea. Reform of China's state-owned enterprises and upgrading innovation are centrally important and closely inter-connected objectives in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan. Chinese government provided crucial functions that permitted and stimulated innovation. These include establishing peace, stability and integrated markets over the whole of China; provision of infrastructure, especially water control facilities both large and small; and spreading knowledge through government-sponsored publications including technical manuals and encyclopaedias.
