ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the ongoing efforts of China to upgrade manufacturing, strengthen science and technology capabilities, and, more recently, spur domestic innovation, from the early reform period up to the adoption of the Made in China 2025 strategic plan. By placing China's technological upgrading experiences within historical, political, and socio-economic contexts, the chapter argues that China's institutional reform in relation to industrial and technological upgrading is shaped by the differential influences of competing interests at particular historical and developmental junctures. These interests have expanded and evolved significantly as a result of China's marketisation. Whereas, at the onset of reform, it was primarily elite state interests that drove change, the country now faces multidimensional power constellations. The competition and collaboration among these interests, propelled by the structural dynamics of hyperglobalisation, explain why and how innovation and technology policies are formed and implemented in China.
