The Digital Revolution and Development: The impact of Chinese policy and strategies
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The Digital Revolution and Development: The impact of Chinese policy and strategies
XIUDIAN DAI
ABSTRACT Xiudian Dai looks at how new information and communications technologies have impacted upon China’s policy thinking on economic development and vice versa. The message is that China is able to become an important player in shaping the global digital agenda thus reducing western dominance over key technologies. KEYWORDS information and communications technologies (ICTs); China; leapfrogging; informatization; 3rd generation mobile communications (3G); digital versatile disc (DVD)
Introduction New information and communications technologies (ICTs) constitute an important dimension of contemporary China’s transformations. Today, China is not only the world workshop for ICT products but also an emergent challenging power to the dominance of western systems of innovation. The key question that this article attempts to address is whether a developing country, such as China, should and can make a jump start in economic development in the information age. After a brief review of the current literature on the topic, I shall briefly discuss about the Chinese policy and strategy centred on the effective blending of informatization and industrialization. This is followed by an analysis of the Chinese experience in staging a major effort to try and catch up with western industrialized countries by actively pursuing indigenous technologies in the context of global agenda setting for new ICTs.
ICTs and economic development Experiences of many developing countries in the last few decades suggest that ‘[i]nsisting on the merits of comparative advantage in low-wage, low-growth industries is a sure way to stay poor’ (Scott, 2001:176). History also tells us that, for the majority of the developing nations, the industrial revolution was already a lost opportunity and there is little reason why they should stand by and watch another one by (Dordick and Wang, 1993: 25). Policy thinkers are warned that there are no options other than adopting a new strategy of leapfrogging if developing nations wish to catch up with western Development (2007) 50(3), 24–29. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100400
Dai: The Digital Revolution and Development industrialized countries, if they do not wish to create the ‘double gap’ (Dordick and Wang, 1993: 25) ^ with the second gap being created by the ongoing digital revolution. In the real world, governments in the western industrialized world are busy in re-creating their leadership in the emergent global information economy. During the first term of office, the Clinton administration launched a new strategy for economic growth with creating the National Information Infrastructure (NII) being the lynchpin for an American new economy. In a similar vein, the European Union has launched the Lisbon agenda aimed at creating the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. The Newly Industrialized Countries such as Singapore,Taiwan and Korea have also responded to the di
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