China’s quest for self-reliance risks choking innovation
The ‘reshoring’ of scientific research talent is having unintended consequences
Yu Jie
Workers at the construction site of China’s next-generation neutrino detector in Jiangmen City. The country has poured huge resources into advancing its science and technology agenda © Qiu Xinsheng/VCG/Getty ImagesThe White House’s latest push to curb US investments in selected Chinese tech companies underscored the escalating tech war between Beijing and Washington.
But it came as no surprise to Chinese leaders.
In 2018, President Xi Jinping called for a “whole-nation approach” to achieving scientific self-reliance by reducing China’s dependence on imports of critical technology components.
His strategy included doubling down the country’s financial resources to overcome the so-called “chokepoints” in strategically critical technology sectors; and strengthening domestic talent-grooming and “reshoring” of expertise to spearhead innovation.
Yet, China’s ability to make a major scientific breakthrough has proved equally dependent on whether researchers have the space to think critically and creatively.
Last October, the ruling Communist party elevated a significant number of prominent scientists to the all-powerful party politburo, rather than economic planners.
This signalled a fundamental shift in policy focus from maintaining double-digit growth to achieving economic and scientific self-sufficiency.
Although China is keen to find a path to scientific self-reliance, in reality the country’s successes in science and technology are — as for its peers and competitors — a direct result of frequent exchanges and connectivity with the scientific community globally.
The challenge for Beijing now is to determine how far the drive for “indigenous innovation” can go in delivering China’s desired technological breakthrough without tapping into existing scientific powerhouses in the west.
China has poured huge resources into advancing its ambitious science and technology agenda.
And Beijing has made clear that the state will richly reward people who can create jobs in the innovation sector and will protect their patent rights.
Its talent-reshoring effort has also been inadvertently boosted by the US’s growing suspicion of Chinese students and academics who are establishing their careers in various scientific fields in the US.
By 2021, China reached a net inflow of scientists as a significant number of Chinese scholars in scientific disciplines who had been working in G7 countries returned home.
Achieving the innovation necessary to fulfil the ambition of self-reliance in science and technology will demand not just the infrastructure afforded by financial resources and a policy toolbox, but also the space that comes from allowing critical thinking, reducing political intervention and generally accepting challenges to the status quo.
What is lacking now is the political will to nurture creative endeavour and to allow a younger generation of researchers to question conventional wisdom.
Given the centrality of the Communist party in all areas of Chinese society, the relations between the CCP and the scientific community have inevitably become blurred.
As a result, working for the party and government institutions is regaining popularity among young graduates.
One unintended consequence of this shift has been science graduates increasingly favouring jobs in the civil service, seeing these posts, rather than making chips or designing aircraft engines, as the best route to financial security.
While Chinese leaders may be pleased to see young talent keen to win party or government positions, they should be wary of the implications for scientific and technological innovation.
As political institutions attract the best and brightest, they may do so at the expense of research institutes and tech start-ups.
Ultimately, innovation takes time to bear fruit.
It is a risky business that will require the party leadership to loosen some control.
This is a conundrum that Xi and the party must now work to resolve.
The writer is senior research fellow on China in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House
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