The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with Flanders Investment & Trade has published a study on “Blind spots of the West on Chinese Innovation” by Pascal Coppens.
In a speech in 2014 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, then Vice President Joe Biden said: “I challenge you. Name one innovative project, one innovative change, one innovative product that originated in China”. But Chinese innovation is not an oxymoron. What have we missed, not seeing the emergence of Chinese innovation? Since 1999, author Pascal Coppens has experienced every year how fast Chinese scientific competition progressed. From 2008 onwards it became increasingly difficult to sell Western high-tech products in China because the Chinese claimed they could make those products themselves – and in many cases they actually could. He became convinced that China would become a world innovation leader. In 2015 innovation became a national plan with clear objectives.
Today, China is the largest innovation laboratory in the world. According to the Australian government think-tank ASPI, China is already leading in 57 out of 64 crucial technologies, while in 2007, the U.S. was still leading in 60 out of 64 critical technologies.
In this interesting study, Pascal Coppens elaborates further on China as a world-class innovator.
