The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has produced a 45-page report by James McGregor titled, “China’s Drive for ‘Indigenous Innovation’ – A Web of Industrial Policies.” From the Executive Summary, which describes Road to Renaissance, a Broadway-style show produced by the Communist Party for the 60th anniversary of the PRC:
Migrant workers, engineers, bankers, cooks, taxi drivers, farmers, students and bureaucrats lock arms and sing the national anthem. On this 60th anniversary, China is marking its resurgence as a great nation that will soar to ever greater heights as long as all Chinese people stick together.
The show ends with “Long Live the Great Communist Party” flashing on the screen.
“Road of Renaissance” mixes two conflicting sentiments: victory and victimization. These clashing themes of unbridled national pride vs. distrust of foreigners are cross-stitched throughout the fabric of China’s national psyche and political culture. They are also deeply entrenched in China’s vast economic planning bureaucracy and fused into the DNA of the country’s extensive new industrial policies that Party leaders have hung under the banner of “Indigenous Innovation.”
The result is an indigenous innovation political and economic campaign that amounts to an all-hands-on-deck call to action for the Chinese nation to roll up its sleeves and complete the mission of catching up and even surpassing the West in science and technology that began 200 years ago when foreigners with modern weaponry and transportation technology came calling as the Chinese dynastic system was dissipating.
The full report can be downloaded as a PDF file here.
