China's Quest for Foreign Technology

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CHINESE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

An Introduction

William C. Hannas and Huey-Meei Chang

China’s reputation for innovative technology, exemplified in popular lore by its “four great inventions”¹ and chronicled in Joseph Needham’s encyclopedic account,² has lost its luster in recent decades as reports of industrial espionage swamp mainstream media, and accounts of systematic intellectual property rights (IPR) abuse emerge into public view.

Evidence for this behavior is pervasive.³ Less well known perhaps is that China’s appetite for foreign technology is not a new phenomenon, and not an aberration in historical terms. That is, these practices did not begin with the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Indeed, as will be shown below, China ...