Insecurity and Ambition: Dual Drivers of Chinese Innovation?

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to explain why some nations make greater efforts than others do to innovate. We examine for our case study the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China), which has emerged over the past several decades as a global technology leader and remains committed to bolstering its science and technology (S&T) capabilities. Applying a modified theory of ‘creative insecurity,’ we examine whether the balance between external and internal threats explains the variation in China’s innovation efforts. The hypothesis: when faced with greater threats from abroad than at home, China will have increased its innovation endeavors, measured by its innovation-related policies and research and development (R&D) intensity. Our mixed methods approach finds some support for this hypothesis. Our initial theory, however, seems unable to account for the observation that China also increased its R&D intensity even when external threats decreased and its internal security remained stable. Thus, we introduce a complementary theory of ‘creative ambition,’ which proposes that China’s efforts to innovate may not be merely defensive in nature but also offensive in intent to expand the PRC’s power and influence abroad. We conclude with potential theoretical and policy implications of this study.

KEYWORDS:

• Politics
• innovation
• China
• security
• ambition
• technology

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mark Zachary Taylor, Diana Alleva Cáceres, Michael Ceci, Yong In Choi, Daniel J. Marchetto, Sergio Peláez, Jack Linzhou Xing, and the members of the Nunn School Writer’s Nest, as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers at Defence and Peace Economics for their insights, feedback, and encouragement at various stages of drafting this article. All errors are ours.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Political Terror Scale also uses the ratings from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, but both organizations are missing data from the years of this paper’s coverage (Gibney et al. 2022).

2. For a counter narrative that argues that the ‘century of humiliation’ was unfavorable to Chinese leaders but was, in fact, one of China’s most innovative periods and highly advantageous to the Chinese people, see Wang (2017).