Chapter 4: Techno-nationalism and Techno-Industrial Policy
4.2 Chinese Techno-nationalism in Historical Context
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Such approaches have persisted and cohered across seven decades amid very diverse conditions—
when China emphasized military technology and when it emphasized civilian technology; when it was poor and as it has become richer; when it was pennywise and when its coffers have been more flush; and it’s shaped policy under five top leaders (Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi).
In short, we should expect these “strategic” approaches to remain a persistent feature of the Chinese policy landscape—and a focal point for the Chinese Communist Party and state.133
With that in mind, it’s important to build up to the current moment through an examination of Chinese techno-nationalisms historical antecedents.
4.2 Chinese Techno-nationalism in Historical Context
Within China, the tight linkage between security, sovereignty and indigenous technology traces back to both the late Qing and Republic of China (ROC) periods. Traumatic contact with the Western during the latter stages of the Imperial period brought with it exposure to new ideas regarding the Westphalian notion of the nation-state as well as a discourse of “modern” political nationalism. These concepts provided both an institutional framework for political organization as well as a set of ideas and ideological beliefs necessary in mobilizing popular support for such institutional construction.134
Since the emergence of the “self-strengthening” movement, national strategy centered on the primacy of state power as the surest pathway toward alleviating endemic insecurity. National crisis during the late stage of the Qing period provided the impetus for a Chinese nationalism centered on the desire to emulate the institutions of the modern nation-state.135 Central to the imperative of nation-state building was acquiring (then surpassing) the technological primacy enjoyed by Japan and the Western Imperialists. Technology was,
133 Ibid
134 Yongnian Zheng, Globalization and State Transformation in China
135 Ibid
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from the earliest stages, seen as an essential component of national power.
Within the reformist movement, many saw European technological superiority as determinative. Deeply disturbed by the series of both internal and external crises confronting Imperial China, public intellectuals like Feng Guifen advocated for processes of “self-strengthening” wherein China actively borrowed and indigenized foreign practices as a means of building up national capability and “catching-up” with the foreign imperialists.136 If Feng’s overarching goal was the construction of a powerful and modern Chinese state capable of warding off foreign aggressors, then his preferred strategy for state-building contained within it the roots of techno-nationalist thought. Feng prioritized military development as the central
imperative of the modern Chinese state and pushed for the acquisition of foreign weaponry in the short term as a means to help Chinese learn how to use, manufacture and, eventually, innovate military technology in the longer term.137
According to Morris Bian, Republican China’s approach to development drew heavily from the thinking of Sun Yatsen; prioritizing extensive state control and bureaucratic planning with an emphasis on the
development of national defense and heavy industry.138 Industrialization, under the aegis of heavy state direction, was seen as the preferred means of building up defensive capabilities for safeguarding against further external exploitation. The early ROC saw the improvement of economic welfare as subservient to the central goal of bolstering national strength via military development; ensuring a pathway to safeguarding future independence and sovereignty.
Upon coming to power in 1949, the Communist regime immediately confronted a China both ruined by decades of continuous warfare and facing severe national security challenges requiring swift action. Tai-Ming Cheung, describing the imperative placed on the building up of a technologically modernized and self-sufficient defense capability, writes that “the Communist leadership saw China as being on the front line of
136 Orville Schell and John Delury, Wealth and Power, 2013.
137 Ibid
138 Bian, State Capitalism, Institutional Adaptation, and the Chinese Miracle.
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an escalating East-West confrontation and prepared for conflict against an adversary that was armed with both conventional and nuclear weapons.”139 Cheung states that military techno-nationalism - largely a reflection of the extensive militarization of the Chinese party-state - was the dominant approach taken by China toward the development of technology in the pre-1978 period. The twenty-year span following the establishment of the People’s Republic saw political decision-making largely monopolized by a military-centric leadership exceedingly focused on regime survival in the face of severe external security threats.140
Within the upper echelons of the CCP - particularly the PLA - state building, high technology, and national power situated together. Military security prerogatives deeply embedded themselves within the overall PRC approach toward national development, where possession of indigenous technology – principally in the realm of defense – became inseparable from perceptions of national power and prestige.141 The outbreak of the Korean War in particular represents a major causal factor in driving the PRC further in the direction of centrally planned industrialization as a means of bolstering indigenous defense production capabilities. As Feigenbaum writes, “the war revealed to Chinese military leaders a host of larger deficiencies and convinced them of the need for technological modernization virtually across the board”142
In this context of profound insecurity, the institutions of state heavily focused upon building an indigenous S&T base necessary in sustaining a modern military deterrent. Early stages of CCP industrial policy followed a Stalinist approach emphasizing the rapid development of capital-intensive heavy industry, wherein many of the institutional structures associated with the development of national science and technology were copied wholesale from the USSR .143 To do so, it set up a network of high-tech research institutions focused on the creation of strategic weapons technology. The network centered around the elite Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), where substantial volumes of overall GDP were devoted to science and technology R&D.
139 Cheung, Fortifying China, 23
140 Cheung, The Economic-Security Nexus in Northeast Asia
141 Evan Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors, 2003.
142 Ibid, 23.
143 Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth, 2007.
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That pre-1978 China opted for military techno-nationalism is not to say that it pursued technological autarky.
With the newly installed PRC government effectively boxed out of international markets and lacking a significant domestic technology base, Soviet technology transfers played an integral role in the initial stages of the PRC’s industrialization drive. According to Naughton:
The Soviet Union transferred not only the technologies themselves – having a profound impact on every aspect of Chinese industrial and military technology – but also the key institutions that shape incentives to adopt technology. The organizational structure of the entire national system of research and innovation came from the Soviet model, beginning with the elite research institutes of the CAS.
This was probably the largest coordinated transfer of technology across national borders ever known.144
The development of numerous strategically important industries ranging from aerospace and steel to electronics and communication relied heavily on Soviet technology and expertise.145 In this environment, techno-nationalist thinking shaped the overall strategic framework; setting out an idealized end-goal of extensive industrialization centered upon a fully indigenized strategic weapons program. However, while stressing technological autonomy, domestic weakness necessitated pragmatism, compromise, and continual Soviet dependency. Much as in the preceding Republican period, external importation of technology was seen by state planners as a temporary stop-gap measure; allowing China access to technology necessary for ensuring national security and development until an indigenous alternative could be developed. Growing dependency on Soviet technology in the wake of Korea came to be seen as a major point of vulnerability, prompting further emphasis on developing indigenous strategic weapons technology.146
To that end, the obsessive focus on military security during this period resulted in defense related research
144 Ibid, 354.
145 Jean-Christophe Defraigne. “China’s Industrial Policy.” ECRAN. 2014.
146 Naughton, The Chinese Economy
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and industrial production comprising a disproportionate share of the overall economy. While massive outlays came at serious cost to public welfare, the military techno-nationalism of the Mao period did result in two notable successes: the development of an indigenous satellite and nuclear weapons program.147 The
prioritization of developing strategic weaponry - one which largely integrated national security concerns into the entire framework for technology and national development - overrode the extensive bureaucratic
politicization seen over the course of the Mao period. The upper echelons of the military science bureaucracy were comparatively insulated from the upheavals brought about by the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.148 They were accorded greater academic/research freedoms, drew heavily upon research and expertise emanating from the U.S.S.R., United States and Western Europe, and devoted less professional time to the “political work” commonly emphasized in civilian bureaucracy and academia.
Breakdown in Sino-Soviet relations cut off technological patronage, casting China into a period of premature technological autarky and severely retarding future development from the mid-1960s until the late 1970s.
The split imperiled the PRC’s existing technology strategy, one which saw the importation of Soviet
products and technical expertise as a way-station toward eventual self-reliance. China’s economy stagnated during this time; lacking alternative partners, deeply in thrall of rigid central planning, highly inefficient, and beset by rampant political upheaval. In spite of the success of the “two bombs, one satellite” strategic
weapons program, innovations in the defense sector were balkanized from the broader civilian economy.
Technological diffusion was limited and few high-tech products were produced at mass-scale for general consumption.
Despite being a technological laggard, ideological and institutional legacies of Mao-era militarization - principally embodied in the PRC’s approach to developing a strategic weapons program - remained deeply embedded within the overall structure of China’s political economy generations later. For Evan Feigenbaum, author of China’s Techno Warriors, “the power of its ideas, coupled with the survival of the strategic
147 Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors
148 Ibid
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weapons elite through the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, made this doctrine and its organizational complement an important legacy for China’s leaders as they moved to refocus the country’s goals on national economic growth.”149