China's Emergence as a Defense Technological Power

by Tai Ming Cheung (Editor)

Overview

China is flexing its growing military and strategic clout in the pursuit of broadening national security interests. At the same time, the country’s economic and technology policies have also become more nationalistic, state-centered, and ambitious. China’s defense economy has set its sights on catching up with the West by the beginning of the 2020s and is making steady progress in building up its innovation capabilities, although this is presently in the form of incremental and sustaining types of activities. More high-end, disruptive forms of innovation that would lead to major breakthroughs are likely to be beyond China’s reach in the near-to medium term.

This volume provides a wide-ranging and detailed assessment of the present state of the Chinese defense economy at a time of rapid change and accelerating advancement in its innovation capabilities and performance. This collection of articles has three main goals: (1) to locate China’s defense innovation dynamics within broader historical, technological and methodological frameworks of analysis; (2) to assess the performance of the Chinese defense economy’s six principal subsectors; and (3) to compare China’s approach to defense industrialization with major counterparts in the Asia-Pacific region.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138798427
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/23/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Tai Ming Cheung is the director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). He directs the Minerva Initiative program on Chinese security and technology, a multi-year academic research and training project funded by the U.S. Defense Department to explore China’s technological potential. His most recent book, Fortifying China: The Struggle to Build a Modern Defense Economy, was published in 2009 by Cornell University Press.

Table of Contents

1. China’s Emergence as a Defense Technological Power: Introduction 2. China’s Anti-Access Strategy in Historical and Theoretical Perspective 3. The Chinese Defense Economy’s Long March from Imitation to Innovation 4. ‘Technology Determines Tactics’: The Relationship between Technology and Doctrine in Chinese Military Thinking 5. The Chinese Aviation Industry: Techno-Hybrid Patterns of Development in the C919 Program 6. Upward and Onward: Technological Innovation and Organizational Change in China’s Space Industry 7. China’s Defense Technology and Industrial Base in a Regional Context: Arms Manufacturing in Asia 8. The Slow Death of Japanese Techno-Nationalism? Emerging Comparative Lessons for China’s Defense Production 9. On Military Innovation: Toward an Analytical Framework