China’S Effective Model of Technological Advancement

• Main Author: Cheung, Tai Ming
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Cornell University Press 2022
• Subjects: sami
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501764349.003.0006

This chapter focuses on the high-level techno-security development model that leverages the core strengths of the country's political, economic, social, defense, and technological systems. It emphasizes that these assets include a formidable mobilization system, an imposing authoritarian leadership structure, a determined absorption and innovation apparatus, and a disciplined approach to project selection and implementation. This is the Selective Authoritarian Mobilization and Innovation (SAMI) model, or what is more commonly known in China as the Two Bombs, One Satellite approach. The chapter discusses how the SAMI model illustrates the relationship between innovation and industrialization in the making of China's strategic technological capabilities. As the chapter argues, these core features tell us that even though innovative thinking and advanced research and development capabilities are important, the main drivers responsible for China's successful outcomes so far in large-scale, complex, multiyear technological projects are sustained high-level leadership attention and engagement coupled with whole-of-nation support and mobilization.