During the economic reforms of the last twenty years, China adopted a wide array of policies designed to raise its technological capability and foster industrial growth. Ideologically, the government would not promote private-ownership firms and instead created a hybrid concept, that of "nongovernmental enterprises" or minying qiye. Adam Segal examines the minying experience, particularly in high technology, in four key regions: Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and Guangzhou.

Minying enterprises have been neither clear successes nor abject failures, Segal finds. Instead, outcomes varied: though efforts to create a core of innovative high-tech firms succeeded in Beijing, minying enterprises elsewhere have languished. He points to variations in local implementation of government policies on investment, property-rights regulation, and government supervision as a key to the different outcomes. He explains these peculiarities of implementation by putting official decisions within their local contexts. Extending his analysis, he compares the experience of creating technology enterprises in China with those of Korea (the chaebol system) and Taiwan (enterprise groups).

Based on interviews with entrepreneurs and local government officials, as well as numerous published primary sources, Digital Dragon is the first detailed look at a major Chinese institutional experiment and at high-tech endeavors in China. Can China become a true global economic power? The evolution of the high- technologies sector will determine, Segal says, whether China will become a modern economy or simply a large one.

About the Author

Adam Segal is Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow in China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reviews

Digital Dragon provides an engrossing account of China's efforts to develop nongovernmental high-technology firms as a means of increasing the country's indigenous technological capability.... Through its rich case studies, Digital Dragon offers a complex picture of how high-tech enterprises must be nurtured by a mix of relative autonomy.... Segal's absorbing analysis is highly recommended to sinologists and generalists alike.

-- Thomas G. Moore * Perspectives on Politics *

In Digital Dragon, Segal persuasively argues that the state has played a key role in technology development in China, but it is the local, rather than central state.... Digital Dragon is an important work because it represents a new breed of research, one that is attempting to provide a more nuanced understanding of how state-business relations lead to economic outcomes. It is certainly not the first work to focus on local governments in China, but it is one of the first to specify with such care the range of institutional structures that exist and how they correspond to the economic needs of a particular industrial sector.

-- Eric Thun * Pacific Affairs *

Segal has succeeded in painting a vivid portrait of local backgrounds in the four regions under consideration, starting from interviews with local government officials and entrepreneurs. Anyone who wants to trade with or invest in China will gain a lot from reading this book.

* Leonardo *

This book contains a lot of useful information about some of the celebrated minying enterprises and high-tech development zones, as well as about the government policies and measures related to their success. It is highly readable, and suitable both for business practitioners and for social scientists interested in the state's role in economic development.

-- Bennis Wai-yip So * China Journal *

This book is packed with solid information and exceptional insights.... Segal examines the record of firms in four cities and concludes that success or failure depends very much on the practices of the local governments. The importance of this factor explains one of his most surprising findings: that Beijing firms were more successful than those in Shanghai, where local authorities concentrated their support for high-tech developments on only the large state-owned enterprises and multinationals. In short, there is no getting around the role of government.

* Foreign Affairs *



Book Information
ISBN 9780801476365
Author Adam Segal
Format Paperback
Page Count 200
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 16mm