Events

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The Return of Industrial and Technology Policy in China and the US

Jason Jackson, JS Tan and Dan Traficonte

The rapidly intensifying rivalry between China and the US, particularly in technology-intensive industries, has prompted a shift in industrial policy in China and the US. In both countries, these policy shifts have couched in economic nationalist terms. The issue of intellectual property has been particularly acute in the emerging discourse and debate since key part of Chinese industrial policy has been to copy competitors’ products. Copying technology may well be in the DNA of Chinese industry, highlighting a potentially a sharp cultural contrast with Silicon Valley that values – and rewards – ‘disruption’ through novel ideas and first mover advantage. Our project compares these parallel industrial policy transformations in China and the United States, considering in particular how the explicit return of industrial policy in the US should be assessed in relation to the crisis of neoliberalism.