Vivek Wadhwa at Businessweek says:
In the 1980s, the U.S. was consumed with fear that Japan would become the preeminent power in manufacturing and technology. Those fears never came to pass. Today the same fears are focused on China. The Middle Kingdom appears to be an even more daunting foe, with its enormous foreign reserves, fast-growing economy, oceans of scientists and engineers, and enormous subsidies to high-tech companies. How real is the China threat?
There is no doubt that China is making rapid strides in both infrastructure and technology, but U.S. anxiety of being overtaken by China appears to be misplaced. It takes more than money and might to achieve innovation. This is what I learned when researching the inflated estimates of engineering graduation rates in China and by analyzing its pharmaceutical industry. And this is one of the key findings in a new book titled Chips and Change: How Crisis Reshapes the Semiconductor Industry (MIT Press). Written by professors Clair Brown and Greg Linden of the University of California at Berkeley, the book provides a wealth of information about semiconductor development cycles as well as a fresh and informed look at some of China's key technological capabilities in those realms.
A few years ago, China seemed to be on track to dominate the global semiconductor industry in the same way it currently dominates the electronics manufacturing sector.
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