Strengthening top–down design? Mapping science, technology and innovation policy developments in China in the age of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

In the COVID-19 era, science, technology and innovation (STI) dynamics witness fundamental changes as the global expansion of government mission-oriented STI policies emphasises political stability, environmental sustainability and social inclusiveness. How does this global directionality affect China, a country known for its strong leadership in setting strategic STI policy directions? By performing a content analysis of 1,268 STI policies issued by the Chinese government before and after the pandemic started in 2020, we document the country’s latest attempts of top–down design of STI dynamics that use import and export barriers to restrict the flows of STI activities while crack down on the country’s effervescent STI scene to control what Chinese enterprises see and do, at both the national and local government levels. This increasing protectionist and interventionist tendency is a legacy of the U.S.-China trade war era when China was forced to ensure that its domestic technological progress could continue independently of the global market. However, to achieve such independence, we suggest that the country needs to restructure its demand-side, supply-side and environmental-side STI policy instruments to create a more efficient market space for techno-entrepreneurship, as it is hard to shore up political control without damping bottom–up entrepreneurial vigour.

KEYWORDS:

• STI
• China
• policy instruments
• governance
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Press release by the Hainan Provincial Government, retrieved in March 2022 at: http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-02/26/content_5588980.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yi Yang

Dr. Yi Yang is an assistant professor of public management at the School of Government and a member of the Research Center of Government Performance Evaluation, Peking University, China. He has published widely in the fields of social theory, political science and public management.

Meng Liang

Meng Liang is a PhD candidate at the School of Government, Peking University. She specializes in policy evaluation and data analytics.

Shouji Sun

Dr. Shouji Sun is an associate professor at the School of Insurance and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, China. He studies the economics of innovation.

Yunjin Zou

Yunjin Zou is a PhD candidate at the School of Government, Peking University, with expertise on dissecting STI related metrics.