China’s mercantilist strategy to grab market share in the global semiconductor industry is fueling the rise of inferior innovators at the expense of superior firms in the United States and other market-led economies. That siphons away resources that would otherwise be invested in the virtuous cycle of cutting-edge R&D that has driven semiconductor innovation for decades.
China
February 18, 2021
February 8, 2021
But these generous policies so far have not resulted in market dominance. To date, only 148 of COMAC’s planes are confirmed to have been purchased.
January 20, 2021
Understanding how Germany manipulated the global trading system to degrade its adversaries’ capabilities, entrap nations as reluctant allies, and build up its own industries for commercial and military advantage—just as China is doing—can shed light and point the way for solutions to the China challenge.
November 30, 2020
Fearmongers claim the 5G sky is falling: China is way ahead, and drastic measures are needed to catch up. But these claims are often based on poorly understood comparisons of 5G deployment. China’s 5G stats can paint a misleading picture if taken at face value.
November 23, 2020
Recent years have seen China increase its spending on basic and applied research, which is likely to drive its innovation going forward and could be a large factor behind an eventual Chinese leadership role in global innovation.
November 23, 2020
With protectionist policies shielding their rear flank domestically, China’s digital firms are out to capture global market share. Their strategy hinges on state-backed innovation mercantilism—and their success will come at the cost of U.S. jobs, exports, and economic growth.
October 13, 2020
A new study has found that firms with CEOs who turned 18 during the Cultural Revolution spend less on R&D, generate fewer patents, and receive fewer citations to these patents.
October 8, 2020
Rob Atkinson talked to Kula Partners principals Carman Pirie and Jeff W. White on their Kula Ring podcast about how U.S.-China relations are affecting manufacturers, particularly North American firms with supply chains in China.
October 7, 2020
ITIF hosted a discussion of these issues, including how U.S. businesses are likely to be affected and what the U.S. government should do in response. An expert panel will discuss a recent ITIF report arguing the United States and its allies should focus on rebalancing global supply chains, bolstering competitiveness, adjusting to China’s market size, and solidifying the West’s appeal.
October 5, 2020
WASHINGTON—Excessive subsidy-powered competition from China decimated solar photovoltaic manufacturing in the rest of the world in the 2010s, eliminating multiple innovative companies and altering the path of innovation, according to a new report released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world’s top-ranked think
October 5, 2020
China’s subsidy-aided rise to dominance in PV manufacturing has driven prices way down, but at the cost of undermining promising alternative technological pathways. Policymakers should adopt measures to sustain greater diversity in PV and similar technologies.
September 21, 2020
The study finds that for technologies that China has identified as strategic, a patent application’s risk of rejection rises from 16.6 to 25.6 percent if it is foreign, an increase of 54 percent.
September 10, 2020
“The cloud market is growing quickly in China in part because individual and business broadband adoption is still growing at a robust pace,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based think tank for technology policy. The group’s board includes officials from Amazon. com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other U.S. cloud providers.
September 8, 2020
China is striving to become the global leader in biopharmaceuticals, but many of its policy steps are “innovation mercantilist” in nature. This not only is expected to threaten U.S. leadership, but also slow global life sciences innovation, with negative consequences for cures and treatments.
September 2, 2020
In a response for the European Commission’s public consultation on its “white paper on levelling the playing field as regards foreign subsidies,” ITIF agreed there is a need for new legal instruments to address distortions of the internal market arising from subsidies granted by non-EU authorities.
August 31, 2020
China will likely be the biggest business disruptor of the 2020s, but the discussion about how to respond has yet to take shape. A strategic framework should rebalance the global supply chains, bolster competitiveness, adjust to China’s market size, and solidify the West’s appeal.
August 20, 2020
What happened? How did America go from the world’s leader to not even an also-ran in the span of just two decades? Equally troubling, why did no one sound the alarm bell when there was still time for action?
August 7, 2020
The possible prohibition on U.S. companies selling to Tencent, owner of WeChat, or using its services to sell their own products in China does nothing to protect the security or privacy of Americans. It only harms U.S. companies and jobs.
July 13, 2020
A major study from 2016 that found that Chinese imports increased European patent growth up to 30 percent between 1996-2005 had major coding flaws. The correct data show negative & insignificant changes due to Chinese competition.
June 30, 2020
The Unites States needs to develop a better response to counter China’s use of censorship as a non-tariff barrier to trade, and to deter other countries that may seek to replicate the practice.
June 29, 2020
There is a vibrant debate underway in Washington about how to respond to China, particularly its “innovation mercantilist” policies. Most ideological camps favor tougher action than the U.S. government has taken in the past, but there is little consensus on what that action should look like.
June 22, 2020
China’s state-backing of Huawei and ZTE allowed these companies to seize global market share from more innovative international competitors, reducing their growth in sales and investments in R&D. This, in turn, hurt global innovation in the industry.
June 15, 2020
COVID-19 has prompted calls for reshoring of medical goods, including strict “Buy American” prescriptions. While reshoring is important, “Buy American” fails to recognize the value of the global supply chain and avoids addressing the real problem, China.
May 21, 2020
Rob Atkinson and Clyde Prestowitz explain in the Washington Post why it is important for America and its allies to consider such measure as Beijing is trying to intimidate foreign governments.
May 18, 2020
The trade ban limits the ability of U.S. companies to effectively participate in standards setting organizations whenever Huawei is present. This constraint only hurts U.S. competitiveness with no clear benefit and should have been addressed by the Department of Commerce long ago.