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This working paper offers insights on science and technology in China with supporting official and interview data. The paper, as evidenced from the title, is indicating the future role of Chongqing and its evolution primarily focusing on the period of rapid development of the Municipality after Chongqing became a political entity on the same level as provinces of China. This has coincided with the planning, construction and completion of the Three Gorges Dam Project involving the resettlement of 1,000,000 people – most them coming to the rural areas Chongqing Municipality. Three major sub-themes are highlighted. First, the city played important role during more than 2000 years of its history (in 1981, for example it became first inland port in China open for foreign commerce). In the XX century Chongqing was national capital during the Second World War and the Japanese invasion (Nationalists government). Since then it enjoyed higher political status and economic independence than any other city of the same size in whole western China. Second, the municipality’s geographical position and demographic condition makes it quite unique in West China. It has a population of 31 million, an area of 82 square km, a population density of 379 persons per km2 and a location at the upper reaches of Chang (Yangtze) River. This makes it the gate of Southwest China. Third, Chongqing has a strong basic multi-faced economy in the region. Central investment since the 1950s has assisted the development of a relatively strong modern industrial base in the city. Despite the post-Mao reform era’s impact on social and economic disparities as between the coastal areas and the west, Chongqing remains one of the China’s strongest city economies. Its industrial output value ranked 11th among the 35 biggest city economies in China in 2000, though it ranked behind the top ten most industrialized coastal cities, all of which had attracted much greater foreign investment during the reform era. The campaign to Open up the West provides Chongqing with the opportunity to act as the growth pole for a number of less industrialized provincial-level units in north-west and south-west China. Fourth, the initiatives by central authorities and the extraordinary task of Three Gorges Dam project required among other great tasks also relocation of over 1,2 million people, the rebuilding of two cities, eleven county towns and one hundred sixteen townships from the site of Three Gorges Dam water reservoir. Until 2005 there were already almost one million residents resettled. Less than 20 per cent moved outside Chongqing municipality and the majority was to be accommodated within the region of Chongqing Municipality.

L’ouvrage de Catherine Keyser présente une analyse éclairante de l’essor et de la chute d’une cellule de réflexion (think tank) en Chine. Ce think tank a eu un rôle important pendant la période des réformes qui s’est achevée à la fin du mois de juin 1989. L’auteur fait une étude de cas détaillée, celle de l’Institut de Recherches sur les Réformes Economiques Chinoises (Chinese Economic System Reform Resarch Institute, SRI) qui a été officiellement fondé au début de l’année 1985. En 1989, l’In...

This report provides insights on the expansive development in Shanghai of human resources in higher education and the creation of a huge web of incubators, university science parks, district industrial parks, and various specialized development zones. With a total population of some 17 million and a GDP per capita of around US$3,000 the city planners expects that 2.5 per cent of its GDP will in 2005 be used for research and development. FDI in high technology and returning scientists in microelectronics illustrate the ambitions of Shanghai to become a knowledge city. More than 140 foreign-controlled R&D laboratories have already been established in Shanghai. Their number and sizes will increase and also involve more basic research as the IPR regime improves. Shanghai will emerge as innovative knowledge region on the world stage that before 2020 will be competing with other global knowledge regions such as the Oxford-London-Cambridge triangle by attracting talent and creating new knowledge. This report highlights a rapid and continued expansion of higher education in Shanghai that now has 59 colleges and universities with a total enrolment in 2004 of 600,000 students. The City has 10 universities which are included in the national list of Top-100 Universities which have been selected by the Ministry of Education to receive special treatment and extra resources. Three of a dozen Chinese universities with expectation to become recognized as world-famous research universities are located in Shanghai – Fudan University, Tongji University and Shanghai Jiaotong University. Fudan University Science Park and the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University provide examples of the changing character of the university system in Shanghai Linked to the development of human resources is a web of technological infrastructure of which Zhangjiang High-Technology Development Zone provides an illustration of ongoing efforts to integrate industrial production, research and university education. Shanghai is attracting overseas entrepreneurs in its advancing semiconductor industry, exemplified by SMIC with one of its bases in Zhangjiang High-Technology Development Zone, Shanghai is also attracting returning scientists to expand its IC knowledge base as exemplified by the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University, which has 600 graduate students.

The dynamic development in Ningbo illustrates local changes that have their basis in government support and resources from all levels of government. The rapid development arises from a combination of excellent infrastructure, a strong private entrepreneurship and strong foreign direct Investment (FDI) to exploit the geographical location which will be further enhanced when the bridge, across Hangzhou Bay to Shanghai, is completed by 2008.Ningbo, a famous port city in China, reached in 2000 a population of six million. It is situated 100 kilometres from Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, and 150 kilometres across the water from Shanghai. In terms of geo-economics Ningbo is an integral part of the dynamic Yangtze Delta region; but Ningbo is also trying to develop its own niche based on its comparative advantage. This is an important feature of China’s regional development model. Ningbo is the native place of Ningbo Bird, the forerunner in China’s, as well as a strong contender in the global, mobile handset industry. Ningbo has traditionally been a location for car component industries with early development of spark plugs and car wheels. The Geely car company has used Ningbo for its national expansion The Ningbo car components industry is expanding fuelled by support from the mould industry and a number of private supplier entrepreneurs. There are three major moulding industry centres in China. The moulding industry in Ningbo now employs about 100,000 workers. Ningbo does not want to remain only in knowledge application but in knowledge creation too. To this end Ningbo has four national-scale development zones, one hi-tech zone and 10 provincial and municipal level development zones which cater to both shipping and trade sectors; it is widely using incubators to stimulate new technologies. The Ningbo Hi-Tech Park is an important hi-tech zone in the region. jointly developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ningbo Municipal Government, it was opened in July 1999. In March 2004, the Chinese Ministry of Education approved the establishment of Ningbo-Nottingham China's first Sino-foreign university. The new university will be founded jointly by the University of Nottingham of Britain and the Zhejiang Wanli University in Ningbo with an investment of RMB600 million.

Three major economic regions exist in China Pearl River Delta (PRD), Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Bo Hai Rim (BHR) and have number of important and striking similarities. The success of regional innovation systems in China has its roots in the following three factors. First, the central government has strongly supported the regions by providing a framework and resources for the various types of zones, industrial parks, science parks and incubators where national science and technology programs have often been involved. Second, foreign direct investment and the increasingly closer industrial and technological links with the neighboring countries have given strong impetus to regional development through technology transfer, management skills and extensive links to global markets. Third, the directed but often spontaneous development of technological and industrial clusters has provided the basis for further development. In any country, and particularly in a country like China with its extraordinary size and diversity, technological innovation will take place in a number of its regions that are likely to become spatial innovation systems. Huge amounts of innovations - of a gradual and incremental nature - are already taking place in manufacturing firms all over China, although primarily in the dynamically evolving coastal areas. These firms have often agglomerated into geographical clusters and are found in many industrial sectors. A number of such clusters are evolving into centers of strong innovative capability. They are still weakly linked and inadequately supported by actors within the state-level innovation systems. However, a natural formation of three major regions in China have prompted provinces and cities within them to act as midwifes to bring out an environment that can deliver not only incremental innovations but also breakthrough innovations in future-oriented industries. A number of regional development programs and projects play an important role in this process and has the potential of enhancing needed and strong links between local clusters, foreign technology sources and national programs.

This working paper shows China's technological advance, its basis in using foreign technology combined with its own manpower resources, and its clever integration of regional ambitions with national policies and programs. It also indicates an emerging global rivalry as China moves towards a future status as technological superpower. In any attempt to understand recent and future industrial and economic development in China it becomes unavoidable to think about its various regions as the equivalents of major countries in other parts of the world. In several ways the regions of the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and the Bo-Hai Rim, including Beijing, can be compared with France, Germany and the UK in Europe. By world standards the regions essentially have middle-income purchasing power. The US in the early part of this century remains unchallenged in defense, economics, politics and technology. Japan can be termed a superpower in economics and technology. EU is conceived as a superpower in economics, politics and technology, while Russia has remaining strength in defense and technology. Today, China is a superpower in politics with an emergence in economics and great ambitions in technology. China has during the past ten years dramatically increased the number of students in tertiary education and provided more funding for R&D, not only in absolute terms but also in relation to its GDP. Traditional indicators, such as patents, still suggest that China is far from reaching its goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy. However, monitoring signs of dynamic changes within industrial sectors and emerging competencies in a number of research fields brings forward a much more optimistic scenario.

Two losing teams in mobile telecommunications entered into loose talks in the summer of 2000 to join forces - for Ericsson to cut its dreadful losses and for Sony to re-enter the global arena in mobile handsets. Serious discussions followed by the end of the year, although real planning for full-scale joint venture started only after a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed in April 2001. The two companies brought together complementary resources and made bold statements at the start on October 1 2001. This paper discusses the background and partially covers the implementation process. Sony has been able to considerably broaden its platform for mobile communications which it considers of great significance for its future presence in advanced electronics consumer products and systems. Ericsson has simultaneously departed from consumer products and focused its strategy on mobile infrastructure.

Two losing teams in mobile telecommunications entered into loose talks in the summer of 2000 to join forces – for Ericsson to cut its dreadful losses and for Sony to re-enter the global arena in mobile handsets. Serious discussions followed by the end of the year, although real planning for a full-scale joint venture started only after a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed in April 2001. The two companies brought together complementary resources and made bold statements at the start on October 1 2001. This paper discusses the background and partially covers the implementation process. Sony has been able to considerably broaden its platform for mobile communications which it considers of great significance for its future presence in advanced electronics consumer products and systems. Ericsson has simultaneously departed from consumer products and focused its strategy on mobile infrastructure.

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological leadership that Japan has lost. The consortia landscape is very different in Japan compared with EU and the US. Outside Japan the universities play a much bigger and very important role. In Europe there has emerged close collaboration, among national government agencies, companies and the EU Commission in supporting the IT sector with considerable attention to semiconductor technologies. Another major difference, and possibly the most important one, is the fact that US and EU consortia include and mix partners from different areas of the semiconductor landscape including wafer makers, material suppliers, equipment producers and integrated device makers.

Technological governance has only been partially successful for technological upgrading in the five ASEAN countries discussed, with the exception of Singapore. This is a reflection of the fact that FDI is poorly integrated in local and national structures which severely limits the spill-over effects. The early successful export-oriented economic development is no longer viable unless policies and institutions undergo major changes. Furthermore, a continued high rate of economic growth in China, making country into the “factory of the world, is also upsetting assumptions and viability of earlier policies for technological upgrading in most ASEAN countries.