Recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that core technology is China's important "national instrument", and as a major power, China should master such "instrument". Indeed, core technology is an important cornerstone for safeguarding national security. To a certain extent, the competition among the major powers in the world is the competition of core technology; the country that has mastered the technology gains an upper hand and avoids being constrained by other countries. On the other hand, innovation is the primary driving force for development, and it is the most critical factor in the country's overall national strength and core competitiveness. To hasten the breakthrough in core technology, China will need to focus on innovation itself.
The deterioration of trade frictions between China and the United States and the ZTE incident reveal the shortcomings of China's technology; the focus of President Xi on utilizing innovation for the breakthrough of core technology undoubtedly highlights the key issue. President Xi also talked about the issue of independent innovation, talents, and institutional innovation; these aspects are all very important and are the key elements for achieving innovation and technological breakthroughs. However, in order to put these aspects in one place, in addition to policy adjustments, it is also necessary to have a large number of carriers capable of carrying innovations. These carriers are directly related to whether the country would be able to generate a series of core technology. In a sense, these carriers are the real "national instruments." According to Anbound's senior researcher He Jun, the "national instrument" is neither government nor political party. There are two types of real "national instrument", the first is the outstanding companies playing supporting role in industrial and technical fields, the second is outstanding universities and research institutes that train huge numbers of innovative talents.
The Chinese-U.S. trade frictions in recent months and the U.S. sanctions on Chinese technology companies have stimulated the discussions on the gap between China and the United States. Huawei's director and senior vice president Chen Lifang said in a speech at the Huawei new employees conference that, "We must face up to the strength of the United States and see the gap between us, then resolute to learn from the United States. We must never allow anti-American sentiment to dominate our work. Do not support populism in society, and do not allow populism to exist internally, at least do not allow it to have the opportunity to speak. All employees must have a sense of crisis, and should never be blindly optimistic nor to be parochially nationalistic." This speech has since become viral in China.
Why should China learn from the United States? Looking at American companies, especially the real American manufacturing industry, many of the world's major companies belong to the U.S., and to name a few, General Electric, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, United Technologies, Lithon Industrial, Marsh, CSC, ITT, Joint Defense, Hughes Electronics, L-3 Communications, Alliant Technology Systems, Harris, Rockwell, Alcon Industries, Veridian, Silicon Graphic Computing , Booz Allen Hamilton, Primex Technology, Metri E... EDG, DRS, Tridyne Technology, Lear Siegler, Equipment Support Systems, Titan, Anteon, AM General, Electronic Data Systems, Oshkosh, Kubic, General Motors, Dow Chemical, Huntsman, PPG, Eastman Chemical, Monsanto, Dow Corning, HP and Agilent, IBM, Tyco , Intel, Caterpillar, Delphi, DuPont, Johnson Controls, Cisco, 3M, Deere, Goodyear, Xerox, Emerson, Whirlpool, Motorola, Lucent, Pfizer, Roche, Eli Lilly and others. These are only the U.S. companies delivering in the manufacturing industry. These are enough to show the strength of the United States. In the field of composite materials, the accumulated process data of DuPont is 25 times more than China has already mastered. In the area of turbofan engines, the number of materials and process tests completed in China is only 5% of General Electric (GE).
Another type of "national instrument" is universities. The United States has the world's largest group of outstanding universities, such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and so on. Among the top 100 universities in the world, American universities account for more than half. These outstanding universities have not only produced many leading global scientific research achievements, but more importantly, they have attracted a large number of outstanding students from all over the world and have also delivered a large number of highly qualified talents to the United States.
Through these simple examples, we can see that the existence of outstanding companies and universities is the pillar of the overall national strength of the United States. It is the pride of the United States and the reason for it to be strong. China is advancing the transformation of economic development and adjusting its industrial structure; yet it is precisely under the pressures of the United States that enables us to realize the huge gap between China and the United States, Japan, and Germany in the core technology. At present, China's will to seek innovative breakthroughs and develop core technology is already strong enough. China's efforts to lift the country's resources to invest in core industries would not have any issue. As for insufficient innovative talent, this can also be overcome. However, Anbound believes that there are two types of innovative carriers that China lacks, namely excellent companies and outstanding universities, which cannot be solved merely by investing money within a short period of time. Instead, these need to be based on stable reforms and openness of enterprises and universities; such development can only exist after a long period of cultivation.
Excellent Chinese companies with world-class competitiveness will not be able to develop from state-owned enterprises that have developed in accordance with the existing system. Institutional inertia and congenital mechanisms have made it impossible for state-owned enterprises to have innovative ability and market competitiveness. This means that in the future, China will have to vigorously develop private enterprises, mixed-ownership enterprises, or utilize state-owned enterprises after thorough reforms with mutual funds. It is also a great challenge for China to develop outstanding universities with innovative ideas. Chinese universities urgently need reforms to remove the politicization and administration in the development of universities, and to make universities truly educational and innovative platforms for cultivating a large number of innovative, knowledgeable individuals that can contribute to the society. China needs to learn from the successful experience of outstanding universities around the world, encourage private and various social capitals to run outstanding universities, and gradually develop Chinese version of California Institute of Technology, MIT and Stanford.
Final Analysis Conclusion:
Technically, the core technology is the "national instrument"; from the carrier point of view, excellent companies and outstanding universities are the real "national instruments".
