China's Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age

by Evan Feigenbaum

In the spring of 1987, the father of China’s strategic missile program, Qian Xuesen, told colleagues that China must steel itself for a century of sustained “intellectual warfare.” His use of a military metaphor was not a linguistic quirk, but reflected the central role of the military in China’s emergence as a modern state, especially in the period since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Over the course of the Communist era, a uniquely military approach to China's development became embedded in the ideologies of the country's political leadership, in policy choices about national security and economic development, and in the organizational solutions adopted to put these policies into practice. This book tells the story of how and why the Chinese military came to play such a powerful role in China's economic and institutional development. It weaves together four Chinese views of technology since 1950, the role of the military in China’s political and economic life, the evolution of open and flexible conceptions of public management in China, and the technological dimensions of the rise of Chinese power. But the book primarily explores and explains a paradox. This military approach to technology and development emerged during China's period of greatest external threat, 1950-69. Yet these policies and management methods persist even as China enjoys perhaps its most benign strategic environment since the 1840s.

Genres: China, History

360 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2003

Reviews

[Shawn]

Pretty dry account of China's national defense policy since the Korean War. For decades civilian industries were made to serve the military, with expectations that technology spillover will boost civilian technology sectors. This obsession with self-reliance has led to stagnation and costly "prestige" SSBN, ICBM and Comsat programs, alienating the civilian agricultural factions. The opposite proved difficult for the leadership and therein lies the paradox: If you want to build your own modern army to defend your isolation, you have to develop relations abroad and allow potentially disruptive technology transfers in. It wasn't until the 863 programs (with the blessings of Deng), that the tech model was flipped: Profitable and creativity-inspiring civilian IT and bio-tech spin-offs will make off-the-shelf, dual-use products that benefit the military.

[Karson]

needs an editor, but great and very interesting substance