The myth behind China as a high-tech Goliath

From The Financial Times: The myth behind China as a high-tech Goliath

"Having become workshop to the world, is China poised to storm the bastions of its high-technology industries? Thanks partly to foreign expansion by Huawei, telecommunications equipment maker, and a few other Chinese companies, the idea is starting to be taken seriously abroad above all in the US, ever jealous of its technological pre-eminence."

"Weak intellectual property laws, long assailed by western companies, are also a self-inflicted handicap because they provide no rewards for innovation. China's international patent applications, though growing, are still less than 1 per cent of the total filed in the US and Europe. And while start-up companies abound in China, they are poorly supported by its financial system. Its bigger banks favour lending to state-owned industries; venture capital is in its infancy, and the country's immature equity market fails to offer the dependable exit route demanded by sophisticated early-stage investors." Read more