UNINTER WEEK REVIEW I | Page 3

The Globe

FOR ARTICLE REPRINTS CALL 800-988-0886 OR 617-783-7500, OR VISIT HBR.ORG

Why China Can’t T
Innovate
And What It’s Doing About It

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES

by Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby,
and F. Warren McFarlan

ABOVE Freshmen line up to register at
Tsinghua University, in Beijing.
COPYRIGHT © 2014 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

he Chinese invented gunpowder,
the compass, the waterwheel, paper money, long-distance banking,
the civil service, and merit promotion. Until the early 19th century, China’s economy
was more open and market driven than the
economies of Europe. Today, though, many
believe that the West is home to creative
business thinkers and innovators, and that
China is largely a land of rule-bound rote
learners—a place where R&D is diligently
pursued but breakthroughs are rare.
When we ask why, the answers vary.
Some people blame the engineers. “Most
Chinese start-ups are not founded by designers or artists, but by engineers who
don’t have the creativity to think of new
ideas or designs,” argues Jason Lim, an editor at the website TechNode.
Others blame the government for the
unprecedented scale of its failure to protect intellectual property rights. Apple’s
products have been pirated the world over,
they point out, but only China has opened
March 2014 Harvard Business Review 2