SOAS Research Online

Abstract

China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping pursues a “whole-nation” approach to acquire strategic technology from advanced nations. It means the Chinese state uses all resources at its disposal to tap and steer Chinese citizens and members of the Chinese diaspora to use their expertise, money, and network to acquire strategic technology from abroad. This article demonstrates that this approach has three main defining features. The first is to attract foreign technology firms to China, where they are incentivized or coerced into sharing technologies with Chinese companies, especially state-owned enterprises. The second is to acquire foreign technology firms abroad through mergers and acquisitions, portfolio investment, loans, foreign venture capital firms, and greenfield investment. The third is to recruit global technology talents, especially by enticing scientists from advanced countries to relocate to China to carry out research for the benefit of Chinese entities. This paper concludes that while the “whole-nation” approach has delivered significant results, it is reaching the limit of what it can deliver due mainly to backlashes from the governments and companies in Western countries.