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国最新五年规划预示着中国可能会从依赖出口型经济进一步向国内消费型经济转变，将国内消费作为经济的增长引擎。实现这一目标的关键是提高中国的创新能力。不过到目前为止，中国的创新能力令人喜忧参半。了解为何会出现这种情况以及如何解决是评估中国能否成功实现经济转型的关键。
Associated Press
天津是世界上最快的计算机天河一号的诞生地。
特别值得一提的是，中国研发支出的主体正从政府控制的研究所向大中型企业转变，后者的研发支出占中国研发总支出的60%。尽管外资企业总是抱怨中国知识产权保护力度不够，但跨国企业在中国设立的研发中心有近1,500家，这些研发中心的开支占到中国总研发开支的7%。
在电信和制药等一些领域的创新从市场上就可见一斑。中国企业和大学已经发现了好几种全新的化合物。饶毅和施一公分别是遗传学和结构生物学方面的专家，他们与其他研究员被认为是各自领域的世界领导者。华为和中兴全球市场份额的增加已不再是仅依靠"价格战"，而是通过低价与创新相结合。举例来说，华为研制出了堪称世界第一的100G技术，可实现大量数据的长距离无线传输。总体来说，中国2010年的专利申请数量可能会首次超过美国。
不过尽管中国在创新方面做出了如此巨大的进步，但是这一切行业创新却缺失了可能更为重要的"发明式"创新。中国目前很多最棒的商业创新，除对于新的实物产品进行开发外，都是在开发创造性商业模式的基础上进行的。远大空调发明了一种方法，对以天然气为动力的空调系统进行商业化，供大型商业建筑使用。阿里巴巴(Alibaba)建立了一种基于网上平台的新的商业模式，将中国小型生产商与国外的买家联系起来。
这都是有可能的，因为中国决策者已经从先前的创新失败案例中吸取了重要教训。最大的教训就是很难自上而下实施创新。在尝试开发移动通信自主技术标准的过程中，这点尤其明显，因为可使用的替代标准已经存在。中国投资数十亿开发TDS-CDMA技术并进行商业化，国内外却没有多少人买账。
现在，北京开始利用新的创新模式做实验，集中发掘之前的机会并为市场参与者创新提供动力。电动车将会是重要考验。这是一个在全球层面创新空间仍十分巨大的行业。中国将会向不同的公司投资80亿美元的研发资金，试图在2020年之前使市场规模达到一个量化目标。政府承诺采购这些车作为官方用车，加上对消费者的刺激，将会确保一定的需求量。但关键在于，实际创新将会由私营企业来完成。
可以预见得到，薄弱点仍然存在。例如在消费者电子产品领域，创新往往缺乏独创性──对韩国和日本开发的产品进行改良，而不是开发全新的产品。在仔细研究消费者偏好的基础上所做的创新十分罕见，尤其是针对中国以外的消费者。中国公司仍然太频繁地注重凭借"还算可以"的产品扩展全球市场份额，而不是以全新产品开拓市场。在银行等国家主导的领域，产品和服务创新一直很有限。
更广义来说，问题依然在于，决策者如何能够很好地选择有创新意义的领域。尽管对电动车的支持很有前途，但中国实际上却在将传统燃油发动机汽车的创新拱手让给塔塔（Tata）等印度公司。鉴于常规车型在中国市场的潜在规模，这好比是一场政策赌博。印度人正在以全球最便宜汽车Nano这样的设计不断突破。他们还正在发现，传统领域的创新将催生更具技术优势的创新──拭目以待电池驱动式Nano的问世。
中国没有理由不渴求这种创新。迄今为止的证据显示，在适当的激励下，中国科学家、工程师和企业家都渴望直面为全球市场开发产品的挑战。政策上的挑战将会释放这种创新的能量。
（编者注：本文作者欧高敦（Gordon Orr）是麦肯锡公司（McKinsey & Company）亚洲区负责人。）
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（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
GORDON ORR
China's latest five-year plan promises to shift the economy away from its dependence on exports and more toward domestic consumption as an engine of growth. Key to achieving this will be enhancing the ability of the economy to innovate. Yet China's record on this score so far is mixed. Understanding why that is, and how to fix it, is key to estimating the likelihood China will succeed in its ambitious goals.
The first step is to appreciate the different kinds of innovation going on right now. Most people think of 'inventing things' when they hear that word, and on this score China is making some progress toward becoming a more innovative economy instead of merely mass-producing goods that are designed elsewhere. China's spending on research and development has risen to 1.5% of GDP in 2008 from 1.25% in 2004, all the more impressive when you consider that GDP itself increased dramatically during that period. While China is unlikely to meet the goal of 2% set for this year in the last five-year plan, it still accounts for 12% of global R&D spending.
Significantly, this R&D spending is shifting away from government-controlled research institutes and into large- and medium enterprises, which now account for 60% of the total R&D spend. Despite frequent complaints about lax intellectual-property protections, foreign-invested companies account for fully 7% of this spending, spread among close to 1,500 R&D centers established by multinational companies.
In some areas such as telecommunications and pharmaceuticals, innovation shows through in the market. Local companies and universities have discovered multiple new chemical compounds in China. Researchers such as Yi Rao and Shi Yigong, experts in genetics and structural biology respectively, are regarded as world leaders in their fields. Huawei's and ZTE's global gains in market share have shifted from being solely on the basis of cost to a combination of cost and innovation. For example, Huawei has developed a world-first '100G' technology capable of delivering large amounts of data wirelessly over long distances. Overall, China is likely to overtake the U.S. for number of patents filed in 2010 for the first time.
Yet despite so much progress, all this industrial innovation misses other, potentially more important, forms of invention. Much of the best business innovation in China today is built around developing creative business models in addition to, or instead of, new physical products. Broad developed a way to commercialize gas-powered air conditioning systems for large commercial buildings. Alibaba built a new business around an online platform to connect smaller Chinese producers with buyers abroad.
This is all possible because Chinese policy makers have learned some important lessons from earlier innovation failures. The biggest is that it's hard to impose innovation from the top down. This was especially apparent in the attempt to develop an indigenous technological standard for mobile telephony, when serviceable alternatives already existed. After investing billions to develop and commercialize the TDS-CDMA technology, Beijing finds few takers in China or elsewhere.
Beijing now is starting an experiment with a different innovation model that focuses on identifying opportunities earlier and creating incentives for market participants to innovate. Electric vehicles will be an important test here. This is an industry that is still very much open to innovation at the global level. Beijing will invest $8 billion in R&D at various companies in an attempt to meet a numerical target for market size by 2020. Government commitments to buy the cars for official fleets combined with incentives to consumers will guarantee a certain amount of demand. But, crucially, the actual innovation will be left to the private sector.
Predictably, weak spots remain. In consumer electronics, for example, innovations tend to be derivative─refining products developed in South Korea and Japan, instead of developing fundamentally new products. Innovation based on careful study of consumer preferences is rare, especially when the consumers are beyond China. Chinese companies still too often focus on expanding global market share with just-good-enough products instead of creating markets with totally new products. And in state-dominated service sectors like banking, there has been limited product or service innovation.
More broadly, there also is still the question of how well policy makers will pick the areas where it makes sense to innovate. Although support for electronic cars is promising, China is effectively ceding innovation in traditional combustion-engine cars to Indian companies such as Tata. This is a policy gamble given the potential size of China's market for regular cars. Indians are pushing the envelop with designs such as the world's cheapest car, the Nano. They are also finding that innovation in a traditional area can lead to innovation closer to the technological edge─witness the plan to build a battery-powered Nano.
There is no reason China shouldn't aspire to that kind of innovation as well. The evidence to date shows that, given the right incentives, Chinese scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are eager to rise to the challenge of developing products for the global market. The policy challenge will be unleashing that innovation.
Mr. Orr is Asia chairman at McKinsey & Company.
China's latest five-year plan promises to shift the economy away from its dependence on exports and more toward domestic consumption as an engine of growth. Key to achieving this will be enhancing the ability of the economy to innovate. Yet China's record on this score so far is mixed. Understanding why that is, and how to fix it, is key to estimating the likelihood China will succeed in its ambitious goals.
The first step is to appreciate the different kinds of innovation going on right now. Most people think of 'inventing things' when they hear that word, and on this score China is making some progress toward becoming a more innovative economy instead of merely mass-producing goods that are designed elsewhere. China's spending on research and development has risen to 1.5% of GDP in 2008 from 1.25% in 2004, all the more impressive when you consider that GDP itself increased dramatically during that period. While China is unlikely to meet the goal of 2% set for this year in the last five-year plan, it still accounts for 12% of global R&D spending.
Significantly, this R&D spending is shifting away from government-controlled research institutes and into large- and medium enterprises, which now account for 60% of the total R&D spend. Despite frequent complaints about lax intellectual-property protections, foreign-invested companies account for fully 7% of this spending, spread among close to 1,500 R&D centers established by multinational companies.
In some areas such as telecommunications and pharmaceuticals, innovation shows through in the market. Local companies and universities have discovered multiple new chemical compounds in China. Researchers such as Yi Rao and Shi Yigong, experts in genetics and structural biology respectively, are regarded as world leaders in their fields. Huawei's and ZTE's global gains in market share have shifted from being solely on the basis of cost to a combination of cost and innovation. For example, Huawei has developed a world-first '100G' technology capable of delivering large amounts of data wirelessly over long distances. Overall, China is likely to overtake the U.S. for number of patents filed in 2010 for the first time.
Yet despite so much progress, all this industrial innovation misses other, potentially more important, forms of invention. Much of the best business innovation in China today is built around developing creative business models in addition to, or instead of, new physical products. Broad developed a way to commercialize gas-powered air conditioning systems for large commercial buildings. Alibaba built a new business around an online platform to connect smaller Chinese producers with buyers abroad.
This is all possible because Chinese policy makers have learned some important lessons from earlier innovation failures. The biggest is that it's hard to impose innovation from the top down. This was especially apparent in the attempt to develop an indigenous technological standard for mobile telephony, when serviceable alternatives already existed. After investing billions to develop and commercialize the TDS-CDMA technology, Beijing finds few takers in China or elsewhere.
Beijing now is starting an experiment with a different innovation model that focuses on identifying opportunities earlier and creating incentives for market participants to innovate. Electric vehicles will be an important test here. This is an industry that is still very much open to innovation at the global level. Beijing will invest $8 billion in R&D at various companies in an attempt to meet a numerical target for market size by 2020. Government commitments to buy the cars for official fleets combined with incentives to consumers will guarantee a certain amount of demand. But, crucially, the actual innovation will be left to the private sector.
Predictably, weak spots remain. In consumer electronics, for example, innovations tend to be derivative─refining products developed in South Korea and Japan, instead of developing fundamentally new products. Innovation based on careful study of consumer preferences is rare, especially when the consumers are beyond China. Chinese companies still too often focus on expanding global market share with just-good-enough products instead of creating markets with totally new products. And in state-dominated service sectors like banking, there has been limited product or service innovation.
More broadly, there also is still the question of how well policy makers will pick the areas where it makes sense to innovate. Although support for electronic cars is promising, China is effectively ceding innovation in traditional combustion-engine cars to Indian companies such as Tata. This is a policy gamble given the potential size of China's market for regular cars. Indians are pushing the envelop with designs such as the world's cheapest car, the Nano. They are also finding that innovation in a traditional area can lead to innovation closer to the technological edge─witness the plan to build a battery-powered Nano.
There is no reason China shouldn't aspire to that kind of innovation as well. The evidence to date shows that, given the right incentives, Chinese scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are eager to rise to the challenge of developing products for the global market. The policy challenge will be unleashing that innovation.
Mr. Orr is Asia chairman at McKinsey & Company.
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