China's Communist Party will adapt as economy develops

Subject

China's efforts to become an innovation-led economy.

Significance

China has become wealthy and technologically advanced but retains an authoritarian state that gives market forces a smaller role in the economy than Western governments do. The degree to which China's system helps or hinders innovation is difficult to assess and discussion is often coloured by ideology. There is consensus, however, that innovation is crucial for China's economic development to continue.

Impacts

• Some Chinese firms may be better prepared than Western ones to succeed in the global South.
• China's leaders do not assume inexorable movement towards market mechanisms, but rather ongoing recalibration in response to circumstances.
• It is unlikely that any other country could replicate the manufacturing structure that China has in high-end digital goods.