China's Approach to Technology Acquisition

Part I of a study that addresses the question of how extensively and how effectively the People's Republic of China utilizes the great reservoir of technology that is potentially available to it from the most advanced industrial countries. The present report deals with the Chinese aircraft industry. It traces the successive stages of the industry's evolution and delineates the foreign contribution to its technological growth. The study concludes that China's recent foreign aircraft imports contribute only marginally to her own aircraft production technology, which is now roughly 20 years behind the West. Bridging that large gap is now an urgent necessity for China. The overall study is intended to illuminate China's technology acquisition strategy: how that strategy evolved over the past 20-odd years; how it is linked to the process of technology diffusion within China; and how China's present and future rate of high-technology advance is likely to depend upon outside contributions. (See also R-1575.)