China's pursuits of indigenous innovations in information technology developments: hopes,follies and uncertainties

Although the Chinese state has allowed US-based transnational corporations to play an instrumental role in China's information technology (IT)-led development strategy, a dominant segment of Chinese political and technological leadership has always been wary of the negative political, economic and cultural implications of continued American domination in digital technological developments. Chinese efforts at asserting greater control over a rapidly evolving networked communication infrastructure have been multifaceted. Significantly, the past few years have seen an escalation of domestic discourses on “network sovereignty” and “indigenous innovations” or the mastery of core technologies at the industrial development strategy and technological policy levels. An elite consensus has crystallized around the mobilization of national resources to catch up with the United States in hardware and software IT developments, particularly to achieve potential leadership in next-generation network technologies. However, China's quest for technological leadership in the network age continues to be constrained by a range of domestic political economic forces on one hand, and mediated by the paradoxical dynamics of interstate cooperation and rivalry in the political economy of global communication on the other. The growing transnational nature of the capitalist accumulation process, of which China's deepened global integration through its rapidly expanding and increasingly market-driven information industry has been a critical component, has further complicated these endeavors.