Lu Bai Warns Rigid Metrics Stifle China Tech Innovation as Catch-Up Path Narrows on 2 Fronts
Updated
Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 1
Lu Bai Warns Rigid Metrics Stifle China Tech Innovation as Catch-Up Path Narrows on 2 Fronts
3 articles · Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 1
Summary
Lu Bai said China’s old model of rapidly advancing by absorbing Western science is losing force, leaving the country with fewer easy gains in technology and research.
2 pressures are driving that shift, he said: a harsher external environment and a development stage where there is little left to simply replicate.
At a Shanghai Academy of Natural Sciences dialogue published July 27, Lu and other scholars identified metric-driven institutions and deference to authority as the main brakes on creativity.
The warning frames China’s innovation challenge as increasingly internal as well as external, with scientists arguing system reform is now critical to sustain momentum.