China's Corporations

choi

Innovation in China | Out of the Master's Shadow; China, long a land of copycats, is making gains as an innovator. Economist, July 9, 2016
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... -out-masters-shadow
(a review on two books: Douglas Fuller, Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons; Firms and the political economy of China's technological development. Oxford Univ Press, 2016; and George Yip and Bruce McKern, China's Next Strategic Advantage; From imitation to innovation. MIT Press, 2016)

Quote: "WeChat, a social-media and payments platform with 700m monthly active users, is more useful and fun than Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp put together.  Most Chinese companies are still plodders, just as many firms in America's rustbelt or deep South are hardly innovation icons.

Note:
(a) " 'THE Master said, "I transmit rather than innovate. I trust in and love the ancient ways." '  Those words from Confucius seem to offer a cultural explanation for why China is an innovation laggard."
(i) 子曰：「述而不作，信而好古，竊比於我老彭。」
(ii) The "master" in the title alludes to Confucius.

(b) "markets in Chinese cities offer knock-off Gucci handbags, Peppa Pig toys and Apple gizmos."
(i) Peppa Pig

(The [TV] show revolves around Peppa, an anthropomorphic female pig, and her family and friends_
(ii) Peppa is an unusual given name. Compare Pippa (given name)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_(given_name)
(such as "Pippa Middleton (b 1983), * * * [younger] sister of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge")

(c) "Douglas Fuller is an academic at Zhejiang University * * * So how does he explain the rise of outstanding Chinese firms? Mr Fuller believes that 'ethnic Chinese, foreign-invested firms * * * are the hidden dragons driving China's technological development.' He argues that the best ones are only partly Chinese, with hybrid structures that allow access to capital and talent from outside the mainland. * * * Such firms also boast talent from Hong Kong or Taiwan, who blend knowledge of Chinese culture with global sophistication."

Douglas B Fuller 傅道格. School of Management 管理学院, Zhejiang University
www.cma.zju.edu.cn/en/faculty/teacher.aspx?Vcode=0012086
(professor 2013- ; 2005 PhD in History, MIT; 1997 master in East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley;
(d) "George Yip 叶恩华 and Bruce McKern 马科恩, academics affiliated with the China Europe International Business School 中欧国际工商学院 in Shanghai"
(e) "Surprisingly, Shanghai's government has just ordered Han City 汉城购物中心, a multi-storey mall overflowing with counterfeits on the city's main shopping promenade, to be shut down. China's leadership also vows to 'strive to build an IP power, an innovative country, and a well-off society 努力建设一个知识产权强国，创新型国家和小康社会.' If it does so, surely even the Master would approve.
(f) In fact, after I almost completed the annotation, I found a translation:

外媒：一个富有想象力的中国正出现 涌现世界级公司. 参考消息网, 2016年7月9日.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2016-07/09/c_129130097.htm