The development of industrial clusters in China has become a subject of international interest, but attention has primarily focused on government efforts to attract FDI to promote industrial clusters and regional development. The local process which supports the rise and growth of clusters driven by the domestic firms has been relatively ignored in this debate. Thus, this article considers the analytical framework of strategic coupling and uses a case study of the Wuxi semiconductor industry to investigate the cluster formation, dynamics and effects driven by domestic, rather than FDI, firms with the mediating role of the transnational Chinese technical community, the state and domestic firms. It concludes that the rise and growth of the semiconductor domestic-led cluster in Wuxi is not dependent on FDI, but instead results from the dynamic interplay of several elements. Effects of technology spillover from the government-funded research institutions, as well as mutual competition and co-operation in technological emulation among domestic firms are important elements for the development of the domestic-led cluster. Moreover, all these elements lie within the strategic coupling of the regional assets and the transnational Chinese technical community, mediated by the state. It is the the state that has mobilised regional assets to negotiate with overseas technology talent for strengthening global linkages and facilitating the entrepreneurial knowledge absorption of domestic leading firms—a feature which has not been theoretically observed in Western countries.

With reference to the case studies of Shanghai, Suzhou, and Wuxi, in the Yangtze Delta, China, this paper demonstrates the local possibilities and various development paths for developing an indigenous semiconductor industry, using the government support within foreign direct investment (FDI)-dominated clusters for the New Industrializing Countries (NICs). Two important policy lessons are identified. The first is that the government may attract FDI and develop high-tech clustering by using policy support, but it does not necessarily provide conducive and positive influences on the sustainable development of domestic semiconductors. The second lesson is that the sustainability of the domestic semiconductor industry in the FDI cluster may start from three connected elements: (1) a pragmatic goal of government support; (2) complementarities of the domestic semiconductors with international leading firms in the market, technology and equipment linkages; and (3) a sustainable capacity of technical learning to drive local developments.

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Recent work on the development of cities based on culturally creative economies, or creative cities has opened up productive lines of theorization and empirical research. However, with its focus on the composition of a creative cluster or the ingredients of a creative city, the existing literature fails to clarify adequately the whys and hows of state participation in urban contexts. This can lead to flawed interpretations of contemporary creative city dynamics in China. This paper suggests the state and its related political processes shape urban social relationships and have wider and deeper impacts on the outcomes of creative networking, artistic autonomy, and creative city scripts. With reference to the cases of visual art clusters in Beijing and Xiamen, this paper reveals the specific paths of creative city development based on a conceptual framework by which the interrelationships among the participation of the state, creative networking, and artistic autonomy can be discovered. This paper argues that, unlike the implicit or hidden state participation in Euro-American experiences, the participation of the state in China is obvious and dominant, thus molding specific stories of state-led artistic urbanization or manufacturization. Rather than being simply the displacement of artists, the on-the-ground creative city is interwoven with a selective structure designed by the state and shaped by artists' position-taking strategies, which are embedded in, and interlaced with, historical-geographical contexts and contingencies.

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