Powerhouses or pretenders? Debating China's and India's emergence as technological powers

Abstract

Are China and India emerging as innovative technological powerhouses in the twenty-first century? This essay reviews the interdisciplinary debate that has been inspired by this question in recent years. It begins by considering recent studies that are relatively impressed with China's and India's recent accomplishments and potential in this regard. Next, it reviews works that are less impressed with their track records and prospects. It then considers a series of more equivocal studies that remain more or less undecided about China's and India's technological trajectories. The final section evaluates the debate as a whole and proposes new directions for scholarship in this field.Technological creativity represents a key source of national power, a point long recognized by international relations scholars. New technologies not only spur economic growth and national prosperity, but can also provide states with leverage in international trade. New technologies from railroads to nuclear energy have also generated new sources of military power, at least for states that can surmount the financial and organizational hurdles to military innovation (Horowitz 2010). Moreover, nations vary widely in their innovative capacities. Long-cycle theorists, who have probed the