Will China Become the World’s Largest Economy in 10 Years?

According to the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020 released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, among the 131 economies included in the report, China ranks 14th in terms of innovation capability. In recent years, China’s spot in the GII ranking has risen continuously. China’s 17 science and technology (S&T) clusters are ranked among the world’s Top 100 S&T Clusters, second only to that of the United States. Some foreign scholars predict that as a global leader in artificial intelligence, 5G and many other areas, China will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy in 10 years.

Enterprises are major players and boosters in innovation. The proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) highlight the importance of enhancing enterprises’ innovation capabilities as well as clarify the priorities and direction for the building of enterprise innovation capacities. In the next five years, China will continue strengthening the role of enterprises as major players in innovation, facilitate the flow of all innovation factors to enterprises, and promote in-depth integration of industry, education and research. The country will also give full play to the important role of entrepreneurs in technological innovation and adopt preferential tax policies to encourage enterprises to increase investments in basic research. It will urge large enterprises to play a leading role in innovation, and support micro, small and medium-sized tech enterprises in becoming major sources of innovation, so as to make enterprises into strong players in innovation.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether China can overtake the United States in 10 years. Chinese tech giant Huawei, which was listed among top three global innovators in 2020, announced that it is open and ready to transfer its 5G technology, including the source code and proprietary hardware designs, to push global innovation. China has never aimed to overtake any country. However, benefiting from the country’s innovation-driven development, Chinese enterprises will gradually become world leaders in innovation.