The Evolution Of Chinese High-tech Industrial Policy And Performance Analysis Under WTO Rules

Nowadays the world has entered the era of knowledge economy. And the competitionamong the nations is essentially technical and talent competition with the increasingglobalization of the economy. High technology is the result of technologicalinnovation and progress, so the high-tech industries relying on high-tech and growing,gradually replace the traditional industries as the backbone of the national economy.Both developed and developing countries are focusing on high-tech industries,treating it as the strategic core of the economic development in the21st century. Sincethe reform and opening up, China’s high-tech industry developed rapidly through theintroduction of foreign direct investment policies. Its scale has been expanding andthe R&D level is rising, which can not do without the Government encourage andsupport.High-tech industrial policy is actually a government action, to provide a fair, open andfair competitive environment for the market to play a fundamental role. It is taken inorder to achieve rational allocation of resources, to promote the optimization andupgrading of industrial structure, to achieve industrial scale effects and agglomerationeffects, to enhance the independent innovation capability of enterprises and to makehigh-tech industry develop by leaps and bounds. Since the reform and opening up, thegovernment has taken relevant policies actively to promote high-tech industry. In2001China joined the WTO, participated in international business affairs anddeveloped international trade within the open world economy. But it can not beignored that WTO rules has been considerable constraints of China’s industrial policy.Including high-tech industrial policy, it is necessary to make the relevant adjustmentsto coordinate with WTO rules, otherwise it will lead to trade disputes easily. On thesurface trade frictions are the upgrade of competitions，but in-depth they are greaterconstrains of the economic development to the external environment. China joined theWTO as a developing country，so there is a few years of transition time to integratewith the world economy. During the transition period, the high-tech industry shouldadjust policies to avoid the occurrence of trade friction while seeking opportunities todevelop.As China’s overall strength, high-tech industry in China has made rapid development,but the competitiveness is not strong enough for the poor technological innovationcapability. The previous industrial policies are focused on technology introduction,digestion and absorption, and did not rise to the strategic level of independentresearch and development. To adapt to WTO rules, the guidelines of our high-tech industrial policies need to transfer from "technology transfer","market fortechnology" to a high degree of imitation and innovation or independent innovation inorder to enhance industrial competitiveness by taking human resources policies,technology policies, fiscal policies and the investment and financing policies topromote high-tech industry.Based on the analysis of high-tech industrial policy texts, this paper divides thehigh-tech industry policies in China under the WTO rules to four stages, then analyzethe system composition of the high-tech industrial policies, and assess theperformance of our high-tech industrial policies. At last，put forward the next stage ofChina’s high-tech industrial policy direction and gives policy recommendations for thereality of China’s high-tech industry.