China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information AgeIn the spring of 1987, the father of China s strategic missile program, Qian Xuesen, told colleagues that China must steel itself for a century of sustained "intellectual warfare. His use of a military metaphor was not a linguistic quirk, but reflected the central role of the military in China s emergence as a modern state, especially in the period since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Over the course of the Communist era, a uniquely military approach to China's development became embedded in the ideologies of the country's political leadership, in policy choices about national security and economic development, and in the organizational solutions adopted to put these policies into practice. This book tells the story of how and why the Chinese military came to play such a powerful role in China's economic and institutional development. It weaves together four stories: Chinese views of technology since 1950, the role of the military in China s political and economic life, the evolution of open and flexible conceptions of public management in China, and the technological dimensions of the rise of Chinese power. But the book primarily explores and explains a paradox. This military approach to technology and development emerged during China's period of greatest external threat, 1950-69. Yet these policies and management methods persist even as China enjoys perhaps its most benign strategic environment since the 1840s. |
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863 program administrative Beijing Bureau bureaucratic Center Central Military Commission Chen chief designer China's strategic Chinese Chinese Academy civilian Committee competition conventional weapons coordination COSTIND Cultural Revolution decision defense industry Deng Xiaoping Deng's deputy director economic electronics engineering Expert Group foreign high technology Ibid indigenous innovation Institute investment leaders leadership Leading Group Lewis and Xue Liu Bocheng Luo Ruiqing Machine Building managerial Mao Zedong military industry Ministry of Machine missile modernization National Defense NDSTC Nie Rongzhen nology nuclear weapons optical Peng Peng Dehuai Plan planners political premier priorities production projects Qian Xuesen reactor role Rongzhen satellite Science and Technology scientific scientists sectors Soviet space SSTC staff strategic technology strategic weapons programs tech technical technicians telecommunications tion vice minister Wang Ganchang Xie Guang 1992 Zhang Aiping Zhongguo Zhou Enlai Zhou Guangzhao Zhu Guangya