A great race is progressing across Asia. China is determined to be a technological superpower. It is prepared to spend billions of dollars to nurture innovation and new technological standards…Korea is spending just as heavily to make high-speed Internet access as ubiquitous as electric power and to erect a whole new industry upon this fiber-optic foundation. Not about to be outdone, Japan is blazing pathways in so-called intelligent networks and nanotechnology.
The article talks about how China’s thrusts are putting pressure on Japan and South Korea. More:
To raise their stature in global high tech, the Chinese are pursuing a potentially risky strategy. The government is offering subsidies and other sweeteners to companies that come up with homegrown alternatives to Microsoft software, Intel microprocessors, Cisco routers, and other standards that are the building blocks of an information economy. The twin risks are that China will alienate the multinationals it depends on for technology transfer while its focus on originality distracts local companies from the low-cost manufacturing they do best. Nonetheless, in a drive to reduce royalty payments on foreign technology and reward local innovators, Beijing seems intent on setting global standards for everything from digital TVs and DVD players to next-generation cell phones.
The article could have also added that India is putting pressure on others in the outsourced services business.
Here is an example of wat China is doing. ZDNet writes about how various Chinese portals are coming together “in a government-backed search engine alliance which challenges global giants such as Google. The search engine — developed by the China Internet Information Centre and Chinese firm Sinobet in September last year — links to a database of more than 30,000 mainland portals, including most of China’s key official news Web sites.”
