Reference News Network, August 21 report: The German magazine "Die Zeit" website published an interview with journalist Jens Miling by Chinese affairs expert Philipp Bohn on August 13. 42-year-old Philipp Bohn is a professor of innovation research at the University of Frankfurt and the Mannheim European Institute for Economic Research, focusing on China. The report points out that copying has become a thing of the past, and China is increasingly taking the technological lead in more industries.

Jens Miling asked: Mr. Bohn, I'll be direct. Is China leaving us behind?

Philipp Bohn answered: This trend is becoming increasingly evident. The outdated narrative that China only copied and benefited from state subsidies is no longer valid. On one hand, China is increasingly innovative, relying more on domestic research rather than foreign knowledge for invention and creation. On the other hand, even without state support, more and more Chinese companies have already gained global competitiveness.

Question: Globalization scholars David Autor and Gordon Hanson recently warned that "China Shock 2.0" may be coming. They believe that over the past few decades, China has already surpassed the West in the production of almost all consumer goods, and now may also surpass the West in high-tech fields. Do their views make sense?

Answer: I agree with this view. China has developed from a world factory into an innovation base, and is combining production strength with innovation strength, making its economy very stable. China hopes to become a leader in the global science and technology field. This catching up will certainly not succeed in all areas, but we are witnessing some instances of catching up.

Question: In which areas are Chinese companies currently more innovative than German and European competitors, apart from the automotive industry?

Answer: For example, batteries, drones, and digital services. Competition in these sectors is relatively limited in Europe. This is also true in areas such as photovoltaics and wind energy, where German and European companies were once leading but later could not compete with China's scale advantage.

Question: Why is the breakthrough result of Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek so surprising? China isn't suddenly acquiring innovation capabilities.

Answer: For about 20 years, China has been implementing clearly defined industrial policies. Previous attempts were uncoordinated, but then they shifted to concrete measures. However, these measures take time to show results. A few years ago, our research results showed that although China was rapidly catching up in certain areas, it was still significantly behind overall. However, in recent years, China has caught up at an extremely rapid pace.

Question: Your research shows that China is increasingly moving away from reliance on foreign research. What does this mean?

Answer: Our research results show that the contribution of domestic Chinese research has increased significantly compared to foreign research obtained in China. In fact, since the beginning of this century, foreign technical knowledge has contributed less to Chinese innovation than domestic technical knowledge.

Question: Recently, U.S. chipmakers AMD and NVIDIA have been allowed to resume exporting some chips to China. China's demand for these chips sounds still large. Does this align with your research findings?

Answer: Our research findings reflect the average across all technology fields. However, in individual areas, Chinese manufacturers have not yet reached the level of international market leaders. Given the booming development of Chinese artificial intelligence, this leadership advantage brings strong demand. However, the export of high-performance chips to China is still prohibited, which encourages Chinese manufacturers to continue long-term independent development of related technologies.

Question: Some critics argue that the quality of Chinese research is inferior to the quantity.

Answer: China did experience a phenomenon of patent proliferation. The number increased, but the average quality decreased. However, our research shows that despite the patent bubble, the number of so-called "breakthrough patents" that make substantial contributions to innovation has significantly increased.

Question: What factors could hinder China's continued progress on its current path of success?

Answer: Underestimating China's innovation capabilities is naive, but we should not overstate this narrative either. I am increasingly hearing Chinese people asking, "What else do we need to learn from you?" I believe that in certain areas, China is taking the lead, but this competition is far from settled in all areas.

On July 29, at the exhibition site of the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, visitors are viewing a robot that can be used in various scenarios such as retail and industry. (Xinhua)

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