The Global Knowledge Economy: Challenges for China's Development

Two central facts provide the motivation for this paper, and the intersection between them provides the central question. The first fact is the fundamental transformation of global economic activity which is taking place, and which is sometimes referred to as the emergence of the global knowledge economy. When our grandchildren sit back and reflect in the middle of the new century, the years between about 1985 and 2020 will stand out as a period at least as pivotal in human affairs as that between 1760 and 1820, which ushered in the Industrial Revolution. For what we are in the midst of is the emergence of a quite new set of economic activities, arrangements and institutions- the global knowledge economy. This new economy will be as different from what preceded it as was the industrial era from feudalism, and it is already beginning to have a comparable impact on social relationships and institutions