The limits of the sustainability of China’s growth

China has experienced an exceptional level of growth during these last three decades. This performance is excellent albeit not unique. It remains comparable to the very high growth rates experienced by the Soviet Union between the 1930s and the 1960s, by Japan from the 1950s to the 1980s and by South Korea from the 1960s to the 1990s. However, it is important to determine to what extent the development path chosen by China can enable her to sustain an intensive economic growth with autonomous technological development. Only by creating sufficient technological innovation capabilities can China hope to catch up economically with the most advanced economies. Without this, China’s economy will experience the pitfall of the Soviet economy and other industrializing economies that took an extensive rather than an intensive type growth development path leading ultimately to economic stagnation after decades of fast industrialization. This chapter will show that the Chinese growth has so far been more extensive than intensive and that China’s current autonomous innovation capacities remain insufficient to avoid serious bottlenecks which could seriously affect her future economic growth. It will try to assess the possibilities for China to improve its innovation capacities and technological level and to avoid the obstacles that have been generated by three decades of dominantly extensive growth