
China: Inventing Innovation?
China's economic growth is slowing, and its leadership is betting that home-grown innovation can pick up the slack. This 101 East episode from Al Jazeera looks at what that push actually looks like on the ground, starting with one Chinese city that has announced a plan to cultivate hundreds of innovators in the mold of Steve Jobs within five years. The central government has also called on authors and artists to produce great works, part of an ambition to turn China into a cultural superpower alongside an economic one. The film traces the country's long-running policy of "indigenous innovation," which favors domestic firms developing their own technology over reliance on foreign imports, and examines why that same policy has put Beijing at odds with major trading partners who accuse it of unfair practices and intellectual property theft. Interviews and reporting weigh whether a government can order creativity into existence, or whether innovation has to grow on its own terms.