China faces 'middle-technology trap', warns official think-tank
China of a potential «middle-technology trap» unless it opens doors «wide open» for new investments and scientific innovation to deal with increasing containment in the ongoing tech war with the US.
«China's manufacturing sector is still in the downstream of the global value chain, and it faces a risk of being hamstrung at the low and mid-end by developed countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan,» the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in its latest report released during the weekend.
«The countries that develop later usually have difficulties in industrial upgrading and transitioning to high-income countries because they lack original technological advances after technology importation, imitation, absorption, and tracking,» the report said.
The report came amid stepped-up technology curbs by the US, while Chinese manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to move up value chains.
The «middle-technology trap» describes a scenario in which developing countries benefit from industrial transfers due to their low-cost advantages, but face long-term economic stagnation when the advantages diminish, and local firms struggle to catch up with the core technologies retained by developed nations, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.
Concerns over China's state of the economy were increasing as the property sector, which is one of the growth sectors of the country is in deep crisis.
Besides, China for the first time in recent years faced high youth unemployment as a result the government has stopped publishing official employment data to prevent public protests.
Also, the pilling of local government debts is
