This book analyzes China’s foreign technology acquisition activity and how this has helped its rapid rise to superpower status. Since 1949, China has operated a vast and unique system of foreign technology spotting and transfer aimed at accelerating civilian and military development, reducing the cost of basic research, and shoring up its power domestically and abroad—without running the political risks borne by liberal societies as a basis for their creative developments. While discounted in some circles as derivative and consigned to perpetual catch-up mode, China’s "hybrid" system of legal, illegal, and extralegal import of foreign technology, combined with its indigenous efforts, is, the authors believe, enormously effective and must be taken seriously. Accordingly, in this volume, 17 international specialists combine their scholarship to portray the system’s structure and functioning in heretofore unseen detail, using primary Chinese sources to demonstrate the perniciousness of the problem in a manner not likely to be controverted. The book concludes with a series of recommendations culled from the authors’ interactions with experts worldwide. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese politics, US foreign policy, intelligence studies, science and technology studies, and International Relations in general.

The technological revolution has reached around the world, with important consequences for business, government, and the labor market. Computer-aided design, telecommunications, and other developments are allowing small players to compete with traditional giants in manufacturing and other fields. In this volume, 16 engineering and industrial experts representing eight countries discuss the growth of technological advances and their impact on specific industries and regions of the world. From various perspectives, these distinguished commentators describe the practical aspects of technology's reach into business and trade.

Firms in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have formed a large number of alliances to share technology. An analysis of these alliances provides theoretical insights into the growth of firms and the evolution of the product cycle. Additionally, it leads to a better understanding of the changing international technology market and the implications of these changes for developing countries. In technologically dynamic industries, open international standards provide a cheap source of technology. Developing country firms could also exploit mutually beneficial linkages to obtain technology by manufacturing products designed by industrial country firms. As the case studies in the paper indicate, however, such arrangements lead to genuine technology transfer only when the developing country firm has a strong absorptive capability. Moreover, firms in developed countries will not always be willing to enter into such arrangements if the transfer of technology creates potential competitors. This paper presents evidence showing that firms increasingly are holding on to critical process technologies. These process technologies are important not only for high technology products, but also for many mature products.

Foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies are suggested as one of the main channels of technology transfer to less developed economies. In Central East Europe their presence proved to be a decisive factor to economic restructuring and development. This volume is a unique guide to theory, method of research, and empirical evidence, for technology transfer via foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies. It combines the merits of a core text on technology transfer via FDI with up-to-date empirical evidence.

The effects of US secondary sanctions are broad and are often designed to cripple the target country’s economy and currency. Some states have sought to circumvent these sanctions by setting up a special purpose vehicle to facilitate trade and financial transactions with the sanctioned country on humanitarian grounds. Although the nature of these special purpose vehicles is new and experimental, they are little understood, not least how they operate and function in international law. This volume addresses this gap by identifying and examining some of the legal issues that a special purpose vehicle such as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) generates. The collection brings together leading legal academics, sanctions practitioners and policy experts to provide an assessment of the special purpose vehicle in the context of secondary sanctions in international law. It will be of interest to researchers and academics in International law, Security law, Economic law and Comparative law.