As he looks ahead to his second five-year term, President Xi Jinping surely knows that innovation must be an economic priority if China is to escape the middle-income trap that awaits it in about ten years. Even amid slowing economic growth, there are signals that China may be starting to come into its own as a global innovator. However, even if these trends prove sustainable, will it be too little, too late? Furthermore, can commitment to innovation be reconciled with Xi’s increasingly authoritarian leanings? To many of us at INSEAD – an institution whose history of Asia business research dates from the 1970s – the balance of power in the region, if not the world, seems largely to depend on the answers.
