Asia has strengths that promise to make it a leading center of technological innovation in the 21st century. These strengths are substantial, fundamental, and durable. At their base lie aspects of culture, on both a civilizational and generational time scale. Human capital and the capacity for mobilization build on these cultural advantages.

The term “Asia” is of course a label for a collection of very different societies. I will speak primarily of China, counting Taiwan and Singapore as strongly linked parts of what is almost a whole. South Korea shares similar strengths; Japan and India differ more substantially.

I focus on technological innovation because it drives innovation throughout the global economy, changing what we make, what we use, and what we do. Centers of technological innovation become centers of innovation across a broad economic spectrum for two reasons: innovation in technology is inseparable from the innovations that flow from it, and the regearing of a society for innovation of any kind has effects on law, capital, and business culture that spill across boundaries.

To become a world-class center of technological innovation, a society must have three basic elements:

• drive—a culture that supports change and hungers for it

• human capital—the personal abilities that make world-class technology possible

• a capacity for mobilization—a society’s ability to pursue ambitious new goals

These basic elements are more fundamental than any current performance metric or economic trend, and they are durable.

The drive for change

Cultures can shift between complacency and drive on a generational time scale. Where one generation struggles from poverty to prosperity, the next often treats prosperity as a natural part of life. Where one generation upholds a rigid social architecture, the next may be scrabbling in rubble and building anew. Japan and most Western societies have been stable and prosperous throughout the adult lives of their leaders. Recent history makes much of Asia quite different.

China’s social architecture was smashed in the 20th century, leaving rubble and persistent poverty as the West soared into the advanced industrial era. The rubble, though, was of extraordinary quality—the loosened parts of a high civilization. The drive for change in China is enormous for all the reasons that inspire the poor to strive. These are amplified by a conviction, which history and recent experience support, that China’s natural place in the world is far from the bottom.

The experience of change facilitates further change. People who have gone (and are continuing to go) from villages to skyscrapers in a single generation are prepared to dream of going further.

Human capital for science and technology

Cultures differ radically in their attitudes toward education. In the rising societies of Asia, education is a top priority, far above, for example, sports. During national exam season, when students study for the test that will determine their future in higher education, I found that Indian newspapers carry science and mathematics quizzes that would stump most US college graduates. Recent physics tests given to US and Chinese students entering comparable technically oriented universities produced distributions of scores that had little overlap. In Chinese societies, scholarly students have a status among their peers like that of athletes in the United States and run little risk of being marginalized, ridiculed, or beaten. In India, I found that students chase after the autographs, not of entertainers, but of scientists.

It is routine to note that Asian education relies on drill, which tends to dampen the critical thinking and spontaneous habits of thought that generate innovative ideas. Looking forward, this problem has been recognized by Asian governments, which have undertaken efforts to offset it. These efforts may have some effect. Even now, however, the magnitude of the problem may be in part an illusion. Science and technology programs in US universities are increasingly populated by Asian students and professors. As readers of leading science journals know, an increasing portion of the best research in the United States and Europe appears in papers with authors bearing mainland Chinese names. In effect, the best products of Chinese education have been selectively exported, and their innovations are counted as products of their countries of residence.

This outflow of talent, which skews Western perceptions of Chinese education, may not be permanent; indeed, it has reversed as the appeal of life and careers in China has increased. China’s spending on R&D has risen by 20 percent a year for the past decade. In the United States, the growth rate of R&D spending has been about one-fifth of this level.

The capacity for mobilization

Drive and human capital are applied through organization, by both entrepreneurs and corporations, as well as national leaders and governments. India has been outstanding in its incapacity for reform and for interfering with entrepreneurship, though this is changing. China, however, has been outstanding in its capacity for learning from experience, radically transforming government policy, and unleashing a hyperentrepreneurial business culture.

As science and technology grow in importance, it becomes increasingly important for leaders to have a good understanding of these disciplines. Among US legislators, though, a background in science and engineering is exceedingly rare. In France, it is common. In Taiwan, many legislators have doctoral degrees in science or engineering. In China, of the nine members of the standing committee of the Politburo (the ruling body, which includes the president, the vice president, and the premier), one recently appointed member has an education in law. Previously, all nine had been trained as engineers.

A leading indicator

Perhaps the most robust indicator of change in the distribution of innovation potential is a change in the distribution of corporate research laboratories. Companies are opening new labs in China at an astounding rate. In software and electronics, NEC, Hitachi, Sony, IBM, and Microsoft all have established R&D centers in China; in pharmaceuticals, Roche, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Eli Lilly have done so. This list is not exhaustive. Recently, I read news of the groundbreaking ceremony for a $70 million research center being built by ExxonMobil Chemical in the Zizhu Science-based Industrial Park, in Shanghai.

Any system can fail, often for unexpected reasons. The future political and economic stability of China and Asia as a whole are matters for speculation. Nonetheless, the trends, the durable fundamentals, and the leading indicators all suggest that Asia, led by China, will be a leading force in the innovations that transform the world in the 21st century. The stronger global integration becomes, the better the odds of a smooth and broadly beneficial outcome.

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