Technological evolution and interdependence in China's emerging biofuel industry

Abstract

This study uses the European Patent Office worldwide patent database and applies two-stage interactive data collection methods to reveal the evolving technological interdependence for China's emerging biofuel industry. Three findings are excerpted from our empirical results. First, due to dominant patterns of business ownership, China's biofuel technology is seen as largely based on the evolutionary strength of the foodstuff and chemical fields. Second, China's biofuel technology development has evolved in the mode of ‘forward engineering’, led by Chinese universities rather than initiated by the public research institutes as in the experience of other East Asian latecomers. Third, our patent map and technology trajectory analyses illustrate that China's biofuel technology tends to be application-oriented and highly intertwined with the pharmaceutical industry since the 2000s, which evidences the development of biofuel industry as reciprocally reinforcing China's innovation capability deriving from its prominent chemical sector. By examining endogenous technology capability embedded in the national innovation capacity, this study uncovers public implications for other technology latecomers attempting to build an emerging industry while facing technology uncertainty in a transitional society.