We need an honest East-West discussion about industrial policy
Europe and the US are breaking a taboo that East Asia was never afraid of.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Western and Eastern governments have used a range of tools to structure economic production and to nurture technological innovation.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Yuan Yang
In the 1970s my grandfather, an electrical engineer in China, received an unusual job offer: would he be willing to move from his city to the foothills of a remote Buddhist mountain, a half-day’s truck ride away, to contribute to an enterprise of national importance?
What clinched the deal was that my grandmother would also be given a good state job, and my mother, uncle and aunt would go to schools built for the children of the enterprise. And so, my family became part of the first Chinese industrial policy push to create a domestic semiconductor sector.
