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| China's Silicon Valley |
Zhongguancun may be
hailed as China's most famous village by foreigners. Dubbed as "China's
Silicon Valley", the country's biggest high-tech park in west Beijing is
not only home to Chinese high-tech companies such as Lenovo, Baidu and
Sohu.com, it is also the China headquarters of world-renowned technology
companies such as Google, Microsoft and Intel.
As part of China's efforts to build an
innovative economy, the State Council, China's Cabinet, recently
approved a development plan called the Zhongguancun National Innovation
Demonstration Zone (2011-2020) that allows companies in the area to try
out new measures and pilot projects.
The plan, which includes a drive to
boost the total revenues of companies in Zhongguancun to 10 trillion
yuan ($1.8 trillion) in 2020 from 1.55 trillion yuan last year, is
designed to help the area become one of the world's most famous
technology hubs. The predicted income increase will come from increased
sales on the back of tax incentives for companies moving there and
research and development subsidies.
"Zhongguancun has entered a new phase of
development," said Yang Jianhua, deputy director of the administrative
committee of Zhongguancun Science Park. "I think in the next 20 years
Zhongguancun will have the three top technology industry clusters in the
world and will form a grouping of the world's top technology
entrepreneurs."
Zhongguancun's history can be traced
back to a crowded electronic avenue in the 1980s. Close to China's top
universities and national academies, China's biggest technology hub
first emerged as a small market for electronic components and devices
for technicians and researchers.
In October 1980, Chen Chunxian, a
researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, founded a technological
development service department under the Beijing Society of Plasma
Physics in Zhongguancun, making it the first civilian-run scientific and
technological institution in the area.
As China's economic reform and
opening-up policy started to unfold, a group of domestic technology
companies including Stone Group, Founder Group and Lenovo Group became
established in subsequent years.
In the early days of Zhongguancun, many of the companies in the area had close connections with the country's academic world.
For example, Founder is a technology
company that was spun off from Peking University. Lenovo Group was spun
off from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Liu Chuanzhi, a former
researcher at CAS, later led Lenovo's purchase of IBM's personal
computer division for $1.75 billion in 2005.
"In China, you can't find another place
like Zhongguancun that is so close to the country's technology academia.
So when China started to encourage the commercialization of technology
after the economic reforms of the 1980s, Zhongguancun became the first
place to exploit the opportunity," said Xia Yingqi, former deputy
director of the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park.
He said it is Zhongguancun's close
connections with China's technology academies that made Zhongguancun
become China's most influential innovation center in the next decades.
Unlike many other government-funded
high-tech parks, the establishment of Zhongguancun came about as a
result of market forces, something unique in China's rigid planning
system at that time.
As late as 1988, Zhongguancun was
officially recognized by the central government and was given the name
"Beijing High-Technology Industry Development Experimental Zone". After
that, the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park was
established to help coordinate with and service the companies in
Zhongguancun.
Since its inception, the Zhongguancun
administrative committee has followed a strict policy of not interfering
in companies that they serve.
"Unlike many new high technology parks
in other cities, we don't have rights in areas such as land-use approval
and tax collection. But we did help a lot in creating a regulatory
environment that fosters innovation," said Yang.
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