Launched by Heatmap earlier this year, the Shift Key podcast features hosts Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins in conversation with leading experts on climate change and decarbonization. In the episode titled “How China’s Industrial Policy Really Works,” they spoke with two top scholars on Chinese industrial Policy: Joanna Lewis and GW Engineering’s own John Helveston, who studies consumer preferences and demand for emerging tech, as well as China’s policies on gasoline and electric vehicles.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation: “I think where China has had a lot of success is in areas where … It’s like the inverse of what the United States innovation ecosystem does well. China’s ecosystem is really driven around production, and a lot of that is part of the way the government’s set up, that local provinces have a ton of power over how money gets spent, and often repurpose funds for export-oriented production. So that’s been a piece of the engine of China’s economic miracle, is mass producing everything.”
Listen to the full podcast on Heatmap.