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Data show that China and the U.S. are the most powerful global competitors in manufacturing, a sector which, however, suffers from decelerated growth, job loss, and shrinking share in national economy. Obama Administration's innovation - oriented policy initiatives centered at reindustrialization strategy are proved to be vital in enhancing manufacturing competitiveness and reviving U.S. economy. U.S. manufacturers have recently seen a surge in growth in advanced manufacturing output, product export, employment, and innovation capability in this sector. This paper explores the helpful implications that this effective strategy has for policy makers and manufacturers in China, and what kinds of regional policies that China should adopt to maintain its global leading edge in manufacturing sector. By taking a competition- based approach, this paper also introduces a new regionalized innovation policy model to encourage productive industry - university- institute R&D collaboration and promote manufacturing development in China.
Keywords: reindustrialization, advanced manufacturing, regional innovation policy
INTRODUCTION
According to the statistics on the share of world ' s manufacturing by Data Mine, by the end of 2010, the U.S. share of global manufacturing value has declined steadily from 28% to 18. 9%, while Chinese share of manufacturing has risen from 4.6% to 18.2%, sutpassing Japan (10.7%) in 2007 and Germany (6%) in 1999. The data indicate the rapidly increasing competition between the two manufacturing powers, China and the United States.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, the United States government realized that economic growth cannot be solely dependent on financial innovation and credit - based consumption, and U.S. had to redesign a development path based on domestic industrial sector, advanced manufacturing in particular, to reestablish its status as global leader in manufacturing (Ettlinger & Gordon, 2011). In November 2009, Obama proposed that U.S. should develop a new strategy, which is about far more than just industrial recovery and focused on a long - term sustainable growth, relying more on export and manufacturing. Shortly after that, in August 2011, Obama signed the Manufacturing Enhancement Act, which is designed to reduce costs for U.S. manufacturers. In his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama stressed that the key to construct a permanent United States is to revive U.S. manufacturing and improve workers ' skills, announcing a national...