INTRODUCTION

China, which was once a world champion in invention, has failed to maintain its global leadership in innovation after the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Today, frame-breaking innovations are more likely to originate from European and North American countries than from China. In the perspective article (Augier, Guo, & Rowen, Reference Augier, Guo and Rowen2016), the authors attribute this phenomenon, which is often referred to as the Needham Puzzle, to three reasons: (1) the Chinese did not develop a scientific method like that in the West; (2) lack of educational diversity and structural inertia in China; and (3) lack of openness to the outside world. The authors also attribute the US's leadership in innovation to its culture of encouraging experimentation, tolerating failure and accepting deviance, and to its institutional support for decentralization of and competition in R&D and basic research. This commentary aims to enrich this insightful analysis. We focus on (1) the reasons for the demise of Chinese leadership in science and technology since the middle of the Ming dynasty, and (2) the historical and cultural obstacles to the development of frame-breaking innovations in modern China.

We agree with Augier et al. (Reference Augier, Guo and Rowen2016) that in China frame-breaking innovations are limited because of the relative prevalence of exploitation, imitation, and refinement of existing technologies versus exploration and development of new knowledge. However, it is premature to conclude that the Chinese do not value radical innovation. The fast economic growth in China has fueled its technology aspirations, which is matched by heavy investments in research capacity building (e.g., investments in research infrastructure and global talent attraction/incubation). Nonetheless, China's research investment has led to significant improvement in incremental innovation only (Chiu, Kwan, & Liou, Reference Chiu, Kwan, Liou, Lewin, Murmann and Kenny2016).

A recent study (Loewenstein & Mueller, in press) also questions the view that the Chinese are culturally conditioned to prefer exploitation. This study shows that whereas Americans regard originality as a necessary criterion of creativity, the Chinese regard originality as one of several sufficient criteria of creativity. For example, creation of a mass market for an existing technology is also regarded as a sufficient criterion of creativity in Chinese culture. Thus, in American culture, creative strivings always require creation of new knowledge; it is inconceivable that something can be creative but not original. In contrast, in Chinese culture, individuals can be creative through creation of new knowledge and/or creative exploitation of existing knowledge. Their choice depends on the expected return of the alternatives (Wu, Reference Wu2006).

Unlike Augier et al. (Reference Augier, Guo and Rowen2016), we posit that thinking style and the hegemonic influence of Confucianism cannot explain why China lost its leadership role in innovation in late 1500s. It is not entirely true that China never developed logical thinking that supports creation of scientific knowledge. Back in the time of Confucius, Mozi, an advocate of Mohism, derived from rhetorical analogies canons of formal logic that dealt with the conditions of making valid inferences (Graham, Reference Graham2003). However, Mozi's ideas were repressed since the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) when Confucianism and Legalism became the guiding ideology in the imperial court and not integrated into Chinese science and mathematics. Nonetheless, until late 1500s, despite the ideological hegemony of Confucianism and Legalism and the lack of formal logic in China, China had produced a more impressive record of inventions than its international peers.

The decline of China's competitiveness in innovation may arise from cultural responses to external threats, the shift of emphasis to subjectivism in Confucianism, and the prevalent influence of moral particularism after the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Huang (Reference Huang1982) traced the demise of China's global competitiveness to a sequence of events that happened in the regime of Emperor Man-li (1572–1620). This Ming Emperor faced military threats from the Manchus in the North and frequent raids by the ‘Japanese pirates’ along the Eastern coast. In addition, between 1586 and 1588, China suffered from a devastating epidemic, which had caused over 20% fall in population. Evidence from analyses of historical archives and simulation studies suggests that threats from external enemies and infectious diseases typically reduce ideological openness and lower tolerance of norm violations and deviance (Roos, Gelfand, Nau, & Lun, Reference Roos, Gelfand, Nau and Lun2015; Schaller & Murray, Reference Schaller, Murray, Gelfand, Chiu and Hong2011).

Confucianism underwent a paradigm shift during this period. Rationalism and objectivism, which encouraged exploration and discovery of regularities in the external world, were emphasized in Confucian scholarship during the Sung Dynasty (960–1279). However, Confucian scholarship in the middle of the Ming Dynasty privileged innate knowledge and subjectivism; subjective introspection replaced objective observation as the paradigm for acquiring knowledge (Huang, Reference Huang1982). Science suffered.

Meanwhile, moral particularism replaced legalism in political discourses as ministers attempted to use moral and ritual constraints to regulate the Emperor's conduct. Evidence from longitudinal, multinational studies suggests that increased prevalence of moral particularism in a society is often accompanied by diminished institutional support for an open, pluralistic society (Tabellini, Reference Tabellini2008), which is necessary for frame-breaking innovation (Chiu et al., Reference Chiu, Kwan, Liou, Lewin, Murmann and Kenny2016; Kwan & Chiu, Reference Kwan and Chiu2015).

The stable, persistent hegemonic influence of moral particularism in Confucian teaching since the middle of the Ming Dynasty left little room for cultural heterogeneity. Cultural heterogeneity plays a critical role in creativity. A creative concept is formed when dissimilar concepts are combined (e.g., a social enterprise is a for-profit business that is also a charitable organization; Ward, Reference Ward1994). Individuals living in a culturally heterogeneous environment have ample opportunities to encounter markedly different concepts from dissimilar cultures and place them in cognitive juxtaposition. Individuals who are open to experience and motivated by gains (vs. aversion of loss) are particularly prepared to harness creative benefits from multicultural experiences (Leung, Maddux, Galinksy, & Chiu, Reference Leung, Maddux, Galinsky and Chiu2008).

Historical variations in the innovation of a country further highlight the importance of cultural diversity in innovation performance. For example, Simonton and Ting (Reference Simonton and Ting2010) found that in European history, spikes of creativity and innovation tended to occur at times of political fragmentation and civil disturbances, because civil disturbances and political fragmentation often stimulated intellectual debates and increased cultural heterogeneity, which in turn raised the levels of creativity and innovation. Renaissance started when the Holy Roman Empire collapsed into a large number of independent states. Another example is the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, which spoiled Phillip II's scheme to restore papal authority. Subsequently, cultural heterogeneity in Europe increased with frequent ideological competitions among the churches. However, in Chinese history, political fragmentation and cultural heterogeneity were decoupled; typically, relatively long-term political unification and ideological hegemony followed temporary political fragmentation.

China's past still weighs heavily on its present. Since the First Opium War in 1839, China had experienced over two centuries of political instability and external threats. First, as mentioned, chronic exposure to threats increases conformist behaviors, and contemporary Chinese still score lower on standard measures of openness than do their American counterparts (Woo, Chernyshenko, Longley, Zhang, Chiu, & Stark, Reference Woo, Chernyshenko, Longley, Zhang, Chiu and Stark2014).

Second, thinking creatively requires individuals to think counterfactually, contemplate non-existing alternatives, manipulate hypothetical constructs, and imagine possible contingencies. Cross-cultural research findings show that the Chinese are as prepared to think counterfactually as Americans. Again, collective memories of political turmoil and external threats might have added fuel to the Chinese's desire for security: When prompted to think counterfactually, compared to Americans, the Chinese spontaneously generated more loss-aversion thoughts (if only I had not done x, I would not have lost a) than gain-focused thoughts of foregone opportunities (if only I had done y, I would have gained b; Chen, Chiu, Roese, Tam, & Lau, Reference Chen, Chiu, Roese, Tam and Lau2006).