‘Autocracy 2.0’: How China Reinvented Tyranny for the Innovation Age

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Jennifer Lind – associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, fellow at Chatham House in London and at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies and author of “Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny” (Cornell 2025) – is the 489th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

What is your book trying to explain?

My book starts by showing that China has become one of most technologically innovative countries in the world. Using a variety of metrics, including innovation “inputs” – educational investments, R&D spending, high-skilled human capital, etc. – as well as “outputs” – patenting, high-quality scientific research, value-added manufacturing – I show that over the past decade China has caught up with or surpassed many of the countries that we think of the world’s most innovative, e.g., France, Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom. This finding triangulates with other sources; for example, this year, for the first time, the Global Innovation Index ranked China in the top ten of most innovative countries.

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