China and Innovation

What is the nature of innovation? How does innovation relate to the ability to change, criticise and create?

Economist's View: Tolerance and Innovation:

"Look at Japan, which is also a conformist society. It displays great creativity in animation and other art forms, but apart from those, the only other major innovation it can claim is perhaps the Walkman. However, the number of patents it owns is one of the highest, and it has many global brands such as Sony and Toyota. If this is the model we want to emulate, we will arrive there in a relatively short period, and without needing to do much soul-searching. But in that case, we might have to forget about Silicon Valley, information technology and many other major breakthroughs. "

This links with my earlier post about Gladwell and innovation. He argues that there are two types - product (SUV) and process (JIT).