China was the “workbench of the world” for a long time and lost enormous amounts of value to the US and Europe by selling commodities produced in labor intensive industries below their true value (which is their socially necessary labor time). In turn for this period of servitude, they got left alone.
None of this was an accident on China’s part. Their losses were an investment in developing their productive forces, including technology transfer and domestic partnerships, which were strings attached to the deals China made and still makes with the imperialist bourgeoisie[1].
Technology transfer was critical, and it lowers the barrier to constant capital heavy industries, but doesn’t remove it completely. You still have to get the physical machines. Also not all technology serves capital heavy industry. A lot of it is also needed for labor intensive industries just to keep up with the overall development of technology and demand. It’s hard to quantify how much of the technology transfer served to break out of the trap and how much just kept it going.
None of this was an accident on China’s part. Their losses were an investment in developing their productive forces, including technology transfer and domestic partnerships, which were strings attached to the deals China made and still makes with the imperialist bourgeoisie[1].
Technology transfer was critical, and it lowers the barrier to constant capital heavy industries, but doesn’t remove it completely. You still have to get the physical machines. Also not all technology serves capital heavy industry. A lot of it is also needed for labor intensive industries just to keep up with the overall development of technology and demand. It’s hard to quantify how much of the technology transfer served to break out of the trap and how much just kept it going.