China to create its own DARPA

Heeding Chinese President Xi Jinping’s calls for his country to get serious about innovation to buoy its faltering economy, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is bringing military R&D back under its oversight and launching a new agency modeled after the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ScienceInsider has learned.

China is joining a trend in Asia: Japan has launched a DARPA-like agency, and South Korea is planning one, too. “It is natural that China and other countries are trying to establish DARPA-like organizations that can marry cutting-edge science and technology for defense applications,” says Richard Weitz, director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. But whether China can succeed is an open question, he asserts, as DARPA’s success—the Internet is its most famous creation—is rooted in U.S. protection of freedom of expression. China has one big advantage, he says: It’s “very effective in acquiring advanced technology from foreign businesses through cyber and other means.”