For Joana on technological development in late developer

K Sims Gallagher from Belfer Center, Harvard, wrote a book on China's attempt to wrestle technology from foreign auto manufacturers through various joint ventures. In this attempt, China also want to `leapfrog' other manufacturers at the same time. Her verdict seems to be that this attempt is currently unfruitful for various reasons. The book is `China shifts gear'.
This attempt at wrestling technology in the transport sector is also being done in a much larger scale as reported in the current edition of the Economist.

I think Gallagher and others failed to ask the right questions [esp 2 questions] in trying to understand China's attempts. This lack of understanding will hamper assessment of the likelihood of success or failure. First set of questions: networks of actors [firms, government bodies, universities etc], how are they together being involved in this attempt? What are the broken gateways or unconnected or inanimated subnetworks? Joana should be able to answer this.
Second set: is there soemthing inherent in the technological acquisition or development path of automotive industries which prevents or hold back `leapfrogging'? Have automotive technologies deep roots and wide base or prerequsites? A way to understand this is to ask the same question about elctronics industry which have shallower technological `roots', so to speak. And to answer this one needs to `map' technological paths or profiles in these automotive and electronics industries. This exercise may be promising as I am not aware of anyone doing anything about it at the moment.