A Cross-Strait Comparison of Innovation Policy under Industry 4.0 and Sustainability Development Transition

While the advent of Industry 4.0 is emblematic of national strategy for industrial revitalization, the proliferation of technology has drastically changed the landscape of many major sectors of global industries. Industry 4.0 encompasses multi-dimensional concepts—including computerization, digitization, and intelligentization—of business operations based on cyber-physical-systems (CPS) and the Internet-of-Things (IoTs). The vision of Industry 4.0 will bring about improvements in industrial processes, ranging from engineering, material usage, supply chains, and product lifecycle management, to the horizontal value chain. This research project adopts a descriptive analysis with descriptive statistics under the innovation policy framework proposed by Rothwell and Zegveld. This report also informs a comparative policy analysis across China and Taiwan. From the perspectives of industry coalition and competition, this cross-strait comparison lends itself to being a policy-making reference. Results reveal that China, in terms of policy-making, concentrates on ‘political’ and ‘legal/regulatory’ aspects of environmental policy, as well as the theme of ‘public service’ of the demand-side policy. Taiwan also emphasizes the ‘environmental-side’ policy like China, whereas Taiwan focuses more on ‘education/training’ of the supply-side policy.