Technological Introduction and Industrialization Path of China's National Defense Industry in the 1950s

As a technology-intensive industry of strategic importance, the national defense industry exercises significant influence on its upstream and downstream industrial sectors due to its explicit inter-industry relevancy. In the 1950s, the foundation of China's national defense industry was laid with preliminary development by technological introduction, and the strategy of giving priority to heavy industry was promoted owing to inter-industry relevancy and technology spillover, thus accelerating China's industrialization noticeably. However, it is necessary to summarize and reflect on the attempts of converting militarily-oriented enterprises to civil production initiated in the late 1950s in light of the fact that it is on the basis of the construction of an innovative system of integrating military and civil production by means of the positive co-ordination between the national defense industry and the civil industry that the technological innovation can be achieved, facilitating the healthy development of the national economy.