“To Copy China”(2CC) is a newly created phrase, transformed from the well-known older phrase, “Copy To China” (C2C). Chinese Internet entrepreneurs foresee that the Chinese Internet industry will end its copycat history, and will come into a true innovation stage, which can give inspiration to the West, so that Westerners will want “to Copy China”. Although 2CC sounds awkward in English, it’s a statement of “good wishes” for China to transform its business model and global image.

            The last 30 years of rapid economic development in China were based on the C2C business model. The culture of copying in China was not frowned upon, but encouraged. There are three reasons:
           
  1. Copying is the result of a closed market.
The principal reason that C2C became the leading model for the Chinese Internet and mobile application development industries was that the Chinese government blocked all major Western websites. There is a surprisingly long black list, which continues to grow.

The closed market helps Chinese copycats grow quickly. So, Google’s copycat is Baidu; YouTube’s Chinese versions include Tudou, Youku and Qiyi; Twitter is a hit application for Sina.com in the form of Sina Weibo, which means mini-broadcast. For these copycats, the C2C model cuts the costs of innovation and R & D, reduces the risk of new product trial and failure, and even saves the cost of the brand cost positioning and promotion. So, we see a lot of Chinese companies with "China's XXX" defining themselves with names such as "Chinese Apple" (Xiaomi); When the Renren website went public, it claimed its positioning as China's "Facebook + Zynga + Groupon + Linkedin ".

 2. Copying is a sign of respect.
Although the Chinese government always propagandizes the importance of consolidation of “people's confidence in our path, theories and system and pooling our spiritual strength for the great 'China Dream’”, it can’t prevent Chinese consumers and markets from imitating the West.

As a developing country, China has been behind the West in the post Industrial Revolution era. Thus, the West represents more advanced productive forces and aesthetic standards. Even in China’s real estate industry, copycat culture is prevalent. Across the nation, there are many “Thames Towns”, replica Eiffel Towers, and mock Tower Bridges. The White House is a commonly copied target for Chinese government buildings. In the plastic surgery industry, the definition of pretty, is not the standard Chinese face, but closer to a Caucasian face. People want to have big eyes, high profile and nicer noses. Even Western holidays, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, are celebrated with interest in Chinese big cities. Most Chinese people who celebrate those holidays see them as happy occasions for get-togethers of friends, relatives, and couples, without any religious attachment. Chinese merchants are also happy to ride on these holidays to stimulate more sales.
           
           
 3. Copying is a shortcut to success.

In an era of rapid economic development, Chinese worship success, and easily forget all the scandals which paved the road to the success. Tang Jun is an ex-executive from Microsoft who enjoyed celebrity fame for his career success. In 2010, it was revealed that he made fake certifications about his academic education. Facing strong evidence, he apologized to the public. However, not a year after the scandal, Tang started to tour again in all major Universities to mentor young people how to get successful careers. There were no empty seats.

           
            Although, C2C still prevails, the attitudes toward C2C are changing. Recently, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, calling China a nation of people who can "take a test" but who are "not terribly imaginative", applying a broad-based insult to a population of over 1 billion. But these mean comments regarding China did not stir much anger. On the contrary, many Chinese feel that this comment is insightful, and that indeed the entire Chinese education sector should reflect on how to encourage innovation.

            I believe that 2CC will come eventually. However, it would be a long way to go from C2C to 2CC. In the interim, we will see more and more Chinese companies start to transform from copycats to builders of their original business ideas, which will not quickly go global but will stand up in the domestic market first. With rapid economic development, Chinese are having more and more global experience, and increasingly broad views, so they have ever more demand for original ideas and real innovation. There is a strong return of Chinese culture and identity. Lots of local Chinese culture brands have started to make a strong impact in the design industry. Meanwhile, Chinese users have their own preferences and consumption habits, to which foreign companies failed to cater. For example, Ebay failed in China since it didn’t adapt to the China market, but Alibaba won out by adding critical Chinese characteristics onto Ebay’s original business model. Now Alibaba is one of the 10 most valuable companies in the World. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which used to copy Apple, now has captured the hearts and minds of Asian consumers while building top-notch smartphones that cost a fraction of the iPhone's price. 
            China's economy had grown from basically zero 30 years ago to become the second-biggest economy in the world. To grow further, China has to and will transform from a copycat model to becoming a “create in China” model. And it's time for Western markets to take inspiration from China, that is, “to copy China”.

Co-author: Yongfeng Tan, Ph.D
By Ben Hirschler and Adam Jourdan
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China, already a global powerhouse in high-tech areas from solar panels to bullet trains, is turning its industrial might to the challenge of making more of its own drugs for a vast and aging population.
Given the 10 years or more it typically takes to bring a new medicine to market, original “Made in China” treatments won’t arrive overnight, but multinationals are already encountering more competition from local generic drugs that look set for a quantum leap in quality.
The stakes are high. China is the world’s second biggest drugs market behind the United States, and fast food, smoking and pollution have fueled a rise in cancers and chronic heart and lung diseases.
The country also has more diabetics than any other in the world, with numbers expected to hit 151 million by 2040 from 110 million today, according to the International Diabetes Federation.
That has made China a sweet spot for Denmark’s Novo Nordisk; the world’s biggest insulin producer has mined a rich seam in the country since opening production facilities here in 1995.
By 2010, it dominated 63 percent of China’s insulin market. But it has recently been losing ground to local competitors cheered on by Beijing.
“China is going to be tough for us for the next couple of years,” said Chief Science Officer Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen. “Right now, the country is very focused on building domestic production.”
Local rivals are selling both cut-price basic insulin and sophisticated modern versions, including a biosimilar copy of Sanofi’s Lantus made by Chinese biotech specialist Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals.
END OF BRANDED GENERICS?
Greater local competition is also evident in other areas, helping the top 10 Chinese drugmakers grow sales 12 percent on average this year, according to IMS Consulting – twice the rate of multinationals, which suffered a setback from a bribery scandal at GlaxoSmithKline two years ago.
GSK itself has seen its drug sales slump.
Increasing local competition is part of a structural upheaval in China’s hospital-dominated prescription drug market. Selling drugs to patients at a hefty mark-up – especially off-patent Western “branded generics” – often accounts for 40-50 percent of Chinese hospitals’ revenues. But the authorities are now pushing a policy of zero mark-ups, initially in smaller county hospitals.
“Branded generics are something that exist today, but the need for them in 10 years time is not going to be there,” said Luke Miels, AstraZeneca’s global portfolio head.
That means foreign firms will be more reliant on new, patented medicines, although the scale of demand for such expensive products is uncertain in a country with only basic health insurance cover.
At the other end of the spectrum, multinationals aim to build up volume, often in partnership with local players, in the big markets outside China’s top cities, where distribution costs are high and prices low.
“It’s the right thing to do, even if profit margins shrink,” said the head of one big multinational.
REGULATOR REFORM
Pivotal to the transformation of the market is the China Food and Drug Administration, led by reformist boss Bi Jingquan since January.
The watchdog has promised to speed up approval of innovative new drugs, which can take 5-7 years, while cracking down on substandard local generics.
“This creates lots of opportunities for local Chinese companies that have a strong focus on innovation,” said a spokesman for China’s Fosun Pharma, which sees itself among the winners.
It is not alone. A cluster of drug research labs in eastern Shanghai highlights the promise of China’s life sciences sector. The area brings together multinational and local firms, alongside contract research businesses and small biotech operations.
Among the latter is Hua Medicine, led by Chinese-born, Western-educated Chief Executive Li Chen, who used to run Roche’s China R&D center. Now he is developing a novel diabetes treatment, licensed from Roche, while working on Hua’s own promising leads.
Another standard-bearer for Chinese biotech is Beijing-based cancer specialist BeiGene, which last month announced plans for a $100 million initial public offering on Nasdaq.
At a time when China’s academic researchers have grabbed headlines by editing the genes of human embryos, such start-ups highlight the commercial potential of China’s biotech know-how.
The history of failure in drug development suggests they won’t have an easy ride, but GSK’s China R&D head Min Li, a returnee from America, believes “there is a real chance for China to leap ahead in life sciences”.
Dennis Gillings, executive chairman of leading contract research organization Quintiles, said the number of Chinese-developed drugs in the pipeline was rising fast.
“It’s probably been taking everyone a little by surprise, the sheer scale of that,” he said. “As we hit the next decade in the 2020s, I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t at least a top 20, if not top 10, global pharma player that was headquartered in China.”
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Will Waterman)