Globalisation and China's Commercial Aircraft Industry

This book explores the extent to which Chinäs new 158 seat airliner, the C919, rolled out in March 2015 can succeed in competing with the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing in this segment of the aircraft market, and examines Chinäs motivation for wanting to compete in this market. It outlines the failure of Chinäs previous attempt, in the 1960s, to build a commercially successful large airliner, the Y-10, discusses the structure of the global and the Chinese industries and argues that the large commercial aircraft industry globally has always been dependent on government intervention and has never operated in a perfectly competitive way. The book demonstrates that the institutional environment of state economic agencies is as important as firm capabilities and industry structure and shows how Chinäs commercial aircraft industry serves as a model for developing countries striving to catch up in high technology, highly concentrated and highly competitive industries.