No less noteworthy, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel prize in Medicine for discovering artemsinin, an anti-malaria compound, in the 1970s, a breakthrough that saved the lives of millions of people. Tu's research, part of a government project, was guided by an inspired combination of traditional Chinese medicine and modern medical approaches.

Fast forward 40 years and the landscape of innovation in China stands to change dramatically, with the private sector, especially start-ups, at the forefront.

China needs to develop "twin engines" of popular entrepreneurship and mass innovation paired with increased supplies of public goods and services to drive development, Premier Li Keqiang said in the government work report at the National People's Congress annual session in March 2015.

Of the five concepts highlighted in the proposal for formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) issued in November 2015, innovation comes first, followed by coordination, green development, opening-up and sharing.

To back up the pro-innovation policies, the Chinese government has taken concrete measures to rally micro and small businesses around the cause: China cut more than 300 billion yuan (US$46.15 billion) in taxes during 2015 to boost startup growth and innovation.

Chinese startups on the cusp of this innovation wave don't need to look abroad for examples to emulate. Lenovo, a Chinese multinational computer technology company and the world's number one PC vendor in 2015 according to International Data Corporation (IDC), forayed into tablet markets dominated by Apple and Samsung with its sleek Yoga series, the world's first tablets with built-in stands. A Forbes review of Yoga HD + wrote: "Lenovo created something genuinely unique and differentiated with the Lenovo Yoga HD+ Tablet versus aping the giants. Instead of running up the display resolution, they built in an aluminum stand which serves as a handle and a receptacle for a large battery and speaker enclosures. "

Huawei and Xiaomi, two major Chinese mobile phone brands which rank among the world's top 10 mobile phone makers, also built their success on innovation. In 2015, Huawei became China's first, and the world's third, company to ship 100 million smart phones. A less glamorous but more significant figure for the same year is that Huawei invested 100 billion yuan, or about $US 15.4 billion in R&D, amounting to about a quarter of its 2015 revenue. To put that figure in perspective, Apple spent $US 8.1 billion on R&D in its fiscal year 2015.

Boasting low-cost and feature-rich devices, Xiaomi ranked third in Fast Company's "World's 50 Most Innovative Companies" list for 2014, just behind Google and Bloomberg. While Huawei puts a premium on technological innovation, Xiaomi pursues marketing strategies like no other company. Fast Company wrote in its list about Xiaomi: although founder Lei Jun is reflexively compared to Steve Jobs, Jun's strategy is hardly the same as Apple's: He sells his phones - in buzz-generating flash sales - at a razor-thin margin and then takes advantage of the longer potential revenue stream from software.

Cover of April 2016 issue of WIRED UK Edition