China's Harbin Institute of Technology has recently allowed its doctoral candidates to graduate with a product or design instead of a dissertation. According to the South China Morning Post, the purpose of this policy change is to practically handle bottleneck engineering problems in the backdrop of the tech race with the United States. The new approach acknowledges the superiority of practical knowledge in engineering education and is a point of departure from traditional thesis writing as a prerequisite for the award of PhD degrees. Although the leading universities of the world have long been focusing on case study methodology as a research strategy to explore specialised practical knowledge, its approach in engineering education still needs more relevance to the practical challenges of everyday life. Clearly, the Chinese approach is to produce more designs or products to strengthen innovation momentum for aggrandising its economic growth rate and global influence.

The approach is a kind of strategic response to the castigating assumptions behind the Peak China Theory (PCT), conditioning China's economic growth rate with its external and internal challenges. The theory suggests that China's economic growth and global influence may reach a zenith point, which, according to the US economist Nicholas Lardy, has already been reached. However, China's aggressive focus on product-based engineering education has created counter-narratives against the PCT, suggesting the possibility of a long-run innovation-led economic growth rate. Many countries in the Global South, including Pakistan, may learn policy........

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