Innovation network, which can utilize internal and external resources, has become the hot spot in the research field. From the perspective of economic geography, there are two main research branches, namely new regionalism and global production network. To be brief, the former emphasizes local network and the embeddness of innovation linkage, while the latter underlines the global connection and the great power of leading Multinational Corporation. Since 2000, more and more scholars have paid more attention to one-sidedness of single scale. Hence, some new theories on the dynamic and the spatial character of innovation network have begun to emerge, such as the “local buzz-global pipeline”, “beyond new regionalism”, “GPN2.0” etc. Most research, however, didn't notice the different composition and spatial of network derived from the diverse types of industry and their innovation mode. Inspired by the Innovation Dichotomy, namely STI (Science, Technology, Innovation) and DUI (Doing, Using, Interacting), which is related with different approaches, techniques, and scales where the partners located, this article takes China equipment manufacturing industry as the empirical case and focuses on how STI/DUI influences the construction of innovation network and the development of innovation capability. By means of 388 questionnaires, the article employs descriptive statistical analysis, clustering method and regression analysis to reach the following three conclusions: Firstly, as the typical producer-driven and technology-driven industry, DUI works as the dominant way on the construction of innovation network, which results in the industry partner is more important than knowledge one; The objective of a start-up firm is existence to choose DUI-mode partners, and the cooperation with STI-mode partners will rise along with its innovation development. Secondly, from the side of spatial scale, regional cooperation happens more frequent than local cooperation either in STI or DUI, and hence ‘cluster illusion’ exists; Meanwhile, national partners turn to be the optimal choice for the firms and the effect of administrative boundary, namely province and city is waning. Thirdly, state-owned and the big privately owned enterprises, generally speaking, can get the dominant or recessive government supports to be more innovative. The results of innovation atmosphere are consistent with the expectation that firms benefit from interacting with a wide range of trans-local partners, particularly international, both for scientific and technological network. While government support, the level of R&D investments or education in the city in which the firm is located are related with radical innovation, does not have any direct effect on its potential for innovation network. At last, the article raises some corresponding policy suggestions to optimize and enhance the innovation of China equipment manufacturing industry, which respectively are cultivating the superiority of DUI, weakening local networking while encouraging regional innovation cooperation, establishing the institution system to meet the need of the industry.
