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> The common perception that China is incapable of innovation needs re-examining. No one is saying Chinese people can't innovate. The real question is whether

> The common perception that China is incapable of innovation needs re-examining. No one is saying Chinese people can't innovate. The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. (I wonder what percentage of current captains of industry in China studied abroad?) Why? Because innovation is essentially disrupting and rebelling against the status quo. ie breaking rules, disobedience, opposition to the norm When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation https://steveblank.com/2012/11/06/entrepreneurs-as-dissidents/ https://steveblank.com/2012/11/06/entrepreneurs-as-dissident... https://medium.com/@they_made_that/innovations-secret-ingredient-73da24fdd775 https://medium.com/@they_made_that/innovations-secret-ingred... http://www.salon.com/2014/10/22/never_before_published_isaac_asimov_essay_reveals_the_secret_to_true_creativity/ http://www.salon.com/2014/10/22/never_before_published_isaac... When your culture is very antagonistic towards people who don't like the status quo and forces them to carefully think about what they say and write, the culture itself becomes a big obstacle to innovation. When you run garbage likethe Great Firewall that limits the sharing of information, that's another strike against innovation. (Of course one way to mitigate the effects of authoritarian rule is by being really favorable towards immigration from places with the opposite culture.) I guess Shenzen is a place that's figuratively where "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away". I wonder how long before that changes?

finid 10y ago
When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation Although the Japanese were not imprisoning people "like A1 WW", they were bowing and obeying when they ushered the era of consumer electronics a few decades ago. Now it's the turn of the Chinese.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  Yes the Japanese are polite and formal and like China there's a huge pressure to conform. However imo there's one key difference: the Japanese obsession with kaizen- constant improvement and striving for perfection. It may not override outward conformity for appearances sake, but imo there are enough Japanese who are madly in love and obsessed with the idea of attempting to achieve acme, that they're willing to risk everything else for it ie. look at things differently, disobey, risk embarrassment from failure, etc... Conversely with the Chinese, guangxi tends to be only fully actualized and achieved with money and expensive physical things that money buys. When it's just about money and there's no love, everything suffers like creativity and quality. The end result is a cheap shallow copy. The authoritarian gov exacerbates this problem.
  - finid 10y ago
    Everything comes and goes. It's just the nature of things. When it's your time to lead the pack, you will, regardless of the cultural environment. Most of us (in the West) don't know it yet, but we're already in the Chinese Age. How long will their time last? The funny thing about the influence of culture on innovation is that when this country (USA) was rewriting the rules and breaking down boundaries this way and that way, we were sending minorities to jail like "AI WW" and generally compelling them to behave and know their place.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Ai Weiwei is not a minority. In fact, the only reason he is not in jail continuously is because his family is very powerful ("noble") in China.
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      Empires are transient, and the more they try to control the people they rule, the more transient they become. China has bet the farm on continual economic growth, and that worked for a while, but they're close to parity with the west now, so maintaining that rate of progress is going to become much more difficult. When the government fails to deliver continual rapid quality of life improvements, autocracy is going to become a major liability. They are going to be forced to either rapidly democratize, or become increasingly isolationist. I suspect that the government will push for the latter, though in the long run democratization is pretty much inevitable. The djinni is out of the bottle, and it's not going back. This isn't to say that I see China collapsing per se, but there are some major speed bumps on the path to global domination.
      - finid 10y ago
        I agree that China will eventually become a democratic country, but that will even make it stronger, not weaker. China is just getting started, so they're far from collapsing.
  - z2 10y ago
    I'd caution against using broad strokes such as "The Chinese", which is a blanket identification that covers 1.2 or 1.3 billion people. Are you talking about the Chinese government that only cares about money and has 'no love' and promotes cheap shallow copies, or that every Chinese person is otherwise locked down to live a mediocre life while in China thanks to their government or their (implied to be) anti-disruption culture? That said, kaizen as a Japanese industrial concept a la Toyota is continuous (small!) improvements, not broad ground-breaking change. With Japanese manufacturing, it was quite compatible with keeping with social norms on the surface and deeper, while optimizing to whatever goals. Kaizen as a broader life-philosophy term is known as gaishan in Chinese, where the word originated and is still used with some frequency, and is known as many other words in Buddhism, where the concept originated. Surely the inventors and practitioners of kaizen in South Asia and China haven't completely lost their love for improving things to the beckoning of material comforts and money?
hawkice 10y ago
I think that it's very possible that unrestricted political speech isn't needed for dynamic business environments. I feel like a lot of Americans are waiting for the other shoe to drop, but only use vague innuendo or metaphor to explain why free speech is necessary for the next electronics innovation. Can't we just say we like free speech? Because if we dont, and they can develop new commercial products without it, China will likely never get free speech. They'll just hear about it as something Western companies wanted that China succeeded without.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  Dynamic business environments - no. World changing innovation - yes.
- rmason 10y ago
  The Tianenmen square protests failed ultimately because the rest of China didn't know they were going on. What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? All it will take is a leaders mistakes and a single spark. It's not a question of whether China will have free speech and democracy but when.
  - T-A 10y ago
    > What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? If you can think of it, then so can the Chinese party state: https://qz.com/848885/china-is-censoring-peoples-chats-without-their-even-knowing-about-it/ https://qz.com/848885/china-is-censoring-peoples-chats-witho...
  - LiweiZ 10y ago
    After n rounds of chaos and peace cycles and losting millions of lives in best case.
  - foldr 10y ago
    The Western world isn't doing a great job of advertising democracy at the moment. There's no natural progression towards free speech and democracy. It will happen if a majority of Chinese people are persuaded that it's a good idea. When they look at Trump and Brexit, I'm not so sure that they will be.
KON_Air 10y ago
Well, given Shenzens whole shtick since its inception is just that I'm pretty optimistic about its "freedom".
- chaostheory 10y ago
  Shanghai gets jealous of rivals and potential rivals and the higher your status, the more Beijing watches you. we'll see how this plays out
  - KON_Air 10y ago
    Of course there is always that but I think the necessity of a "at least one free trade zone even with free in quotation marks" will always outweight petty rivalry.
nullnilvoid 10y ago
Remember that innovations in tech do not require disrupting the government. The tech innovators have little interests in sabotaging the government. Innovations in tech is different from breaking government rules. Tech innovations are about disrupting the incumbents such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, not about the government. Quite to the contrary, the Chinese government encourages tech innovations. Not only that they allow them to innovate, they allow them to break existing rules. As an instance, China is one of the few large countries which have legalized shared cars nation-wide(Didi, Uber). Not even the US.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church > Quite to the contrary, the Chinese government encourages tech innovations. No they do not. When you threaten your people with 'Conform or else...' or 'we will watch everything you do and listen to everything you say', it hurts both the flow and expression of new ideas. In China's defense, this is one thing Western governments are trying to copy. > As an instance, China is one of the few large countries which have legalized shared cars nation-wide(Didi, Uber) Car sharing originated in the West. It was started by bypassing existing laws without permission. In contrast, companies like Didi were sanctioned by the PRC likely after 'hey look how much money they're making in SV off this idea'
  - nullnilvoid 10y ago
    > you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church I am not sure who is missing the big picture. Only one true church? This world is diverse. It is not flat. It is round. Tech innovations are predominantly about tech. When do you see the silicon valley disrupt DC? The US political system basically stays the same since it was founded two hundred years ago. > No they do not. When you threaten your people with 'Conform or else...' or 'we will watch everything you do and listen to everything you say', it hurts both the flow and expression of new ideas. In China's defense, this is one thing Western governments are trying to copy. Not if you are talking about tech innovations. The government does not give a crap if you talk about tech. They cannot care less. If you are trying to sabotage the government or the society, then it is different. > Car sharing originated in the West. It was started by bypassing existing laws without permission. In contrast, companies like Didi were sanctioned by the PRC likely after 'hey look how much money they're making in SV off this idea' Any evidence that show Didi was sanctioned by PRC? If no evidence, it is all FUD.
Nokinside 10y ago
China is not Russian style system where oligarchs close to leader step in and steal your stuff if you get rich. China resembles (British) monarchy of the old. There are laws, but they are not same for the common man and to the noble (60 million members of the communist party). If you steer away from the politics, you can be entrepreneur and become rich. Corruption exists of course, but that's like taxation. You pay your taxes and bribes. Bribing can sometimes allow more freedoms than completely lawful society, because it allows more. China has basically the same bioethical laws as the west, but they are not enforced because party does not care. China became the first country to approve the commercial production of a gene therapy.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Rule by law, not rule of law. Once you understand the difference between these two concepts, you'll understand China a bit better.
  - RickHull 10y ago
    Rule of (arbitrary and capricious) man vs. rule of law is a similar distinction
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    That's not a particularly clear distinction, care to expand / unpack?
    - nyolfen 10y ago
      hazarding a guess, i expect he's saying rule by a privileged group using law as a tool, versus the (ideal) western conception of the rule of law, as a framework that everyone must operate within, equally subject and evenly applied
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Thanks, that helps.
LiweiZ 10y ago
One key factor is the way people act in groups are limited to basically one mode: master-slave. We don't have the environment to nuture other modes, which is crucial for innovation. Also avoiding people equipped with that ability is one of the fundamental work to make sure no group can emerge to do anything effective.
natvod 10y ago
> When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. Thinking political censorship means people are docile all spheres of life. Chinese people are actually much more prone to rant and fight over everyday injustices: shopkeeper ripped you off, denied entrance somewhere, etc. etc. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. Why do you think the government cracks down so hard? Because they're scared: massive and violent people rebellions have erupted throughout Chinese history. Many Chinese people are also quite creative and innovative when it comes to making money and getting ahead. Some home cooks make deals with restaurants to let their patrons sample their homemade spices with their meals and to buy jars of it if they like it. Others have started groups on Wechat where members pay to get advice on X topic (http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-11/13/content_22445001.htm http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-11/13/content_22...). There are tons more examples like this. In fact, I'd argue it can be easier to get your idea started in China because regulations are lax and it's much easier to network to get what you need. Also, just to point out, in the West, the majority of people aren't exactly "rebelling against the status quo" and showing "opposition to the norm" because they can march in a protest or sign a petition.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  To make it extremely clear if it wasn't already obvious, I'm Chinese and I've lived both on the mainland and in South East Asia. > This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. You've contradicted yourself pretty quickly; you haven't disputed my main point: people on the mainland on a whole are not willing to rebel and dissent against people and ideas that are above them like the authorities or even their own parents - this translates to other parts of industry and major schools of thought. For example, one of the reasons the Internet has a decentralized architecture is because its designers didn't want to give the US government centralized control over it. Bickering with your peers over trivial things doesn't count, willing to question your boss, teacher, or someone higher in the food chain is what matters. That said I'm not saying that things can't or will never change. I'm just pointing out the major obstacles to innovation on the mainland. > Also, just to point out, in the West, the majority of people aren't exactly "rebelling against the status quo" and showing "opposition to the norm" Not everyone dissents, but there's a large enough portion of the population that does to push innovation and progress. > because they can march in a protest or sign a petition. It's easy to make fun of it, but yeah this shows how ingrained rebellion and dissent is in our culture and accepted, which is one of the main foundations of innovation.
kirvyteo 10y ago
First of all, it is a complex place. All big countries are. Creating an original product/idea is different from innovating upon an existing one. So is Google not innovative as they did not invent internet search? ApplePay is less innovative because Alipay (handled USD660B in 2012) was started in 2004? Or Wechat is not innovative because whatsapp was there first? I am not Chinese but we sell software in Asia. In a smaller box, they have to be more innovative because of all the crap rules they deal with like Great Firewall. Sure, many of the copies are of low quality and pitiful. However, similar to the hindi word - jugaad, everyday innovations are made using whatever is available. In many ways, they are more flexible than the Japanese who defer more to standard practices and hierarchy. Eventually some made it better than the forerunners. Wechat started as a messaging app but has outstripped whatsapp in terms of applications. It is so tightly integrated in everyday activities, i.e people pay for their daily groceries, buy mcdonalds, it has voice messaging way before whatsapp introduced it, withdraw sent messages etc. I feel that the culture is only antagonistic towards people who don't like the political status quo, not business. Didi (uber), DHL type of services are illegal at the beginning but gained legitimate status eventually because of its usefulness to the society. The propaganda is not helpful but I don't see it as any different from religious propaganda. If you can ignore it, you are fine. (Well, some people claimed religious people are less innovative, but that is another discussion)
- chaostheory 10y ago
  I never said that the mainland has not produced anything innovative. The WeChat platform and DJI are good examples. (Sorry but Didi is not innovative.) My main point is that current conditions in China are not conducive to innovation. I strongly feel that there would be way more game changers like WeChat if the conditions in the mainland improved; even more so than the US and the EU combined. right now the conditions in China tend to just favor making larger and bigger copies of what already exist elsewhere and not anything really new
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
I've come to conclude any culture that teaches strong forms of "respect your elders" will have a tough time building an innovation economy.
- nullnilvoid 10y ago
  "I respect you and will disrupt you."
  - Mz 10y ago
    And then we can have an entire culture of respecting our elders so much that we emulate what disruptive badasses they are. Everyone wins!
- Jackim 10y ago
  Japan?
  - smhost 10y ago
    How much of that is a result of being forced to change due to outside pressure? The fact that they did it well is secondary. I took a course at Yale where they taught the Western canon of literature as Satanic text, where Western culture was presented as justified rebellion. What is the Eastern equivalent?
Hexcles 10y ago
As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a. going from political suppression and a humble (or even submissive, if you wish) culture to suppression on technical innovation; b. reading too much from the so-called SV culture and success stories, so much so to draw a strong equivalence between innovation and (social) disruption. For (a), as many peer comments have already stated, there are many counterexamples. Japan has a much more submissive culture and Russia has similarly, if not more, suppressive political atmosphere. Innovations still happen in both places. And I also suggest you to read more history to see how many innovations were achieved in unwelcoming environment. Yes, these are obstacles and might affect the scale and success of innovations, but obstacles exist everywhere (if there were no opposition, rebellions even wouldn't be called "rebellions" in SV), and small (in the sense of domain, e.g. purely technical) innovations are still innovations, which leads to the second point-- For (b), "disruption" is really a buzz word loved by VC, and there is a trend of extending such buzz word to contexts we would not use this word originally, for example an invention in a particular domain is now a "disruption" in that domain, which makes a ripple sound like a tide. Fundamental, social disruptions can be significantly harder in China, but that does not prevent other innovations, or if you prefer, "disruptions", from happening. In a nutshell, you are stretching these two ends to force them to meet: the negative effect of political/cultural suppression --> impossible to innovate <-- the "disruptions" of innovations And finally, pardon my language, your examples and references are utter nonsense. I know where you are trying to go from them, but they do not prove your point by any means.
- LiweiZ 10y ago
  As a native Chinese, I think the parent commenter knows China better (on the right track but far from being a real expert). The parent looks at this from an outsider's point of view with limited info resources. Now, many of us Chinese think we know ourselves better. But that's simply not the case. This age is one of the most reflection-less in our history. The progress of science constantly brought up different perspectives of the world and there is so little applied to how we Chinese look at ourselves and the world. And the groups reflect most are younger poor students and people involved in trading in finance. Those so called democracy movement leaders and thinkers/observers/writers are just jokes producing brain-dead bullshit begging for fundings from either the ruling party or its opponents, if not both. I ended up with giving up looking for real light from contemporary Chinese contents a few years ago since there was only silence. Probably talked too much here, haha.
m-j-fox 10y ago
> When your culture is very antagonistic towards people who don't like the status quo and forces them to carefully think about what they say and write, the culture itself becomes a big obstacle to innovation. Oh. You mean, like, hacker news?
- m-j-fox 10y ago
  Every downvote proves my point. Flag me to oblivion nazis!
aub3bhat 10y ago
Good lord, this is a ridiculous comment, its truly shameful that its most upvoted. Before you call out Chinese government on Great Firewall, What about Patent Trolls? Or the upcoming Physical wall south of the border? Painting an entire culture with a broad brush is stupid. >> The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. To decisively refute your argument. The current leading company in Drones, is DJI The company was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang (Wāng Tāo, 汪滔). Who did not study Abroad. Also they brought the most populous country in the world from extreme poverty to a near superpower status, and they managed to build home grown tech industry (Baidu, Didi) while intelligently keeping SV out. Is it ethical & moral that's a different question, is it innovative? You bet it is! If the only innovation is some stupid IOT microwave made (with heart emoji) in Silicon Valley by hipsters supporting bernie then you are utterly deluded. The chinese government is filled with geniuses. Refusing to term the enormous progress achieved by the Chinese government (filled mostly with Chinese who studied in China) as innovation is antithetical. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21647981-chinese-firm-has-taken-lead-promising-market-up http://www.economist.com/news/business/21647981-chinese-firm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI_(company)
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  The amount of money that Chinese people send abroad to buy overpriced assets (housing in Vancouver, as an example) tells me that they don't trust their rule of law. I don't know if innovation can thrive in such an environment, but let us see. Maybe the rule of law is no better in other countries today. >> To decisively refute your argument. The current leading company in Drones, is DJI The company was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang (Wāng Tāo, 汪滔). Who did not study Abroad. If you can make that claim about a majority of such companies then you can say it decisively refutes the argument. You have given one example, which could either be a trend or an exception. But here is a question - how easy do you think it is to confirm if it is a trend or an exception? What does that say about the flow of information? If you were an entrepreneur trying to use this information to your advantage, how much confidence will you have in your assessment? >> Before you call out Chinese government on Great Firewall, What about Patent Trolls? Why can't both be wrong?
- 10y ago
bleurghyflergy 10y ago
People move to new places to make money, and in turn elevate their status. Innovation is a means through which people gain an advantage to make money, and therefore gain more status. As Silicon Valley shows, it takes investment to make money. China is flush with money. So your arguments, railing against China, fall flat; unless you are willing to ignore the basic tenets of Silicon Valley. (People also make great technological strides when it comes to defense of their livelihoods. That is why so much public spending towards defense has lead to so many innovative technologies. But that is a topic for another conversation.)
snambi 10y ago
Who are the entrepreneurs in the valley, breaking the rules? btw, which company breaks the rules, except uber? Who says breaking rules are considered innovation?

finid 10y ago

When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation Although the Japanese were not imprisoning people "like A1 WW", they were bowing and obeying when they ushered the era of consumer electronics a few decades ago. Now it's the turn of the Chinese.

chaostheory 10y ago
Yes the Japanese are polite and formal and like China there's a huge pressure to conform. However imo there's one key difference: the Japanese obsession with kaizen- constant improvement and striving for perfection. It may not override outward conformity for appearances sake, but imo there are enough Japanese who are madly in love and obsessed with the idea of attempting to achieve acme, that they're willing to risk everything else for it ie. look at things differently, disobey, risk embarrassment from failure, etc... Conversely with the Chinese, guangxi tends to be only fully actualized and achieved with money and expensive physical things that money buys. When it's just about money and there's no love, everything suffers like creativity and quality. The end result is a cheap shallow copy. The authoritarian gov exacerbates this problem.
- finid 10y ago
  Everything comes and goes. It's just the nature of things. When it's your time to lead the pack, you will, regardless of the cultural environment. Most of us (in the West) don't know it yet, but we're already in the Chinese Age. How long will their time last? The funny thing about the influence of culture on innovation is that when this country (USA) was rewriting the rules and breaking down boundaries this way and that way, we were sending minorities to jail like "AI WW" and generally compelling them to behave and know their place.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Ai Weiwei is not a minority. In fact, the only reason he is not in jail continuously is because his family is very powerful ("noble") in China.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Empires are transient, and the more they try to control the people they rule, the more transient they become. China has bet the farm on continual economic growth, and that worked for a while, but they're close to parity with the west now, so maintaining that rate of progress is going to become much more difficult. When the government fails to deliver continual rapid quality of life improvements, autocracy is going to become a major liability. They are going to be forced to either rapidly democratize, or become increasingly isolationist. I suspect that the government will push for the latter, though in the long run democratization is pretty much inevitable. The djinni is out of the bottle, and it's not going back. This isn't to say that I see China collapsing per se, but there are some major speed bumps on the path to global domination.
    - finid 10y ago
      I agree that China will eventually become a democratic country, but that will even make it stronger, not weaker. China is just getting started, so they're far from collapsing.
- z2 10y ago
  I'd caution against using broad strokes such as "The Chinese", which is a blanket identification that covers 1.2 or 1.3 billion people. Are you talking about the Chinese government that only cares about money and has 'no love' and promotes cheap shallow copies, or that every Chinese person is otherwise locked down to live a mediocre life while in China thanks to their government or their (implied to be) anti-disruption culture? That said, kaizen as a Japanese industrial concept a la Toyota is continuous (small!) improvements, not broad ground-breaking change. With Japanese manufacturing, it was quite compatible with keeping with social norms on the surface and deeper, while optimizing to whatever goals. Kaizen as a broader life-philosophy term is known as gaishan in Chinese, where the word originated and is still used with some frequency, and is known as many other words in Buddhism, where the concept originated. Surely the inventors and practitioners of kaizen in South Asia and China haven't completely lost their love for improving things to the beckoning of material comforts and money?

hawkice 10y ago

I think that it's very possible that unrestricted political speech isn't needed for dynamic business environments. I feel like a lot of Americans are waiting for the other shoe to drop, but only use vague innuendo or metaphor to explain why free speech is necessary for the next electronics innovation. Can't we just say we like free speech? Because if we dont, and they can develop new commercial products without it, China will likely never get free speech. They'll just hear about it as something Western companies wanted that China succeeded without.

chaostheory 10y ago
Dynamic business environments - no. World changing innovation - yes.
rmason 10y ago
The Tianenmen square protests failed ultimately because the rest of China didn't know they were going on. What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? All it will take is a leaders mistakes and a single spark. It's not a question of whether China will have free speech and democracy but when.
- T-A 10y ago
  > What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? If you can think of it, then so can the Chinese party state: https://qz.com/848885/china-is-censoring-peoples-chats-without-their-even-knowing-about-it/ https://qz.com/848885/china-is-censoring-peoples-chats-witho...
- LiweiZ 10y ago
  After n rounds of chaos and peace cycles and losting millions of lives in best case.
- foldr 10y ago
  The Western world isn't doing a great job of advertising democracy at the moment. There's no natural progression towards free speech and democracy. It will happen if a majority of Chinese people are persuaded that it's a good idea. When they look at Trump and Brexit, I'm not so sure that they will be.

KON_Air 10y ago

Well, given Shenzens whole shtick since its inception is just that I'm pretty optimistic about its "freedom".

chaostheory 10y ago
Shanghai gets jealous of rivals and potential rivals and the higher your status, the more Beijing watches you. we'll see how this plays out
- KON_Air 10y ago
  Of course there is always that but I think the necessity of a "at least one free trade zone even with free in quotation marks" will always outweight petty rivalry.

nullnilvoid 10y ago

Remember that innovations in tech do not require disrupting the government. The tech innovators have little interests in sabotaging the government. Innovations in tech is different from breaking government rules. Tech innovations are about disrupting the incumbents such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, not about the government. Quite to the contrary, the Chinese government encourages tech innovations. Not only that they allow them to innovate, they allow them to break existing rules. As an instance, China is one of the few large countries which have legalized shared cars nation-wide(Didi, Uber). Not even the US.

chaostheory 10y ago
you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church > Quite to the contrary, the Chinese government encourages tech innovations. No they do not. When you threaten your people with 'Conform or else...' or 'we will watch everything you do and listen to everything you say', it hurts both the flow and expression of new ideas. In China's defense, this is one thing Western governments are trying to copy. > As an instance, China is one of the few large countries which have legalized shared cars nation-wide(Didi, Uber) Car sharing originated in the West. It was started by bypassing existing laws without permission. In contrast, companies like Didi were sanctioned by the PRC likely after 'hey look how much money they're making in SV off this idea'
- nullnilvoid 10y ago
  > you're missing the big picture. the status quo isn't limited to just a government. It can be a dominant company, tech standard, belief or way of thinking - the world is flat, there is only one true Church I am not sure who is missing the big picture. Only one true church? This world is diverse. It is not flat. It is round. Tech innovations are predominantly about tech. When do you see the silicon valley disrupt DC? The US political system basically stays the same since it was founded two hundred years ago. > No they do not. When you threaten your people with 'Conform or else...' or 'we will watch everything you do and listen to everything you say', it hurts both the flow and expression of new ideas. In China's defense, this is one thing Western governments are trying to copy. Not if you are talking about tech innovations. The government does not give a crap if you talk about tech. They cannot care less. If you are trying to sabotage the government or the society, then it is different. > Car sharing originated in the West. It was started by bypassing existing laws without permission. In contrast, companies like Didi were sanctioned by the PRC likely after 'hey look how much money they're making in SV off this idea' Any evidence that show Didi was sanctioned by PRC? If no evidence, it is all FUD.

Nokinside 10y ago

China is not Russian style system where oligarchs close to leader step in and steal your stuff if you get rich. China resembles (British) monarchy of the old. There are laws, but they are not same for the common man and to the noble (60 million members of the communist party). If you steer away from the politics, you can be entrepreneur and become rich. Corruption exists of course, but that's like taxation. You pay your taxes and bribes. Bribing can sometimes allow more freedoms than completely lawful society, because it allows more. China has basically the same bioethical laws as the west, but they are not enforced because party does not care. China became the first country to approve the commercial production of a gene therapy.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Rule by law, not rule of law. Once you understand the difference between these two concepts, you'll understand China a bit better.
- RickHull 10y ago
  Rule of (arbitrary and capricious) man vs. rule of law is a similar distinction
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  That's not a particularly clear distinction, care to expand / unpack?
  - nyolfen 10y ago
    hazarding a guess, i expect he's saying rule by a privileged group using law as a tool, versus the (ideal) western conception of the rule of law, as a framework that everyone must operate within, equally subject and evenly applied
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Thanks, that helps.

LiweiZ 10y ago

One key factor is the way people act in groups are limited to basically one mode: master-slave. We don't have the environment to nuture other modes, which is crucial for innovation. Also avoiding people equipped with that ability is one of the fundamental work to make sure no group can emerge to do anything effective.

natvod 10y ago

> When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. Thinking political censorship means people are docile all spheres of life. Chinese people are actually much more prone to rant and fight over everyday injustices: shopkeeper ripped you off, denied entrance somewhere, etc. etc. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. Why do you think the government cracks down so hard? Because they're scared: massive and violent people rebellions have erupted throughout Chinese history. Many Chinese people are also quite creative and innovative when it comes to making money and getting ahead. Some home cooks make deals with restaurants to let their patrons sample their homemade spices with their meals and to buy jars of it if they like it. Others have started groups on Wechat where members pay to get advice on X topic (http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-11/13/content_22445001.htm http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-11/13/content_22...). There are tons more examples like this. In fact, I'd argue it can be easier to get your idea started in China because regulations are lax and it's much easier to network to get what you need. Also, just to point out, in the West, the majority of people aren't exactly "rebelling against the status quo" and showing "opposition to the norm" because they can march in a protest or sign a petition.

chaostheory 10y ago
To make it extremely clear if it wasn't already obvious, I'm Chinese and I've lived both on the mainland and in South East Asia. > This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. You've contradicted yourself pretty quickly; you haven't disputed my main point: people on the mainland on a whole are not willing to rebel and dissent against people and ideas that are above them like the authorities or even their own parents - this translates to other parts of industry and major schools of thought. For example, one of the reasons the Internet has a decentralized architecture is because its designers didn't want to give the US government centralized control over it. Bickering with your peers over trivial things doesn't count, willing to question your boss, teacher, or someone higher in the food chain is what matters. That said I'm not saying that things can't or will never change. I'm just pointing out the major obstacles to innovation on the mainland. > Also, just to point out, in the West, the majority of people aren't exactly "rebelling against the status quo" and showing "opposition to the norm" Not everyone dissents, but there's a large enough portion of the population that does to push innovation and progress. > because they can march in a protest or sign a petition. It's easy to make fun of it, but yeah this shows how ingrained rebellion and dissent is in our culture and accepted, which is one of the main foundations of innovation.

kirvyteo 10y ago

First of all, it is a complex place. All big countries are. Creating an original product/idea is different from innovating upon an existing one. So is Google not innovative as they did not invent internet search? ApplePay is less innovative because Alipay (handled USD660B in 2012) was started in 2004? Or Wechat is not innovative because whatsapp was there first? I am not Chinese but we sell software in Asia. In a smaller box, they have to be more innovative because of all the crap rules they deal with like Great Firewall. Sure, many of the copies are of low quality and pitiful. However, similar to the hindi word - jugaad, everyday innovations are made using whatever is available. In many ways, they are more flexible than the Japanese who defer more to standard practices and hierarchy. Eventually some made it better than the forerunners. Wechat started as a messaging app but has outstripped whatsapp in terms of applications. It is so tightly integrated in everyday activities, i.e people pay for their daily groceries, buy mcdonalds, it has voice messaging way before whatsapp introduced it, withdraw sent messages etc. I feel that the culture is only antagonistic towards people who don't like the political status quo, not business. Didi (uber), DHL type of services are illegal at the beginning but gained legitimate status eventually because of its usefulness to the society. The propaganda is not helpful but I don't see it as any different from religious propaganda. If you can ignore it, you are fine. (Well, some people claimed religious people are less innovative, but that is another discussion)

chaostheory 10y ago
I never said that the mainland has not produced anything innovative. The WeChat platform and DJI are good examples. (Sorry but Didi is not innovative.) My main point is that current conditions in China are not conducive to innovation. I strongly feel that there would be way more game changers like WeChat if the conditions in the mainland improved; even more so than the US and the EU combined. right now the conditions in China tend to just favor making larger and bigger copies of what already exist elsewhere and not anything really new

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

I've come to conclude any culture that teaches strong forms of "respect your elders" will have a tough time building an innovation economy.

nullnilvoid 10y ago
"I respect you and will disrupt you."
- Mz 10y ago
  And then we can have an entire culture of respecting our elders so much that we emulate what disruptive badasses they are. Everyone wins!
Jackim 10y ago
Japan?
- smhost 10y ago
  How much of that is a result of being forced to change due to outside pressure? The fact that they did it well is secondary. I took a course at Yale where they taught the Western canon of literature as Satanic text, where Western culture was presented as justified rebellion. What is the Eastern equivalent?

Hexcles 10y ago

As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a. going from political suppression and a humble (or even submissive, if you wish) culture to suppression on technical innovation; b. reading too much from the so-called SV culture and success stories, so much so to draw a strong equivalence between innovation and (social) disruption. For (a), as many peer comments have already stated, there are many counterexamples. Japan has a much more submissive culture and Russia has similarly, if not more, suppressive political atmosphere. Innovations still happen in both places. And I also suggest you to read more history to see how many innovations were achieved in unwelcoming environment. Yes, these are obstacles and might affect the scale and success of innovations, but obstacles exist everywhere (if there were no opposition, rebellions even wouldn't be called "rebellions" in SV), and small (in the sense of domain, e.g. purely technical) innovations are still innovations, which leads to the second point-- For (b), "disruption" is really a buzz word loved by VC, and there is a trend of extending such buzz word to contexts we would not use this word originally, for example an invention in a particular domain is now a "disruption" in that domain, which makes a ripple sound like a tide. Fundamental, social disruptions can be significantly harder in China, but that does not prevent other innovations, or if you prefer, "disruptions", from happening. In a nutshell, you are stretching these two ends to force them to meet: the negative effect of political/cultural suppression --> impossible to innovate <-- the "disruptions" of innovations And finally, pardon my language, your examples and references are utter nonsense. I know where you are trying to go from them, but they do not prove your point by any means.

LiweiZ 10y ago
As a native Chinese, I think the parent commenter knows China better (on the right track but far from being a real expert). The parent looks at this from an outsider's point of view with limited info resources. Now, many of us Chinese think we know ourselves better. But that's simply not the case. This age is one of the most reflection-less in our history. The progress of science constantly brought up different perspectives of the world and there is so little applied to how we Chinese look at ourselves and the world. And the groups reflect most are younger poor students and people involved in trading in finance. Those so called democracy movement leaders and thinkers/observers/writers are just jokes producing brain-dead bullshit begging for fundings from either the ruling party or its opponents, if not both. I ended up with giving up looking for real light from contemporary Chinese contents a few years ago since there was only silence. Probably talked too much here, haha.

m-j-fox 10y ago

> When your culture is very antagonistic towards people who don't like the status quo and forces them to carefully think about what they say and write, the culture itself becomes a big obstacle to innovation. Oh. You mean, like, hacker news?

m-j-fox 10y ago
Every downvote proves my point. Flag me to oblivion nazis!

aub3bhat 10y ago

Good lord, this is a ridiculous comment, its truly shameful that its most upvoted. Before you call out Chinese government on Great Firewall, What about Patent Trolls? Or the upcoming Physical wall south of the border? Painting an entire culture with a broad brush is stupid. >> The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. To decisively refute your argument. The current leading company in Drones, is DJI The company was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang (Wāng Tāo, 汪滔). Who did not study Abroad. Also they brought the most populous country in the world from extreme poverty to a near superpower status, and they managed to build home grown tech industry (Baidu, Didi) while intelligently keeping SV out. Is it ethical & moral that's a different question, is it innovative? You bet it is! If the only innovation is some stupid IOT microwave made (with heart emoji) in Silicon Valley by hipsters supporting bernie then you are utterly deluded. The chinese government is filled with geniuses. Refusing to term the enormous progress achieved by the Chinese government (filled mostly with Chinese who studied in China) as innovation is antithetical. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21647981-chinese-firm-has-taken-lead-promising-market-up http://www.economist.com/news/business/21647981-chinese-firm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI_(company)

thr0waway1239 10y ago
The amount of money that Chinese people send abroad to buy overpriced assets (housing in Vancouver, as an example) tells me that they don't trust their rule of law. I don't know if innovation can thrive in such an environment, but let us see. Maybe the rule of law is no better in other countries today. >> To decisively refute your argument. The current leading company in Drones, is DJI The company was founded in 2006 by Frank Wang (Wāng Tāo, 汪滔). Who did not study Abroad. If you can make that claim about a majority of such companies then you can say it decisively refutes the argument. You have given one example, which could either be a trend or an exception. But here is a question - how easy do you think it is to confirm if it is a trend or an exception? What does that say about the flow of information? If you were an entrepreneur trying to use this information to your advantage, how much confidence will you have in your assessment? >> Before you call out Chinese government on Great Firewall, What about Patent Trolls? Why can't both be wrong?
10y ago

bleurghyflergy 10y ago

People move to new places to make money, and in turn elevate their status. Innovation is a means through which people gain an advantage to make money, and therefore gain more status. As Silicon Valley shows, it takes investment to make money. China is flush with money. So your arguments, railing against China, fall flat; unless you are willing to ignore the basic tenets of Silicon Valley. (People also make great technological strides when it comes to defense of their livelihoods. That is why so much public spending towards defense has lead to so many innovative technologies. But that is a topic for another conversation.)

snambi 10y ago

Who are the entrepreneurs in the valley, breaking the rules? btw, which company breaks the rules, except uber? Who says breaking rules are considered innovation?