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> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, t

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Why not sustain that as long as possible? What other country has the stability and resources to replicate that? Most countries with extremely cheap labor don't have the supply chain.

princekolt 9y ago
> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Yes, but that's not OPs point, I think. What I think OP means is that the west doesn't have to worry (much) about China becoming the world's main innovation spot, because with censorship, the best they can do is copy. In a weird way, this is good for the western world.
- FabHK 9y ago
  I think that's too optimistic. It seems to me that China manages to control the vast majority of the population. If you have technical expertise and perseverance, you can still circumvent the GFW (great firewall), install WhatsApp, etc., and I think you will continue to be able to - but most people in China don't. (It's a bit like pirating music and movies in the west - you can still do it, but many people now use the legal options (iTunes, Netflix, ...), because it's just not worth the hassle.) But the CCP doesn't care about a small elite knowing things. OP contends that suppressing political discontent and censoring & controlling the communication of the vast majority of people will necessarily impede innovation and economic growth. That's not obvious to me at all, unfortunately.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  The best they do is manufacture. The kids growing now in West have lost ability to tinker. If you are into electronics and manufacturing, China is like playground to experiment. In the west, we are losing rights to fix the gadgets we own.
- whooshee 9y ago
  Come on, check out Nature Index and see CAS. Or you can see the FAST telescope project located in China. Why you are so pride about the west. Every civilization has their ups and downs. In Song dynasty, what the West was doing?
chaostheory 9y ago
> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Why not sustain that as long as possible? Someone may correct me... 1. having a more open society results in more innovation, which results in more economic development which allows the ruling class to become even wealthier and more powerful globally 2. currently, only 18-20% of China is middle class. About 78% of China is still poor. If things slow down due to a lack of innovation, historically things get ugly.
- bitcuration 9y ago
  What he meant is it has worked well for a selected few in China, as well as those international tycoon.
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    Yes I understood. I'm just saying that it can be even better for those select few as well. i.e. they are leaving money on the table
- KGIII 9y ago
  This article has some very different numbers. Also, it may be a small percentage but the total number of individuals is huge. There's a lot of Chinese people, after all. Anyhow, link: https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ As for the numbers in that link, I'm not sure of the validity. I see lots of different numbers quoted at different sites. I have to wonder if it is accurate. A couple even put their upper middle class at 35%.
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    According to your article (unless I misread it) the lower class is 68% of the population. While it has greatly improved, there's still a huge gap
    - KGIII 9y ago
bad_user 9y ago
China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue is that they can't attract much foreign talent to relocate there, like Europe and the U.S. have historically done. Because they don't have a culture friendly to immigrants, but also because their environment is toxic for those of us that are accustomed to liberal democracies. And their "copy machines" are actually racing against the clock, as more and more factories get fully automated and thus relocated home, not to mention their rising middle class, thus their cheap labor advantage will eventually go away. So when multinational companies will no longer assemble their products in China, what will they copy? Of course, their middle class are now sending their children to western schools and many of them will probably go back to China, but on the other hand the best and brightest end up having the choice to stay in the west and many of them will.
- FabHK 9y ago
  > I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives And maybe later they might even build alternatives to Google, Twitter, and eBay! /sarcasm - please check out WeChat, Baidu, Sina Weibo, Alibaba
- mattmurdog 9y ago
  They already have an alternative it's called WeChat. Maybe other people should install that instead?
  - FabHK 9y ago
    It's way more powerful than WhatsApp, too (location based chats, payments, etc.). And, of course, it's not E2E encrypted; just the opposite, you can assume that it's being wiretapped/monitored. Thus, please don't install it.
    - 086421357909764 9y ago
pangfandang 9y ago
China is still very poor. The Chinese rural households have a per capita income of only 9,892 yuan – about $4 dollars a day. and there's 680 million of these rural households still. Chinese urban households have only a per capita income of 29,831 yuan – an abysmal $4,500 a year. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/ https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/ And we see the effects of poverty on education: "Surveys by Rozelle's team have found that more than half of eighth graders in poor rural areas in China have IQs below 90, leaving them struggling to keep up with the fast-paced official curriculum" http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/one-three-chinese-children-faces-education-apocalypse-ambitious-experiment-hopes-save http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/one-three-chinese-chi...
- kwoff 9y ago
  The things you mention are easily turned around (I certainly don't support the CCP, however). Maybe the Chinese are very efficient with their money (try living on $4 a day in the US; or what does $4 mean in China?), or don't need as much money due to... a socialist system and/or, if you prefer, Hong Kong Post. Maybe they've started to realize the dream of Star Trek's "economy". ;) "Consider the aggregate IQs of rural and urban/suburban whites [in the US]. During the 1970s according to Wordsum-IQ data, the intelligence gap between whites raised on farms and those who grew up in an urban/suburban background was enormous, almost exactly equal to the white/black gap. The data would indicate that a non-trivial slice of the white farmboys of the 1970s suffered from clinical mental retardation".
- notyourday 9y ago
  > And we see the effects of poverty on education: "Surveys by Rozelle's team have found that more than half of eighth graders in poor rural areas in China have IQs below 90, leaving them struggling to keep up with the fast-paced official curriculum" Just remember that we do not measure in the US IQ these days because the results would be very painful to look at for the poor of the US.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  I am not worried about the poverty, I am more worried about the whole estate boom and it is on the edge of collapsing. Actually, there are ghost cities in China...those who got rich because they sold lands. They weren't rich because of their skills. This is a big problem to create a more balanced social classes based on income. A healthy economy cannot rely on just one or two specializationa (this is so evidence in Hong Kong, where nearly the captials were built on banking, investment and real estate; there is very little room for anything else to emerge). China has the same problem: major cities is populated with the professionals. In America at least every state has something to offer...

princekolt 9y ago

> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Yes, but that's not OPs point, I think. What I think OP means is that the west doesn't have to worry (much) about China becoming the world's main innovation spot, because with censorship, the best they can do is copy. In a weird way, this is good for the western world.

FabHK 9y ago
I think that's too optimistic. It seems to me that China manages to control the vast majority of the population. If you have technical expertise and perseverance, you can still circumvent the GFW (great firewall), install WhatsApp, etc., and I think you will continue to be able to - but most people in China don't. (It's a bit like pirating music and movies in the west - you can still do it, but many people now use the legal options (iTunes, Netflix, ...), because it's just not worth the hassle.) But the CCP doesn't care about a small elite knowing things. OP contends that suppressing political discontent and censoring & controlling the communication of the vast majority of people will necessarily impede innovation and economic growth. That's not obvious to me at all, unfortunately.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
The best they do is manufacture. The kids growing now in West have lost ability to tinker. If you are into electronics and manufacturing, China is like playground to experiment. In the west, we are losing rights to fix the gadgets we own.
whooshee 9y ago
Come on, check out Nature Index and see CAS. Or you can see the FAST telescope project located in China. Why you are so pride about the west. Every civilization has their ups and downs. In Song dynasty, what the West was doing?

chaostheory 9y ago

> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Why not sustain that as long as possible? Someone may correct me... 1. having a more open society results in more innovation, which results in more economic development which allows the ruling class to become even wealthier and more powerful globally 2. currently, only 18-20% of China is middle class. About 78% of China is still poor. If things slow down due to a lack of innovation, historically things get ugly.

bitcuration 9y ago
What he meant is it has worked well for a selected few in China, as well as those international tycoon.
- chaostheory 9y ago
  Yes I understood. I'm just saying that it can be even better for those select few as well. i.e. they are leaving money on the table
KGIII 9y ago
This article has some very different numbers. Also, it may be a small percentage but the total number of individuals is huge. There's a lot of Chinese people, after all. Anyhow, link: https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class/ As for the numbers in that link, I'm not sure of the validity. I see lots of different numbers quoted at different sites. I have to wonder if it is accurate. A couple even put their upper middle class at 35%.
- chaostheory 9y ago
  According to your article (unless I misread it) the lower class is 68% of the population. While it has greatly improved, there's still a huge gap
  - KGIII 9y ago

bad_user 9y ago

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue is that they can't attract much foreign talent to relocate there, like Europe and the U.S. have historically done. Because they don't have a culture friendly to immigrants, but also because their environment is toxic for those of us that are accustomed to liberal democracies. And their "copy machines" are actually racing against the clock, as more and more factories get fully automated and thus relocated home, not to mention their rising middle class, thus their cheap labor advantage will eventually go away. So when multinational companies will no longer assemble their products in China, what will they copy? Of course, their middle class are now sending their children to western schools and many of them will probably go back to China, but on the other hand the best and brightest end up having the choice to stay in the west and many of them will.

FabHK 9y ago
> I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives And maybe later they might even build alternatives to Google, Twitter, and eBay! /sarcasm - please check out WeChat, Baidu, Sina Weibo, Alibaba
mattmurdog 9y ago
They already have an alternative it's called WeChat. Maybe other people should install that instead?
- FabHK 9y ago
  It's way more powerful than WhatsApp, too (location based chats, payments, etc.). And, of course, it's not E2E encrypted; just the opposite, you can assume that it's being wiretapped/monitored. Thus, please don't install it.
  - 086421357909764 9y ago

pangfandang 9y ago

China is still very poor. The Chinese rural households have a per capita income of only 9,892 yuan – about $4 dollars a day. and there's 680 million of these rural households still. Chinese urban households have only a per capita income of 29,831 yuan – an abysmal $4,500 a year. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/ https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/ And we see the effects of poverty on education: "Surveys by Rozelle's team have found that more than half of eighth graders in poor rural areas in China have IQs below 90, leaving them struggling to keep up with the fast-paced official curriculum" http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/one-three-chinese-children-faces-education-apocalypse-ambitious-experiment-hopes-save http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/one-three-chinese-chi...

kwoff 9y ago
The things you mention are easily turned around (I certainly don't support the CCP, however). Maybe the Chinese are very efficient with their money (try living on $4 a day in the US; or what does $4 mean in China?), or don't need as much money due to... a socialist system and/or, if you prefer, Hong Kong Post. Maybe they've started to realize the dream of Star Trek's "economy". ;) "Consider the aggregate IQs of rural and urban/suburban whites [in the US]. During the 1970s according to Wordsum-IQ data, the intelligence gap between whites raised on farms and those who grew up in an urban/suburban background was enormous, almost exactly equal to the white/black gap. The data would indicate that a non-trivial slice of the white farmboys of the 1970s suffered from clinical mental retardation".
notyourday 9y ago
> And we see the effects of poverty on education: "Surveys by Rozelle's team have found that more than half of eighth graders in poor rural areas in China have IQs below 90, leaving them struggling to keep up with the fast-paced official curriculum" Just remember that we do not measure in the US IQ these days because the results would be very painful to look at for the poor of the US.
yeukhon 9y ago
I am not worried about the poverty, I am more worried about the whole estate boom and it is on the edge of collapsing. Actually, there are ghost cities in China...those who got rich because they sold lands. They weren't rich because of their skills. This is a big problem to create a more balanced social classes based on income. A healthy economy cannot rely on just one or two specializationa (this is so evidence in Hong Kong, where nearly the captials were built on banking, investment and real estate; there is very little room for anything else to emerge). China has the same problem: major cities is populated with the professionals. In America at least every state has something to offer...