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Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to

Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.

jonwachob91 9y ago
>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower they have.
- raguuu 9y ago
  Because it's easier to 'steal'? Their laws are different so they don't see it as stealing and have no problem with it. Each country is unique and I'm happy US can't force their IP laws to everyone around the world.
- godelski 9y ago
  Problem is that they've already caught up. Now they are competing and passing in some areas.
- matz1 9y ago
  Because its not efficient, why reinventing the wheel ?
- monocasa 9y ago
  You know that exactly the same argument was made against the US, Germany, and Japan at different points in time, right?
- pwaai 9y ago
  It's coined "piggyback economy" where the first move innovator ends up absorbing all the risks in developing the product and getting it to the market. The second mover then simply improves on the original product likely with ton of issues as they have to distribute their resources throughout the full journey the product makes it from the drawing board to the consumer. The market is there and the second mover is able to "catch up" when the product is as good if not better in quality which finally leads to the exit of the first innovator signaling new entrants that will put pressures on the second innovators margins.
- msie 9y ago
  Lots of original research in the US is done by Chinese PhDs. Have you not done your research? So is it really stealing? Or the US is taking advantage of the best and brightest from China?
jobu 9y ago
China has been run by technocrats for the last couple decades. Most of the current leadership has more of a political background, but president Xi Jinping has a chemical engineering degree. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2117169/out-technocrats-chinas-new-breed-politicians http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/211... "from 1997 to 2007, all of the top leaders sitting on the innermost Standing Committee shared an engineering background"
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Xi Jinping never practiced as a chemical engineer, however, being an anointed princeling destined for officialdom (and of course, he had to delay his education because of the CR). Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin are better examples, actually having worked as engineers for a number of years before becoming politicians.
  - volgo 9y ago
    Hard to use princeling in the sense to convey privilege here. His father was sentenced to labor camp during the Cultural Revolution and he himself worked in forced labor for seven years: "The father was detained and imprisoned and spent 16 years in a labor camp, plunging the family into poverty. During the Cultural Revolution, a 15-year-old Mr. Xi was banished to a poverty-stricken village in northern China where, for seven years, he labored with peasants, eating corn chaff bread and sleeping in a flea-infested bed." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/opinion/chinas-heir-apparent.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/opinion/chinas-heir-appare...
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Yes, but he was quickly rehabilitated after Mao’s death, and anyways, everyone was in the same boat. Xi is the canonical example of his so named “lost generation:” forced to leave high school early, sent down to the country side, rehabilitated and given basically an cursory education as a legacy admit to Tsinghua. He is the first Chinese leader since Mao who can’t speak a word of English, less educated than his predecessors, more autocratic (vs. Hu), less outspoken (vs. Jiang) and more on ideological message.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pwaai 9y ago
They have a different perception towards the human life. There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. You have to understand the fundamental difference between the two countries on a cultural and government level. Chinese people are more than happy to submit to the government as in the neo-confucian sense, the state is the provider, the father, the protector. This is what most Koreans thought too during the early days of dictatorship era that brought tremendous economic uplift. So it's obvious that China would be more daring in areas where the US would not but because they view the cost of human lives differently. For instance, the leave no man behind, is not unique to the US military but seldom executed because of the sheer logistical and cost-benefit analysis. In any case, you hear routinely hear Russian soldiers being left to die in Chechnya, Crimea, and now Syria.
- sitharus 9y ago
  > There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. The perception of the potential for catastrophic failure outweighs the benefits. Given it’s an unpressurised rector that doesn’t boil the working fluid the potential for a serious accident is very low compared to a high pressure reactor. It can easily be passively cooled and shutdown heat decay can be handled without much fuss. That’s why most research reactors are of this type. The problem with nuclear power, and in this case heating, is humans are extraordinarily bad at estimating risk.
  - pwaai 9y ago
    > That’s why most research reactors are of this type. but how many nuclear accidents have we had because of this "safe" design?
    - sitharus 9y ago
      Because of the design? None. In fact the Canadian-designed SLOWPOKE reactor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor) is licensed to run unattended overnight - it is only passively cooled and increased temperature results in a negative feedback loop. An unpressurised light water reactor is an inherently safe design. The rate of reaction depends on liquid water being present, steam will stop the reaction. Nuclear power doesn't have to be dangerous, and even now more people die due to coal power (including mining and pollution effects) each year than ever have due to nuclear power.
sliverstorm 9y ago
Yeah, it certainly wags its tongue suggestively towards the old idea of a benevolent & competent dictatorship as the most effective form of government.
Retric 9y ago
If you compare US an Chinese total coal usage, the US is actually down significantly more than China. This is despite the US price being cut in half since 2008 peak. https://www.quandl.com/data/EIA/COAL-US-Coal-Prices-by-Region https://www.quandl.com/data/EIA/COAL-US-Coal-Prices-by-Regio...

jonwachob91 9y ago

>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower they have.

raguuu 9y ago
Because it's easier to 'steal'? Their laws are different so they don't see it as stealing and have no problem with it. Each country is unique and I'm happy US can't force their IP laws to everyone around the world.
godelski 9y ago
Problem is that they've already caught up. Now they are competing and passing in some areas.
matz1 9y ago
Because its not efficient, why reinventing the wheel ?
monocasa 9y ago
You know that exactly the same argument was made against the US, Germany, and Japan at different points in time, right?
pwaai 9y ago
It's coined "piggyback economy" where the first move innovator ends up absorbing all the risks in developing the product and getting it to the market. The second mover then simply improves on the original product likely with ton of issues as they have to distribute their resources throughout the full journey the product makes it from the drawing board to the consumer. The market is there and the second mover is able to "catch up" when the product is as good if not better in quality which finally leads to the exit of the first innovator signaling new entrants that will put pressures on the second innovators margins.
msie 9y ago
Lots of original research in the US is done by Chinese PhDs. Have you not done your research? So is it really stealing? Or the US is taking advantage of the best and brightest from China?

jobu 9y ago

China has been run by technocrats for the last couple decades. Most of the current leadership has more of a political background, but president Xi Jinping has a chemical engineering degree. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2117169/out-technocrats-chinas-new-breed-politicians http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/211... "from 1997 to 2007, all of the top leaders sitting on the innermost Standing Committee shared an engineering background"

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Xi Jinping never practiced as a chemical engineer, however, being an anointed princeling destined for officialdom (and of course, he had to delay his education because of the CR). Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin are better examples, actually having worked as engineers for a number of years before becoming politicians.
- volgo 9y ago
  Hard to use princeling in the sense to convey privilege here. His father was sentenced to labor camp during the Cultural Revolution and he himself worked in forced labor for seven years: "The father was detained and imprisoned and spent 16 years in a labor camp, plunging the family into poverty. During the Cultural Revolution, a 15-year-old Mr. Xi was banished to a poverty-stricken village in northern China where, for seven years, he labored with peasants, eating corn chaff bread and sleeping in a flea-infested bed." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/opinion/chinas-heir-apparent.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/opinion/chinas-heir-appare...
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Yes, but he was quickly rehabilitated after Mao’s death, and anyways, everyone was in the same boat. Xi is the canonical example of his so named “lost generation:” forced to leave high school early, sent down to the country side, rehabilitated and given basically an cursory education as a legacy admit to Tsinghua. He is the first Chinese leader since Mao who can’t speak a word of English, less educated than his predecessors, more autocratic (vs. Hu), less outspoken (vs. Jiang) and more on ideological message.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pwaai 9y ago

They have a different perception towards the human life. There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. You have to understand the fundamental difference between the two countries on a cultural and government level. Chinese people are more than happy to submit to the government as in the neo-confucian sense, the state is the provider, the father, the protector. This is what most Koreans thought too during the early days of dictatorship era that brought tremendous economic uplift. So it's obvious that China would be more daring in areas where the US would not but because they view the cost of human lives differently. For instance, the leave no man behind, is not unique to the US military but seldom executed because of the sheer logistical and cost-benefit analysis. In any case, you hear routinely hear Russian soldiers being left to die in Chechnya, Crimea, and now Syria.

sitharus 9y ago
> There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. The perception of the potential for catastrophic failure outweighs the benefits. Given it’s an unpressurised rector that doesn’t boil the working fluid the potential for a serious accident is very low compared to a high pressure reactor. It can easily be passively cooled and shutdown heat decay can be handled without much fuss. That’s why most research reactors are of this type. The problem with nuclear power, and in this case heating, is humans are extraordinarily bad at estimating risk.
- pwaai 9y ago
  > That’s why most research reactors are of this type. but how many nuclear accidents have we had because of this "safe" design?
  - sitharus 9y ago
    Because of the design? None. In fact the Canadian-designed SLOWPOKE reactor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor) is licensed to run unattended overnight - it is only passively cooled and increased temperature results in a negative feedback loop. An unpressurised light water reactor is an inherently safe design. The rate of reaction depends on liquid water being present, steam will stop the reaction. Nuclear power doesn't have to be dangerous, and even now more people die due to coal power (including mining and pollution effects) each year than ever have due to nuclear power.

sliverstorm 9y ago

Yeah, it certainly wags its tongue suggestively towards the old idea of a benevolent & competent dictatorship as the most effective form of government.

Retric 9y ago

If you compare US an Chinese total coal usage, the US is actually down significantly more than China. This is despite the US price being cut in half since 2008 peak. https://www.quandl.com/data/EIA/COAL-US-Coal-Prices-by-Region https://www.quandl.com/data/EIA/COAL-US-Coal-Prices-by-Regio...