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Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work i

Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. They can make short term progress but it takes a long time to build a great brand.

RamshackleJ 8y ago
Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.
- krapht 8y ago
  People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.
  - tryptophan 8y ago
    Have any examples? As far as I am aware, the USSR only beat USA at getting into space first.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      The Russians had a head start in various materials sciences knowledge, notably metallurgy.
    - timonovici 8y ago
      They also had great chemists and physicists. Many of them were awarded nobel prizes, so you can look it up.
    - deepnotderp 8y ago
      Soviet materials science was quite advanced. Mechanical engineering and weapons technology was also advanced.
    - tormeh 8y ago
      The NK-33 engines from 1960s and 70s Soviet Union were used by American space companies as late as 2014. These were just stuck and forgotten in a Russian warehouse. Doubtlessly other Soviet technology has also been lost and awaits rediscovery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33
      - jonhendry18 8y ago
        Not sure if that's a testament to innovation, or to the American tendency to throw things away. American engines of the same vintage probably would have been used if they were available for a similar price.
        blattimwind 8y ago
        It's not just about the price; these engines are still highly competitive fifty years after they were designed. That's quite a feat. They're also based around unique technology.
  - gaius 8y ago
    There is a good book Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars about this. Imagine the dilemma: you are a nuclear physicist and Lenin says that atoms are indivisible. What do you do? (This really happened)
    - the-dude 8y ago
      You fuse two atoms.
      - gaius 8y ago
        You look Stalin in the eye and tell him he has to choose between Marxism-Leninism and having an atom bomb...
        the-dude 8y ago
        That is unfair : you have read the book!
        gaius 8y ago
        It’s not clear why Lenin felt the need to state this, he obviously didn’t know anything about it, but he did, and so it became the official position of Soviet science. But Stalin was nothing if not pragmatic so...
  - RamshackleJ 8y ago
    TLDR; But the soviets lost. I'm not an expert in soviet history but I feel like their efforts around science and technology were economically unsustainable and almost all of them were directly or tangentially related to the military. I don't remember the soviets exporting consumer goods to the west. Academic freedom isn't the only freedom that scientists and engineers care about. I don't doubt that china can spend a ton of money, trap its engineers/scientists and use its media machine to try to keep its population focused on nationalism. I just think that if that didn't work for the Soviets it wont work for China. That said china's current system will probably work great right until it doesn't. Idk I'm just some person on a computer though....
    - tomcam 8y ago
      Please explain downvotes?
      - frockington 8y ago
        My experience with hacker news is that comments with China mentioned in a not so positive way will result in a flood of initial downvotes. As to the the why, I haven't a clue
        mistermann 8y ago
        My observation is that on certain topics, HN votes and comments become largely based on ideological stances rather than objective reality. Take this thread for example: "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule" This truism that China "can't innovate" because they live under an authoritarian government is very commonly believed on HN, but it's nothing more than an opinion. However, if you were to suggest to these same people that China is a poor source for sourcing immigrants, because <some unique characteristic of China>, the logical parts of their brains would fire into action and point out how "wrong" that statement is, for obvious reasons. A lot of people, including people on HN, passionately believe things that are absolutely contradictory, and they vote accordingly.
    - 8y ago
  - lainga 8y ago
    They also slid backwards several decades in agronomy, and possibly caused famines, when that was a national priority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
  - avmich 8y ago
    Soviet Russia had a rather different trajectory than China. By the 1917 Russia had significant ties with Europe, which helped both economically and scientifically. Having good pre-revolution scientific schools helped to maintain the lead in hard sciences - military tech like planes and artillery. Then achievements were also demonstrated in rockets and space (up to orbital stations), nuclear area (competing program for nuclear power plants, thermonuclear weaponry, particle accelerators), quantum physics (e.g. lasers), computers and material science (friction welding and Al-Li alloys come to mind as examples). It could be possible to maintain lower level of life comfort while keeping the "academic part" competitive, if the world outside USSR wouldn't demonstrate that a better life is possible. So, I think for some time USSR could maintain the lead, which it did, but then it wasn't enough. China has tremendous advantage in number of people - 4x compared to USSR - and way better economical system, but disadvantage in scientific schools traditions (which it tries - up to a point - to improve) and similar problems with freedoms. Improving scientific level takes time and may lead to conflicts with societal limitations. China may have some years - or even decades - before such problems will become critical.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    >Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology Yes, we sent rockets to the moon, but an average Ivan couldn't have proper plumbing in his apartment. Those great leaps were made in things without real life value. P.R. China on other hand, can't be bothered with "prestige project." The only thing that can bother a government official here is money. And money undoubtedly have value in everyday life... unlike moon rovers.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Meanwhile, in the United States, we can figure out how to send a robot to kill a family on the other side of the world, but we can't figure out how to supply drinking water in Flint. Human welfare is always a priority that competes with 'national interests'.
    - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
      I want to pick at your “moon rovers” comment because I think it’s somewhat misguided (although, yes, it does apply specifically to Chinese government officials). One of the reasons that the United States won the race to the moon (while definitively losing the race to space and manned space flight) was because we were the first to dump exorbitant sums of money into the hot (and extremely expensive) new kid on the computing block: integrated circuits. Before ICs, computer parts were often hand-welded, which NASA determined was too failure-prone to reliably control the lunar lander, as such a device had to be able to handle shaking, cosmic radiation, temperature shifts, extreme G-forces from liftoff, and so on. For that same reason, the Soviets were also unable to complete a reliable lunar lander before the Americans, regardless of their past successes with spaceflight. NASA’s immense investment in integrated circuits greatly accelerated their adoption, and as a result, computers became much faster, and much cheaper, than ever before. The history of computing goes straight through the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which does not get nearly as much credit as it deserves.
      - deepnotderp 8y ago
        This ^^ 100x. If it wasn't for integrated circuits, the u.s. likely would not have won the race. And it's not just because I'm a chip guy.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Stealing IP definitely helps innovation. To get to the innovation stage you first need to reach parity. There is no faster way to reaching parity than to steal IP. As for the "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule", that's nonsense that would have found an audience in the 1950's or so when talking about Russia, but it really is out of place in 2018 when talking about China. China has a lot of catching up to do but this kind of reasoning is so far off-base that it makes me wonder whether or not you've given it much thought at all. The political system of a country does not magically stop people from thinking about technological problems. It's mostly a matter of degree of efficiency than it is of achieving a certain capability.
  - RamshackleJ 8y ago
    I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.
    - lovich 8y ago
      They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen
      - hangonhn 8y ago
        Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there. As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart. Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritarian regime isn't moving forward, and relative to the rest of the world they are moving at an incredible pace. We, the West (assuming you are in the West like I am) should count our blessings that China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system because the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
  It’s the same culture that sends tidal waves of students to American universities to earn Ph.Ds, and because of our piss-poor immigration system, most of them have to go back home with all of that valuable education and use it in China or India or wherever instead of the USA.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    The U.S. helps to educate and provide opportunity to people, regardless of national origin - regardless of the arbitrary, invisible lines on a map, drawn by the powerful, in which they were born. Partly as a result, the greatest economic miracle in history has occurred since WWII (and especially since the end of the Cold War), with hundreds of millions of people pulled from millennia of hopeless, abject poverty. Another great result is that U.S. businesses now have enormous markets in China and India in which to sell, vendors from which to buy, and more talented employees which to hire. China and India are the top two markets in the world for many products, including cell phones IIRC. Imagine the impact on the bottom line of SV companies if they went away. A smart businessperson wants other businesses to do well; they want rich, successful neighbors; otherwise, who do they sell to? Who do they hire? Who provides goods and services to them? Yet another result is that those people are familiar with the United States and its values, and can bring them home. Wars start because political leaders can propagandize about how evil the <other people> are, which is hard to do with populations that have direct experience with each other. And the values of democracy and universal human rights (i.e., regardless of political borders) have revolutionized humanity. And finally, due to immigrants the U.S. has become the academic center of the world. You may notice that much of the great scientific work before WWII was done in Europe, but then nationalism and ideology in Europe chased out their great scientists, who emigrated to the U.S. English become the language of science. The halls of U.S. academia have been filled with immigrants since then. If the center of knowledge and research moved someplace else, the U.S. will have lost what has really become an enormous, and really an unfair benefit. How much does SV benefit from all that research, talent, and knowledge at Stanford and Berkley? So I want more immigration, more opportunity for more people. How absurd that people with the talent and drive to get PhDs would never have had the opportunity. If the U.S. has to build more universities, that's great.
- spitfire 8y ago
  I've seen papers from back in the cold war documenting a study regarding east german IP theft. The conclusion was stealing IP actually put them behind. You steal the IP, then have to learn how to make it without the context. So you end up only learning how to reverse engineer production processes - which takes longer without the context, and don't build the skills needed to create the technologies in the first place. It's like being handed the answers to your calculus class then being asked to move on. It doesn't help.
- hangonhn 8y ago
  Not sure if you know but the American industrial revolution was largely kicked off with stolen IP from the UK and would later overtake it. I'm not trying to condone a wrong with another previous wrong but rather to point out that such methods can lead to something in the long run.
- gaius 8y ago
  Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation One of the lies we were told was that only manufacturing and other low-value-add activities would be going offshore, all the high-pay and -prestige design work would be staying in the West. But Japan showed in the 80s and 90s that once a country has achieved a level of manufacturing, design comes naturally and quality comes naturally, and the hollowing out of the West shows that once you lose manufacturing, your design capabilities stagnate. And now the West is squandering what little it has left making the same mistake with China. We even say it on this site often enough, ideas are cheap, executing is hard. Manufacturing is executing.
- sangnoir 8y ago
  > the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule. I've seen this trope repeated here, and it needs to die (IMO). Where's the evidence for this assertion? The soviet union with it's command economy saw plenty of innovation coming out of its design bureaus (weaponry, rocketry, aerospace engineering). Present-day China seems less authoritarian than cold-war USSR, but I could be wrong.
- stale2002 8y ago
  There is another word for "stealing IP" that has worked quite well in the software industry. It's called open source. Yes, most startups aren't releasing all their code or anything, but there is a huge culture of open source development tools and software. I think this open source culture, where lots of stuff is available easily and for free, is a big reason why the software industry has been so successful, and why places like SF have been so successful. (IE, SF job hopping, and "stealing"/poaching engineering talent, so that knowledge transfers).
ksk 8y ago
>You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Could you explain your reasoning?
- fermienrico 8y ago
  I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge. Intel, Global Foundries, TSMC runs on decades of internal knowledge to be able to manufacture silicon. Furthermore, you now need to package silicon, test it, and post-silicon assembly is insanely complex as we go towards chip-scale manufacturing. Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up. On small scale, you can buy time with money; but on a large scale, that transaction often becomes difficult or simply impossible.
  - ksk 8y ago
    >I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge. Okay, all that sounds logical, but they're not building a fab from scratch here. They already have (IIRC) 30 operational fabs in China. If you said this in 1999 or 2000 when China had no fabs you could have had a point - but they would have proven you wrong because they did precisely what you said they couldn't do by throwing money at the problem. >Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up. Tesla had never built a single car before they got started, I do not think its a comparable example.
alexbeloi 8y ago
>Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. I too have worked in China, and there is nothing sad about fighting and investing heavily to catch your competition. If the competition isn't careful, they'll get blindsided just like auto companies were by similar looking Japanese manufacturing investments in the 80s. Japan used to have a reputation for really low-quality manufacturing.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  Equating China with Japan is totally asinine. Japan long before the 70's had always been considered as a culture that respected quality and efficiency. In fact, every major manufacturing industry in the world today adopts some form of Japanese manufacturing principles. From airports to cancel hospitals; systems such as Kanban and Kaizen have been universally adopted. Name one thing we have adopted from China in terms of manufacturing principles/philosophy. Saying that China is what Japan was in the 80's is totally absurd and impossible to reason with. Not to mention, immense difference in Japanese and Chinese culture.
  - alexbeloi 8y ago
    It has little to do with culture and everything to do with current economic stage of development, Japan was known for making faulty mass produced garbage in the 50's and 60's, they used that economic model to bootstrap the manufacturing industry and to make investments in education, science, tech and manufacturing. From 1950 to 1970 Japan went from 40% agricultural to 17%. [0] Similar story taking place in China, just 30 years later (following the cultural revolution). From 1980 to 2010 China went from 33% agricultural to <10%.[1] Now you're seeing deep investments in education, software, high tech manufacturing, science. In 20 years, it will be normal to see Chinese brands leading the market in some areas the way Toyota, Honda, Sony and Panasonic did in the 90s and 2000s (and still now in some areas). >Name one thing we have adopted from China in terms of manufacturing principles/philosophy. I don't know who we are in this conversation, but from my point of view, there seems to be some kind of hegemonic-cultural war going on in the JAPAC region. I have no stake in the fight, so arguments stemming from the point of view of cultural superiority will fall on deaf ears. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan#Factors_of_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan#Fact... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_the_... edit: A side note is that Japan in the 80s was exporting their highest quality goods to the US while leaving lower-mid quality goods for the domestic market, this is also contributed to Japan's good brand growth internationally.
paidleaf 8y ago
> You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Sure you can, as long as you have the people, resources and the infrastructure. > Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. So did every country. When we were starting out as a nation, we stole IP from britain and we were known as the nation of the shoddy. Believe it or not, germany was once known as a nation of terrible brands and shoddy products. So was japan. Ask your grandparents. "Made in japan" was equivalent to junk in our grandparents time. The same with korea. It's only within the past 20 years that korea shed the "junk" image with Samsung, LG, etc. Also, for most of history, "made in china" was considered high quality. That's why we have terms like "fine china". Until the opium wars and the collapse of china, china was renown for quality goods. History has shown that countries move from shoddy manufacturing reputation to quality reputation. Don't really see why china would be the exception to the rule.

RamshackleJ 8y ago

Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation. If they want to build up their semiconductor industry they need to steal the people who are creating IP, which is kinda the opposite of what is happening. the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule.

krapht 8y ago
People write this glibly without understanding history. Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology where it was a national priority. You can have academic freedom in most scientific disciplines without the political freedom to criticize the government.
- tryptophan 8y ago
  Have any examples? As far as I am aware, the USSR only beat USA at getting into space first.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    The Russians had a head start in various materials sciences knowledge, notably metallurgy.
  - timonovici 8y ago
    They also had great chemists and physicists. Many of them were awarded nobel prizes, so you can look it up.
  - deepnotderp 8y ago
    Soviet materials science was quite advanced. Mechanical engineering and weapons technology was also advanced.
  - tormeh 8y ago
    The NK-33 engines from 1960s and 70s Soviet Union were used by American space companies as late as 2014. These were just stuck and forgotten in a Russian warehouse. Doubtlessly other Soviet technology has also been lost and awaits rediscovery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33
    - jonhendry18 8y ago
      Not sure if that's a testament to innovation, or to the American tendency to throw things away. American engines of the same vintage probably would have been used if they were available for a similar price.
      - blattimwind 8y ago
        It's not just about the price; these engines are still highly competitive fifty years after they were designed. That's quite a feat. They're also based around unique technology.
- gaius 8y ago
  There is a good book Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars about this. Imagine the dilemma: you are a nuclear physicist and Lenin says that atoms are indivisible. What do you do? (This really happened)
  - the-dude 8y ago
    You fuse two atoms.
    - gaius 8y ago
      You look Stalin in the eye and tell him he has to choose between Marxism-Leninism and having an atom bomb...
      - the-dude 8y ago
        That is unfair : you have read the book!
        gaius 8y ago
        It’s not clear why Lenin felt the need to state this, he obviously didn’t know anything about it, but he did, and so it became the official position of Soviet science. But Stalin was nothing if not pragmatic so...
- RamshackleJ 8y ago
  TLDR; But the soviets lost. I'm not an expert in soviet history but I feel like their efforts around science and technology were economically unsustainable and almost all of them were directly or tangentially related to the military. I don't remember the soviets exporting consumer goods to the west. Academic freedom isn't the only freedom that scientists and engineers care about. I don't doubt that china can spend a ton of money, trap its engineers/scientists and use its media machine to try to keep its population focused on nationalism. I just think that if that didn't work for the Soviets it wont work for China. That said china's current system will probably work great right until it doesn't. Idk I'm just some person on a computer though....
  - tomcam 8y ago
    Please explain downvotes?
    - frockington 8y ago
      My experience with hacker news is that comments with China mentioned in a not so positive way will result in a flood of initial downvotes. As to the the why, I haven't a clue
      - mistermann 8y ago
        My observation is that on certain topics, HN votes and comments become largely based on ideological stances rather than objective reality. Take this thread for example: "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule" This truism that China "can't innovate" because they live under an authoritarian government is very commonly believed on HN, but it's nothing more than an opinion. However, if you were to suggest to these same people that China is a poor source for sourcing immigrants, because <some unique characteristic of China>, the logical parts of their brains would fire into action and point out how "wrong" that statement is, for obvious reasons. A lot of people, including people on HN, passionately believe things that are absolutely contradictory, and they vote accordingly.
  - 8y ago
- lainga 8y ago
  They also slid backwards several decades in agronomy, and possibly caused famines, when that was a national priority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
- avmich 8y ago
  Soviet Russia had a rather different trajectory than China. By the 1917 Russia had significant ties with Europe, which helped both economically and scientifically. Having good pre-revolution scientific schools helped to maintain the lead in hard sciences - military tech like planes and artillery. Then achievements were also demonstrated in rockets and space (up to orbital stations), nuclear area (competing program for nuclear power plants, thermonuclear weaponry, particle accelerators), quantum physics (e.g. lasers), computers and material science (friction welding and Al-Li alloys come to mind as examples). It could be possible to maintain lower level of life comfort while keeping the "academic part" competitive, if the world outside USSR wouldn't demonstrate that a better life is possible. So, I think for some time USSR could maintain the lead, which it did, but then it wasn't enough. China has tremendous advantage in number of people - 4x compared to USSR - and way better economical system, but disadvantage in scientific schools traditions (which it tries - up to a point - to improve) and similar problems with freedoms. Improving scientific level takes time and may lead to conflicts with societal limitations. China may have some years - or even decades - before such problems will become critical.
- baybal2 8y ago
  >Soviet Russia made great leaps in science and technology Yes, we sent rockets to the moon, but an average Ivan couldn't have proper plumbing in his apartment. Those great leaps were made in things without real life value. P.R. China on other hand, can't be bothered with "prestige project." The only thing that can bother a government official here is money. And money undoubtedly have value in everyday life... unlike moon rovers.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Meanwhile, in the United States, we can figure out how to send a robot to kill a family on the other side of the world, but we can't figure out how to supply drinking water in Flint. Human welfare is always a priority that competes with 'national interests'.
  - rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
    I want to pick at your “moon rovers” comment because I think it’s somewhat misguided (although, yes, it does apply specifically to Chinese government officials). One of the reasons that the United States won the race to the moon (while definitively losing the race to space and manned space flight) was because we were the first to dump exorbitant sums of money into the hot (and extremely expensive) new kid on the computing block: integrated circuits. Before ICs, computer parts were often hand-welded, which NASA determined was too failure-prone to reliably control the lunar lander, as such a device had to be able to handle shaking, cosmic radiation, temperature shifts, extreme G-forces from liftoff, and so on. For that same reason, the Soviets were also unable to complete a reliable lunar lander before the Americans, regardless of their past successes with spaceflight. NASA’s immense investment in integrated circuits greatly accelerated their adoption, and as a result, computers became much faster, and much cheaper, than ever before. The history of computing goes straight through the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which does not get nearly as much credit as it deserves.
    - deepnotderp 8y ago
      This ^^ 100x. If it wasn't for integrated circuits, the u.s. likely would not have won the race. And it's not just because I'm a chip guy.
jacquesm 8y ago
Stealing IP definitely helps innovation. To get to the innovation stage you first need to reach parity. There is no faster way to reaching parity than to steal IP. As for the "the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule", that's nonsense that would have found an audience in the 1950's or so when talking about Russia, but it really is out of place in 2018 when talking about China. China has a lot of catching up to do but this kind of reasoning is so far off-base that it makes me wonder whether or not you've given it much thought at all. The political system of a country does not magically stop people from thinking about technological problems. It's mostly a matter of degree of efficiency than it is of achieving a certain capability.
- RamshackleJ 8y ago
  I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.
  - lovich 8y ago
    They've got such a large population they just need to concentrate a relatively small section where they have looser rules and it would work as an engine for them much like SF does for the US. Look at cities like Shenzhen
    - hangonhn 8y ago
      Precisely. This is why China started out with a few special economic zones with Shenzhen being the most successful example.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there. As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart. Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritarian regime isn't moving forward, and relative to the rest of the world they are moving at an incredible pace. We, the West (assuming you are in the West like I am) should count our blessings that China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system because the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable.
rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
It’s the same culture that sends tidal waves of students to American universities to earn Ph.Ds, and because of our piss-poor immigration system, most of them have to go back home with all of that valuable education and use it in China or India or wherever instead of the USA.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  The U.S. helps to educate and provide opportunity to people, regardless of national origin - regardless of the arbitrary, invisible lines on a map, drawn by the powerful, in which they were born. Partly as a result, the greatest economic miracle in history has occurred since WWII (and especially since the end of the Cold War), with hundreds of millions of people pulled from millennia of hopeless, abject poverty. Another great result is that U.S. businesses now have enormous markets in China and India in which to sell, vendors from which to buy, and more talented employees which to hire. China and India are the top two markets in the world for many products, including cell phones IIRC. Imagine the impact on the bottom line of SV companies if they went away. A smart businessperson wants other businesses to do well; they want rich, successful neighbors; otherwise, who do they sell to? Who do they hire? Who provides goods and services to them? Yet another result is that those people are familiar with the United States and its values, and can bring them home. Wars start because political leaders can propagandize about how evil the <other people> are, which is hard to do with populations that have direct experience with each other. And the values of democracy and universal human rights (i.e., regardless of political borders) have revolutionized humanity. And finally, due to immigrants the U.S. has become the academic center of the world. You may notice that much of the great scientific work before WWII was done in Europe, but then nationalism and ideology in Europe chased out their great scientists, who emigrated to the U.S. English become the language of science. The halls of U.S. academia have been filled with immigrants since then. If the center of knowledge and research moved someplace else, the U.S. will have lost what has really become an enormous, and really an unfair benefit. How much does SV benefit from all that research, talent, and knowledge at Stanford and Berkley? So I want more immigration, more opportunity for more people. How absurd that people with the talent and drive to get PhDs would never have had the opportunity. If the U.S. has to build more universities, that's great.
spitfire 8y ago
I've seen papers from back in the cold war documenting a study regarding east german IP theft. The conclusion was stealing IP actually put them behind. You steal the IP, then have to learn how to make it without the context. So you end up only learning how to reverse engineer production processes - which takes longer without the context, and don't build the skills needed to create the technologies in the first place. It's like being handed the answers to your calculus class then being asked to move on. It doesn't help.
hangonhn 8y ago
Not sure if you know but the American industrial revolution was largely kicked off with stolen IP from the UK and would later overtake it. I'm not trying to condone a wrong with another previous wrong but rather to point out that such methods can lead to something in the long run.
gaius 8y ago
Stealing IP mostly helps manufacturing, It doesn't really help innovation One of the lies we were told was that only manufacturing and other low-value-add activities would be going offshore, all the high-pay and -prestige design work would be staying in the West. But Japan showed in the 80s and 90s that once a country has achieved a level of manufacturing, design comes naturally and quality comes naturally, and the hollowing out of the West shows that once you lose manufacturing, your design capabilities stagnate. And now the West is squandering what little it has left making the same mistake with China. We even say it on this site often enough, ideas are cheap, executing is hard. Manufacturing is executing.
sangnoir 8y ago
> the culture that creates new tech is something that china can't steal and it can't replicate it without giving up authoritarian rule. I've seen this trope repeated here, and it needs to die (IMO). Where's the evidence for this assertion? The soviet union with it's command economy saw plenty of innovation coming out of its design bureaus (weaponry, rocketry, aerospace engineering). Present-day China seems less authoritarian than cold-war USSR, but I could be wrong.
stale2002 8y ago
There is another word for "stealing IP" that has worked quite well in the software industry. It's called open source. Yes, most startups aren't releasing all their code or anything, but there is a huge culture of open source development tools and software. I think this open source culture, where lots of stuff is available easily and for free, is a big reason why the software industry has been so successful, and why places like SF have been so successful. (IE, SF job hopping, and "stealing"/poaching engineering talent, so that knowledge transfers).

ksk 8y ago

>You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Could you explain your reasoning?

fermienrico 8y ago
I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge. Intel, Global Foundries, TSMC runs on decades of internal knowledge to be able to manufacture silicon. Furthermore, you now need to package silicon, test it, and post-silicon assembly is insanely complex as we go towards chip-scale manufacturing. Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up. On small scale, you can buy time with money; but on a large scale, that transaction often becomes difficult or simply impossible.
- ksk 8y ago
  >I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge. Okay, all that sounds logical, but they're not building a fab from scratch here. They already have (IIRC) 30 operational fabs in China. If you said this in 1999 or 2000 when China had no fabs you could have had a point - but they would have proven you wrong because they did precisely what you said they couldn't do by throwing money at the problem. >Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up. Tesla had never built a single car before they got started, I do not think its a comparable example.

alexbeloi 8y ago

>Having worked in China in the semiconductor industry, it really saddens me what the Chinese are trying to do. I too have worked in China, and there is nothing sad about fighting and investing heavily to catch your competition. If the competition isn't careful, they'll get blindsided just like auto companies were by similar looking Japanese manufacturing investments in the 80s. Japan used to have a reputation for really low-quality manufacturing.

fermienrico 8y ago
Equating China with Japan is totally asinine. Japan long before the 70's had always been considered as a culture that respected quality and efficiency. In fact, every major manufacturing industry in the world today adopts some form of Japanese manufacturing principles. From airports to cancel hospitals; systems such as Kanban and Kaizen have been universally adopted. Name one thing we have adopted from China in terms of manufacturing principles/philosophy. Saying that China is what Japan was in the 80's is totally absurd and impossible to reason with. Not to mention, immense difference in Japanese and Chinese culture.
- alexbeloi 8y ago
  It has little to do with culture and everything to do with current economic stage of development, Japan was known for making faulty mass produced garbage in the 50's and 60's, they used that economic model to bootstrap the manufacturing industry and to make investments in education, science, tech and manufacturing. From 1950 to 1970 Japan went from 40% agricultural to 17%. [0] Similar story taking place in China, just 30 years later (following the cultural revolution). From 1980 to 2010 China went from 33% agricultural to <10%.[1] Now you're seeing deep investments in education, software, high tech manufacturing, science. In 20 years, it will be normal to see Chinese brands leading the market in some areas the way Toyota, Honda, Sony and Panasonic did in the 90s and 2000s (and still now in some areas). >Name one thing we have adopted from China in terms of manufacturing principles/philosophy. I don't know who we are in this conversation, but from my point of view, there seems to be some kind of hegemonic-cultural war going on in the JAPAC region. I have no stake in the fight, so arguments stemming from the point of view of cultural superiority will fall on deaf ears. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan#Factors_of_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Japan#Fact... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_the_... edit: A side note is that Japan in the 80s was exporting their highest quality goods to the US while leaving lower-mid quality goods for the domestic market, this is also contributed to Japan's good brand growth internationally.

paidleaf 8y ago

> You simply cannot out innovate 4 decades of work in a few years no matter how much money you throw at it. Sure you can, as long as you have the people, resources and the infrastructure. > Also, China has a branding problem and it is only going to get worse. So did every country. When we were starting out as a nation, we stole IP from britain and we were known as the nation of the shoddy. Believe it or not, germany was once known as a nation of terrible brands and shoddy products. So was japan. Ask your grandparents. "Made in japan" was equivalent to junk in our grandparents time. The same with korea. It's only within the past 20 years that korea shed the "junk" image with Samsung, LG, etc. Also, for most of history, "made in china" was considered high quality. That's why we have terms like "fine china". Until the opium wars and the collapse of china, china was renown for quality goods. History has shown that countries move from shoddy manufacturing reputation to quality reputation. Don't really see why china would be the exception to the rule.