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The founder of SMIC on the mainland is actually Taiwanese and a former TSMC executive. Loyalties cut across the strait both ways, westerners overemphasis attach

by euix 6y ago

The founder of SMIC on the mainland is actually Taiwanese and a former TSMC executive. Loyalties cut across the strait both ways, westerners overemphasis attachment to values and ideology over bloodlines and ancestry. It's true for some but not for others. There are quite a lot of foreign engineers working on the mainland, especially Taiwanese engineers. If you are a industry vet or got some kind of special talent you can easily 3x your salary by moving to the mainland from Taiwan. For example, Justin Yifu Lin, the former World Bank chief economist was a Taiwanese defector who to swam to Mainland China. Before he defected in the (early 90's I believe) he was a rising star within the establishment in Taiwan. Short term definitively bad for Huawei, but the long term it should help the development of the indigenous semiconductor industry on the mainland. Necessity is the mother of invention and nowhere else is there the capital, political will and now sheer necessity as there is on the Mainland. A lot of "huaqiao" i.e. overseas Chinese that go back to the mainland (I include Taiwanese people here) despite the repressive political atmosphere and bad environmental quality, food safety are motivated by this. In the West you can only go so far, back there, especially if you have specialized technical knowledge, you have a chance to make an impact at scale that would never be possible in the West. I am not sure what the U.S. can really do about this without adopting essentially the same repression as in China. I.E. control the flow of personal. On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. Anyways, my point at the end, is the central point of competitive advantage or a company or nation is human talent. You can restrict technology or natural resources but it's human beings that make a company or a nation competitive. So unless the U.S. finds a way to prevent talent from flowing to the mainland, either from the U.S. and/or other parts of the world it is very hard to prevent another country, especially such a big one from doing what you don't want. And when they eventually do get to that point they will be twice as bitter at you for having tried to stop them.

themodelplumber 6y ago
The old idea that westerners, particularly Americans, overemphasize values and ideology is a great example of a perspective that leads others to underestimate their competitors. Sure, economic impact and power are huge. And that's far from a settled zone of conflict, I would add. But when a values-based culture leans into its strengths once again, in the famous United sense, one must ask how well its competitors can compete, or if they can compete at all, in that specific arena. The idea that adopting repression is the only recourse here is in effect directly advising against the deployment of established strengths. (By the way, did all those millions of Hong Kongers in the streets suddenly disappear, or...?)
- draw_down 6y ago
  No idea what this is trying to say
systemvoltage 6y ago
This doesn’t make sense. > On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. That alone will be enough to deter people from moving to China for even 10x salary. Getting locked into an insane Han-supremacy regime is walking into the dragon’s mouth with a torch. Intellectuals get attracted to more than just money. Especially industry experts.
- narrator 6y ago
  Also, if you are a billionaire the government can take everything away from that person in the blink of an eye if decides it doesn't like what that person says. In the west there are far more protections and due process rights.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    If you're a billionaire, yes. If you're a person of color of not so great means, education etc. in the U.S. from a somewhat infamous area like Chicago, am not so sure. Just see the ongoing protests right now.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - drozycki 6y ago
      The intersection between South side Chicago resident and semiconductor expert is vanishingly small. Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job where they will be treated better than the treatment dark skinned people get in China. It’s common for restaurants in major Chinese cities to have “No Black” signs in their windows as a “COVID measure”, for example. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimin...
michaelyoshika 6y ago
Other than the money, you also need to count in the fact that as an Asian/Chinese you are not really that secure/free in the US especially now with a president saying Chinese Virus all the time.
- actuator 6y ago
  Also, for a Chinese expat the path to permanent residency or citizenship is hard, so moving back would have that as a positive as well.
  - vsskanth 6y ago
    Curious, is it hard because of the backlog or other reasons ? I understand there is a 5-6 year wait for a green card for Chinese born.
    - smilekzs 6y ago
      That, plus policy instability like the recent H-1B ban. Effect of instability is amplified by the long wait --- the longer you wait, the more likely some policy changes and hurt your bottom line. It is true that something good could happen too, but (1) the current "climate" does not suggest that (2) a H-1B holder with a priority date has more to lose than to gain (through policy changes).
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  To be honest I as a European wouldn't even consider moving there at the moment. Trump is really polarising American society (which already was quite polarised due to the two-party system).
- threeseed 6y ago
  US is a stable democracy with an independent media and judiciary. And Trump’s unpopularity (~60%) means that his world view is not shared by the majority of Americans. So this idea that it is not that secure/free because of a minor uptick in racism is ridiculous. China is routinely kidnapping and torturing anyone who disagrees with them - citizen or not. And we still don’t know where many missing journalists have ended up.
shripadk 6y ago
> On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. Why don't you just call it what it is: A Prison! Say no to political correctness! Sure some may want to work in such an environment but this is modern day slavery. Nothing else!
markdog12 6y ago
> swam to Mainland China Really now?
- junar 6y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.china https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.c... He swam from Kinmen, a small island about 2 miles from the mainland.
  - markdog12 6y ago
    I figured it must be islands, but didn't know there were some so close.
- bigpumpkin 6y ago
  "As a captain in the Republic of China Army in Taiwan, he defected to Mainland China on May 17, 1979, from the island of Kinmen off the coast of Fujian to the nearby island of Xiamen of Mainland China."[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Yifu_Lin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Yifu_Lin I was also dubious. The swim was from Kinmen to Xiamen (~6 km)
- T-A 6y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.china https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.c... It's only a couple of kilometers from the Kinmen to Xiamen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmen
reissbaker 6y ago
> In the West you can only go so far, back there, especially if you have specialized technical knowledge, you have a chance to make an impact at scale that would never be possible in the West . . . . I am not sure what the U.S. can really do about this without adopting essentially the same repression as in China. I.E. control the flow of personal. [sic] The U.S. economy is nearly 2x larger than China's, and if you're counting the entire "West" (I'm guessing you mean Europe + US?), it's about 4x larger. And that's just looking at GDP; if you consider GDP per capita, the difference is even starker: the U.S. is nearly 7x higher. In terms of immigration, the U.S. has roughly 750x more inbound immigration than China [1], and the EU has similar numbers [2]. I don't think the numbers back up what you're saying here — they contradict it pretty soundly. In fact, the U.S. currently is (IMO stupidly) trying to prevent people from coming at all because it has such a huge volume of inbound immigration. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe
- PKop 6y ago
  >The U.S. economy is nearly 2x larger than China's No, it's not. This is a flaw of using nominal GDP which doesn't take into account currency differentials, and therefore costs of production. China's GDP(PPP) is already bigger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
  - reissbaker 6y ago
    GDP(PPP) is useful for observing changes within domestic markets but not global economic power. As per the page you linked: "GDP comparisons using PPP are arguably more useful than those using nominal GDP when assessing a nation's domestic market . . . It is however limited when measuring financial flows between countries." When we are discussing a Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer stopping shipments to Huawei due to US-led pressure, GDP(PPP) isn't particularly relevant. TSMC doesn't care how much the cost of production in the US is; it produces chips in Taiwan, not America. But it does care about the total dollar value of American economic support, which nominal GDP measures, and GDP(PPP) does not. And for the result of GDP(PPP) on individuals within domestic markets — which was another of the OP's claims, that individuals are likely to obtain more impact and success in China than in the West — you want GDP(PPP) per capita, not overall GDP(PPP). And the numbers still don't back up that claim: China is closer to Iraq than it is to even a fairly economically-challenged Western country like Greece, and nowhere near the US. [1] Hong Kong — when measured separately from the rest of China — is actually very close to US-level GDP(PPP) per capita. But... I think HK's futures in that respect have declined significantly due to the PRC. In fact, Hong Kong used to be slightly higher than the US, and HK has declined on that metric over time while the US has risen. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
greatjack613 6y ago
This piece smells like ccp propaganda. Read the above after considering those muslims who are chained in a ccp re-education center in china. @Dang can you investigate this. I feel like the ccp is directly targeting hacker news to spread misinformation. Very scary.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nujabe 6y ago
  You are quite delusional to think dang will take down CCP material. According to him, anti-ccp content is equivalent to inciting 'nationalistic flame wars'.
  - dang 6y ago
    People are welcome to post critical views as long as they do so thoughtfully—same as on any topic. It's an obvious fact that nationalistic passions are inflamed these days and getting worse. That inevitably shows up on HN and leads to low-quality, denunciatory comments and even outright slurs. We need to try for better than that.
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"I feel like the ccp is directly targeting hacker news to spread misinformation. Very scary." Let's say they do. As a westerner with the moral values superior to those of China you should be immune to a propaganda. What exactly are you "very scared" of?
- dang 6y ago
  You guys need to understand that there are many categories of users who might post something like that in good faith. First, a lot of Westerners hold anti-Western views—for whatever reason. This leads them to pro-China positions as a matter of tactics—the enemy of my enemy etc. Second, a lot of Westerners hold anti-US views. That's similar to category 1 but different. We see this from some Canadian, Australian, and European users, and of course even from some American users—again, for whatever reason; people are complicated. This sort of user will also take China's side in a China/US conflict, for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with being Chinese communists. Third, there are Westerners of Chinese background, either immigrants or children of immigrants, who have pro-China views because they identify with the Chinese dimension of their family history. Sometimes the children of immigrants have more strident views on these things than their parents. Where the parents naturally sought to fit in as immigrants in the West, the next generation tries to balance the two worlds by leaning back towards the country of origin. This group is the most likely to sound like "CCP propaganda" because they have deep knowledge of the culture and usually the language. And of course, if they're first-generation immigrants, their English may not sound native. Fourth, there are Westerners of non-Chinese background who have spent a lot of time in China, usually for work (less often for travel), who developed pro-Chinese views, or complex/ambivalent views, simply by the natural process of having spent time there. This sort of user often feels like their fellow Westerners have a cartoonish and ignorant view of China, and wants to educate them. Sometimes they 'educate' them by insulting their ignorance, which is unhelpful. These users have native English and can sound like ardent propagandists as well, but actually their motive is to correct what they perceive as a distortion in Western public opinion. Their own views tend to be critical of the CCP, but they dislike what they regard as ignorant anti-Chinese views, and so will argue a pro-China position out of contrarianism. They tend to favor friendly trade and political relations with China, and since the trend of the last few years has been clearly against that, they can come across as rather aggrieved. Fifth, there are many people who grew up in China, who came to the West for school (or work) and stayed here. Often they are caught between two worlds—having to defend the West and their choice to stay there to their families back home, and at the same time struck painfully by the ignorance, misunderstanding and hostility that they encounter about China here. HN has such users and they are in a difficult position: vastly outnumbered on intense, divisive questions that they happen to have deep personal experience of. Sometimes these categories also intersect: for example there are Canadian children of Chinese-Canadian immigrants who speak Mandarin and have spent time working at tech companies in China. Their views come from having grown up in a Chinese-Canadian family and having spent time in China itself, and they feel demeaned and even slurred by the generalizations about China that they see on Western internet forums. They show up in the threads with counterarguments, and their counterarguments are often intensely detailed because they have so much personal experience with the topics. Can you see how complex this situation is? Each of these categories is a minority on HN, but HN is big enough that 'minority' can still mean thousands of people, any of whom may comment in a thread like this—and no doubt there are additional categories that I didn't list (edit: here's another: Westerners with Chinese spouses). Any of these users can post what seem like absurdly pro-CCP comments in a HN thread, for complicated reasons that come from their own life experience. When they do that, other users run into their comments with no idea of the background that would lead someone to post that way, and it creates a shock experience. (For more on the shock experience, see [1] and [2]). Basically, they go 'WTF?' and wonder how anyone could possibly post like this. Now here comes the pivot in the whole business. When you experience that 'WTF?', you have two choices. First choice, you can say "wow, I wonder how different our experiences must be that you would post what seems to me like such an obviously wrong and evil comment!" That fork leads to curious conversation in which people get to know each other better. Second choice, you can say "You must be a communist party shill! No one would post like this for any other reason! How much are they paying you?" Which percentage of HN users makes the first choice vs. the second choice? Exercise for the reader. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22shock%20experience%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
rmrfnodemodules 6y ago
This is CCP Propaganda.
kilroy_jones 6y ago
China has only recently been able to reverse or halt the brain drain it was having for decades. As far as talent coming from the US, you will need to provide actual data to back that up, unless you are referring to Chinese students that have been unable to secure a work visa as coming from the US.
xenihn 6y ago
Anecdotal, but...I don't know a single person who is interested in either returning to China or starting a new life there, and my social circles are overwhelmingly Chinese of all types (born here or Vancouver, moved here in grade school and grew up here, moved here for grad school, moved here as H1-Bs from PRC/Taiwan/HK/SG). For the ones who did not grow up here, they're predominantly from Beijing and Shanghai, with rich parents and connections back home. My girlfriend (Beijing-born, came over as a grad student and stayed) has told me several horror stories of her time spent working as a SWE in China and Singapore. Based on her experiences, it seems like women should be especially disinterested in returning. For the record, I would be ok with living in China for some time, or even relocating there long-term if/when the mantle is passed. Though I wouldn't do it without someone who speaks Mandarin.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  > My girlfriend (Beijing-born, came over as a grad student and stayed) has told me several horror stories of her time spent working as a SWE in China and Singapore. What happened in Singapore? I moved here earlier this year but haven't heard much beyond the usual grumbling about long hours.
GiantSully 6y ago
“ Necessity is the mother of invention and nowhere else is there the capital, political will and now sheer necessity as there is on the Mainland.” It’s also the mother of the GFW, which greatly impede the innovation. For example, many latest IT technology cannot be speeded effectively.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  Really? GFW definitely helped a lot of newer internet company take off by shifting the market from a US directed tastes to a more domestic. I.e. one would not immediately think Instagram is cooler than douyin. (As a result, Instagram like photos sharing were never main stream) GFW by itself is no small engineering feat either. It's technology is widely relevant in many technical areas related to traffic control and network management. For example, deep packet inspection was applied in GFW, and had been quite useful in intrusion detection. Of course now with the popularity of encryption, DPI is no longer very relevant. But that's the example of it being advancing technology.
  - GiantSully 6y ago
    Baidu has worse UX after google search exited the mainland china. The many so called newer internet companies are actually copying and localizing. Blocked by the GFW, the inaccessible instagram can never be the main stream. Instead of the detecting intrusion, DPI plays a huge role in controlling the freedom of speech. And with the help of ML, DPI is even smarter than before. Fewer people of new generation in China know Google, Facebook and Twitter, and they only know the second-class analogue of these service providers.
eddieplan9 6y ago
Maybe this is history repeating itself: the story of the father of Chinese space program [1] was quite pertinent: > During WWII, he was involved in the Manhattan Project, which ultimately led to the successful development of the first atomic bomb in America. > During the Second Red Scare, in the 1950s, the US federal government accused him of communist sympathies. In 1950, despite protests by his colleagues, he was stripped of his security clearance. He decided to return to China... > Upon his return, he helped lead the Chinese nuclear weapons program. This effort ultimately led to China's first successful atomic bomb test and hydrogen bomb test, making China the fifth nuclear weapons state, and achieving the fastest fission-to-fusion development in history. > Qian was invited to visit the US ..., but he refused the invitation, having wanted a formal apology for his detention. In a reminiscence published in 2002, Marble stated that he believed Qian had "lost faith in the American government" but that he had "always had very warm feelings for the American people." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen
typ 6y ago
>bloodlines and ancestry This is a kind of value and ideology as well, just a unsophisticated and primitive one.
euix 6y ago
Wow, I didn't expect this to get such a huge thread. Just wanted to add a few comments. Yes, I realized after I wrote it, the chief economist guy definitely didn't swim across the entire straits. He deliberately asked to be posted to Kimen or (maybe it was Quemoy), anyway they are very close to Xiamen on the mainland. Allegedly, he actually paddled by holding on floatation ballons or something. My comment about only going so far in the U.S. has more to do with the executive and political leadership roles in the U.S. and not about compensation (which is far higher in SV, though I am not sure how comp works at top SWE roles in China). Very few Chinese top performers make it to senior executive roles in the U.S. much less, much less the big chairs (CEO, board, etc). Also I was more talking about hardware talent then software. I think in terms of software the quality on the mainland is already quite good, at least in certain domains, but all the hardware comes from the U.S. if you think of NVIDIA or this semiconductor duke out, the weakness is hardware. So if you have "special hardware" talent you are feted like a debutante in China. Anyway, as someone who has been around the block a couple of times on both sides of the Pacific, I see no happy ending to the current situation. I have said this multiple times in other threads, we used to think economic engagement will turn the Chinese system more liberal but I think what is really happening is that it is turning the American one more authoritarian and state driven. If we look at the policies of the Trump administration against China, it's basically the type of economic statecraft China uses herself. So great, if you are anti-Chinese that's rich irony, but I think ultimately, there will be no winner and the process of fighting China will make America become just like China.

by euix 6y ago

themodelplumber 6y ago

The old idea that westerners, particularly Americans, overemphasize values and ideology is a great example of a perspective that leads others to underestimate their competitors. Sure, economic impact and power are huge. And that's far from a settled zone of conflict, I would add. But when a values-based culture leans into its strengths once again, in the famous United sense, one must ask how well its competitors can compete, or if they can compete at all, in that specific arena. The idea that adopting repression is the only recourse here is in effect directly advising against the deployment of established strengths. (By the way, did all those millions of Hong Kongers in the streets suddenly disappear, or...?)

draw_down 6y ago
No idea what this is trying to say

systemvoltage 6y ago

This doesn’t make sense. > On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. That alone will be enough to deter people from moving to China for even 10x salary. Getting locked into an insane Han-supremacy regime is walking into the dragon’s mouth with a torch. Intellectuals get attracted to more than just money. Especially industry experts.

narrator 6y ago
Also, if you are a billionaire the government can take everything away from that person in the blink of an eye if decides it doesn't like what that person says. In the west there are far more protections and due process rights.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  If you're a billionaire, yes. If you're a person of color of not so great means, education etc. in the U.S. from a somewhat infamous area like Chicago, am not so sure. Just see the ongoing protests right now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - drozycki 6y ago
    The intersection between South side Chicago resident and semiconductor expert is vanishingly small. Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job where they will be treated better than the treatment dark skinned people get in China. It’s common for restaurants in major Chinese cities to have “No Black” signs in their windows as a “COVID measure”, for example. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimin...

michaelyoshika 6y ago

Other than the money, you also need to count in the fact that as an Asian/Chinese you are not really that secure/free in the US especially now with a president saying Chinese Virus all the time.

actuator 6y ago
Also, for a Chinese expat the path to permanent residency or citizenship is hard, so moving back would have that as a positive as well.
- vsskanth 6y ago
  Curious, is it hard because of the backlog or other reasons ? I understand there is a 5-6 year wait for a green card for Chinese born.
  - smilekzs 6y ago
    That, plus policy instability like the recent H-1B ban. Effect of instability is amplified by the long wait --- the longer you wait, the more likely some policy changes and hurt your bottom line. It is true that something good could happen too, but (1) the current "climate" does not suggest that (2) a H-1B holder with a priority date has more to lose than to gain (through policy changes).
GekkePrutser 6y ago
To be honest I as a European wouldn't even consider moving there at the moment. Trump is really polarising American society (which already was quite polarised due to the two-party system).
threeseed 6y ago
US is a stable democracy with an independent media and judiciary. And Trump’s unpopularity (~60%) means that his world view is not shared by the majority of Americans. So this idea that it is not that secure/free because of a minor uptick in racism is ridiculous. China is routinely kidnapping and torturing anyone who disagrees with them - citizen or not. And we still don’t know where many missing journalists have ended up.

shripadk 6y ago

> On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. Why don't you just call it what it is: A Prison! Say no to political correctness! Sure some may want to work in such an environment but this is modern day slavery. Nothing else!

markdog12 6y ago

> swam to Mainland China Really now?

junar 6y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.china https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.c... He swam from Kinmen, a small island about 2 miles from the mainland.
- markdog12 6y ago
  I figured it must be islands, but didn't know there were some so close.
bigpumpkin 6y ago
"As a captain in the Republic of China Army in Taiwan, he defected to Mainland China on May 17, 1979, from the island of Kinmen off the coast of Fujian to the nearby island of Xiamen of Mainland China."[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Yifu_Lin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Yifu_Lin I was also dubious. The swim was from Kinmen to Xiamen (~6 km)
T-A 6y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.china https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/27/worldbank.c... It's only a couple of kilometers from the Kinmen to Xiamen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmen

reissbaker 6y ago

> In the West you can only go so far, back there, especially if you have specialized technical knowledge, you have a chance to make an impact at scale that would never be possible in the West . . . . I am not sure what the U.S. can really do about this without adopting essentially the same repression as in China. I.E. control the flow of personal. [sic] The U.S. economy is nearly 2x larger than China's, and if you're counting the entire "West" (I'm guessing you mean Europe + US?), it's about 4x larger. And that's just looking at GDP; if you consider GDP per capita, the difference is even starker: the U.S. is nearly 7x higher. In terms of immigration, the U.S. has roughly 750x more inbound immigration than China [1], and the EU has similar numbers [2]. I don't think the numbers back up what you're saying here — they contradict it pretty soundly. In fact, the U.S. currently is (IMO stupidly) trying to prevent people from coming at all because it has such a huge volume of inbound immigration. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe

PKop 6y ago
>The U.S. economy is nearly 2x larger than China's No, it's not. This is a flaw of using nominal GDP which doesn't take into account currency differentials, and therefore costs of production. China's GDP(PPP) is already bigger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
- reissbaker 6y ago
  GDP(PPP) is useful for observing changes within domestic markets but not global economic power. As per the page you linked: "GDP comparisons using PPP are arguably more useful than those using nominal GDP when assessing a nation's domestic market . . . It is however limited when measuring financial flows between countries." When we are discussing a Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer stopping shipments to Huawei due to US-led pressure, GDP(PPP) isn't particularly relevant. TSMC doesn't care how much the cost of production in the US is; it produces chips in Taiwan, not America. But it does care about the total dollar value of American economic support, which nominal GDP measures, and GDP(PPP) does not. And for the result of GDP(PPP) on individuals within domestic markets — which was another of the OP's claims, that individuals are likely to obtain more impact and success in China than in the West — you want GDP(PPP) per capita, not overall GDP(PPP). And the numbers still don't back up that claim: China is closer to Iraq than it is to even a fairly economically-challenged Western country like Greece, and nowhere near the US. [1] Hong Kong — when measured separately from the rest of China — is actually very close to US-level GDP(PPP) per capita. But... I think HK's futures in that respect have declined significantly due to the PRC. In fact, Hong Kong used to be slightly higher than the US, and HK has declined on that metric over time while the US has risen. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

greatjack613 6y ago

This piece smells like ccp propaganda. Read the above after considering those muslims who are chained in a ccp re-education center in china. @Dang can you investigate this. I feel like the ccp is directly targeting hacker news to spread misinformation. Very scary.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nujabe 6y ago
You are quite delusional to think dang will take down CCP material. According to him, anti-ccp content is equivalent to inciting 'nationalistic flame wars'.
- dang 6y ago
  People are welcome to post critical views as long as they do so thoughtfully—same as on any topic. It's an obvious fact that nationalistic passions are inflamed these days and getting worse. That inevitably shows up on HN and leads to low-quality, denunciatory comments and even outright slurs. We need to try for better than that.
FpUser 6y ago
>"I feel like the ccp is directly targeting hacker news to spread misinformation. Very scary." Let's say they do. As a westerner with the moral values superior to those of China you should be immune to a propaganda. What exactly are you "very scared" of?
dang 6y ago
You guys need to understand that there are many categories of users who might post something like that in good faith. First, a lot of Westerners hold anti-Western views—for whatever reason. This leads them to pro-China positions as a matter of tactics—the enemy of my enemy etc. Second, a lot of Westerners hold anti-US views. That's similar to category 1 but different. We see this from some Canadian, Australian, and European users, and of course even from some American users—again, for whatever reason; people are complicated. This sort of user will also take China's side in a China/US conflict, for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with being Chinese communists. Third, there are Westerners of Chinese background, either immigrants or children of immigrants, who have pro-China views because they identify with the Chinese dimension of their family history. Sometimes the children of immigrants have more strident views on these things than their parents. Where the parents naturally sought to fit in as immigrants in the West, the next generation tries to balance the two worlds by leaning back towards the country of origin. This group is the most likely to sound like "CCP propaganda" because they have deep knowledge of the culture and usually the language. And of course, if they're first-generation immigrants, their English may not sound native. Fourth, there are Westerners of non-Chinese background who have spent a lot of time in China, usually for work (less often for travel), who developed pro-Chinese views, or complex/ambivalent views, simply by the natural process of having spent time there. This sort of user often feels like their fellow Westerners have a cartoonish and ignorant view of China, and wants to educate them. Sometimes they 'educate' them by insulting their ignorance, which is unhelpful. These users have native English and can sound like ardent propagandists as well, but actually their motive is to correct what they perceive as a distortion in Western public opinion. Their own views tend to be critical of the CCP, but they dislike what they regard as ignorant anti-Chinese views, and so will argue a pro-China position out of contrarianism. They tend to favor friendly trade and political relations with China, and since the trend of the last few years has been clearly against that, they can come across as rather aggrieved. Fifth, there are many people who grew up in China, who came to the West for school (or work) and stayed here. Often they are caught between two worlds—having to defend the West and their choice to stay there to their families back home, and at the same time struck painfully by the ignorance, misunderstanding and hostility that they encounter about China here. HN has such users and they are in a difficult position: vastly outnumbered on intense, divisive questions that they happen to have deep personal experience of. Sometimes these categories also intersect: for example there are Canadian children of Chinese-Canadian immigrants who speak Mandarin and have spent time working at tech companies in China. Their views come from having grown up in a Chinese-Canadian family and having spent time in China itself, and they feel demeaned and even slurred by the generalizations about China that they see on Western internet forums. They show up in the threads with counterarguments, and their counterarguments are often intensely detailed because they have so much personal experience with the topics. Can you see how complex this situation is? Each of these categories is a minority on HN, but HN is big enough that 'minority' can still mean thousands of people, any of whom may comment in a thread like this—and no doubt there are additional categories that I didn't list (edit: here's another: Westerners with Chinese spouses). Any of these users can post what seem like absurdly pro-CCP comments in a HN thread, for complicated reasons that come from their own life experience. When they do that, other users run into their comments with no idea of the background that would lead someone to post that way, and it creates a shock experience. (For more on the shock experience, see [1] and [2]). Basically, they go 'WTF?' and wonder how anyone could possibly post like this. Now here comes the pivot in the whole business. When you experience that 'WTF?', you have two choices. First choice, you can say "wow, I wonder how different our experiences must be that you would post what seems to me like such an obviously wrong and evil comment!" That fork leads to curious conversation in which people get to know each other better. Second choice, you can say "You must be a communist party shill! No one would post like this for any other reason! How much are they paying you?" Which percentage of HN users makes the first choice vs. the second choice? Exercise for the reader. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22shock%20experience%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098

rmrfnodemodules 6y ago

This is CCP Propaganda.

kilroy_jones 6y ago

China has only recently been able to reverse or halt the brain drain it was having for decades. As far as talent coming from the US, you will need to provide actual data to back that up, unless you are referring to Chinese students that have been unable to secure a work visa as coming from the US.

xenihn 6y ago

Anecdotal, but...I don't know a single person who is interested in either returning to China or starting a new life there, and my social circles are overwhelmingly Chinese of all types (born here or Vancouver, moved here in grade school and grew up here, moved here for grad school, moved here as H1-Bs from PRC/Taiwan/HK/SG). For the ones who did not grow up here, they're predominantly from Beijing and Shanghai, with rich parents and connections back home. My girlfriend (Beijing-born, came over as a grad student and stayed) has told me several horror stories of her time spent working as a SWE in China and Singapore. Based on her experiences, it seems like women should be especially disinterested in returning. For the record, I would be ok with living in China for some time, or even relocating there long-term if/when the mantle is passed. Though I wouldn't do it without someone who speaks Mandarin.

nmfisher 6y ago
> My girlfriend (Beijing-born, came over as a grad student and stayed) has told me several horror stories of her time spent working as a SWE in China and Singapore. What happened in Singapore? I moved here earlier this year but haven't heard much beyond the usual grumbling about long hours.

GiantSully 6y ago

“ Necessity is the mother of invention and nowhere else is there the capital, political will and now sheer necessity as there is on the Mainland.” It’s also the mother of the GFW, which greatly impede the innovation. For example, many latest IT technology cannot be speeded effectively.

justicezyx 6y ago
Really? GFW definitely helped a lot of newer internet company take off by shifting the market from a US directed tastes to a more domestic. I.e. one would not immediately think Instagram is cooler than douyin. (As a result, Instagram like photos sharing were never main stream) GFW by itself is no small engineering feat either. It's technology is widely relevant in many technical areas related to traffic control and network management. For example, deep packet inspection was applied in GFW, and had been quite useful in intrusion detection. Of course now with the popularity of encryption, DPI is no longer very relevant. But that's the example of it being advancing technology.
- GiantSully 6y ago
  Baidu has worse UX after google search exited the mainland china. The many so called newer internet companies are actually copying and localizing. Blocked by the GFW, the inaccessible instagram can never be the main stream. Instead of the detecting intrusion, DPI plays a huge role in controlling the freedom of speech. And with the help of ML, DPI is even smarter than before. Fewer people of new generation in China know Google, Facebook and Twitter, and they only know the second-class analogue of these service providers.

eddieplan9 6y ago

Maybe this is history repeating itself: the story of the father of Chinese space program [1] was quite pertinent: > During WWII, he was involved in the Manhattan Project, which ultimately led to the successful development of the first atomic bomb in America. > During the Second Red Scare, in the 1950s, the US federal government accused him of communist sympathies. In 1950, despite protests by his colleagues, he was stripped of his security clearance. He decided to return to China... > Upon his return, he helped lead the Chinese nuclear weapons program. This effort ultimately led to China's first successful atomic bomb test and hydrogen bomb test, making China the fifth nuclear weapons state, and achieving the fastest fission-to-fusion development in history. > Qian was invited to visit the US ..., but he refused the invitation, having wanted a formal apology for his detention. In a reminiscence published in 2002, Marble stated that he believed Qian had "lost faith in the American government" but that he had "always had very warm feelings for the American people." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

typ 6y ago

>bloodlines and ancestry This is a kind of value and ideology as well, just a unsophisticated and primitive one.

euix 6y ago

Wow, I didn't expect this to get such a huge thread. Just wanted to add a few comments. Yes, I realized after I wrote it, the chief economist guy definitely didn't swim across the entire straits. He deliberately asked to be posted to Kimen or (maybe it was Quemoy), anyway they are very close to Xiamen on the mainland. Allegedly, he actually paddled by holding on floatation ballons or something. My comment about only going so far in the U.S. has more to do with the executive and political leadership roles in the U.S. and not about compensation (which is far higher in SV, though I am not sure how comp works at top SWE roles in China). Very few Chinese top performers make it to senior executive roles in the U.S. much less, much less the big chairs (CEO, board, etc). Also I was more talking about hardware talent then software. I think in terms of software the quality on the mainland is already quite good, at least in certain domains, but all the hardware comes from the U.S. if you think of NVIDIA or this semiconductor duke out, the weakness is hardware. So if you have "special hardware" talent you are feted like a debutante in China. Anyway, as someone who has been around the block a couple of times on both sides of the Pacific, I see no happy ending to the current situation. I have said this multiple times in other threads, we used to think economic engagement will turn the Chinese system more liberal but I think what is really happening is that it is turning the American one more authoritarian and state driven. If we look at the policies of the Trump administration against China, it's basically the type of economic statecraft China uses herself. So great, if you are anti-Chinese that's rich irony, but I think ultimately, there will be no winner and the process of fighting China will make America become just like China.