9 ms·

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of th

by audunw 6y ago

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to where other countries were with their demographic. Now they're on the verge of the biggest wave of senior citizens reaching retirement the world has ever seen, with crumbling infrastructure and housing, relatively low GDP/capita and no clear path to manufacturing/export of truly high value goods and services. They're screwed. China really wants to get out of low-value manufacturing, and in some ways they're encouraging pushing that out to south-east asia and africa. But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? Who wants to live and work in China now, when you have no real justice for foreign citizens and the CCP can arrest you at a whim? If anything even close to Shenzhen is replicated elsewhere in the world, I think companies and individuals will gladly develop their products elsewhere. Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? DJI I guess? But that's a bit niche. Poland is growing healthily last I checked. The proof is in immigration numbers in other European countries. It seems to be reversing. In Norway there's a clear downward trend in immigration from Poland.

yorwba 6y ago
> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen. You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...
- brutus1213 6y ago
  I think people who think China can be contained are being naive. As an academic, I am extremely impressed with the improvement in scientific publications in CS out of China of late. In 10 years, they are now killing it on a consistent basis (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT). I have a feeling it has to do with the reality that Chinese nationals (or people with some ethnic/language connection) are an integral part of cutting edge science globally. It is extremely do-able to entice these individuals back. Western countries have severely under invested in research .. even back when I got my PhD (like a decade ago), my job packages were far superior in Asia (not just China) than in the West. I think in 5G, some top level planners in the West have realized the error of their ways, and are investing heavily in basic research. I think it is too late.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT) Wait until Berkeley Stanford and MIT get better network security! [0][1][2] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-cancer-research-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-canc... [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-officer-researcher-arrested-at-lax-being-charged-with-visa-fraud https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e...
    - danielscrubs 6y ago
      Those links provided doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Berkeley, Stanford nor MIT?
      - nottrobin 6y ago
        Also, only one of them has anything to do with theft. The other two are simply unrelated news stories about people with links to China - one was a US researcher who may have lied to get a visa, the other simply a "policy breach". To cite them here is firstly to lie, as they aren't relevant, but secondly to show some pretty xenophobic tendencies, equating any news story connected to anyone Chinese as being proof of some other anti-Chinese theory. Pretty disgusting.
klmadfejno 6y ago
> I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? Because China can waggle a huge target market to tempt people into repeating well documented mistakes
throwbacktictac 6y ago
I think it's healthy to have a diverse set of mid and upper market companies. Chinese companies will ultimately buy their way into up market businesses. One antidote that I can readily think of is the acquisition of the street wear company Bape buy a the Chinese/Hong Kong manufacturer I.T Group. Forbes magazine is another company that was acquired by a Chinese company. Furthermore, Hong Kong has some international appeal and most people think of it as a nation separate from China. In reality, companies from China incorporate in HK to escape the aurora of being a Chinese compnay
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- babesh 6y ago
  Hong Kong companies have better brand reputations than Chinese companies but gradually there are more Chinese brands gaining better reputations. I would expect this to continue. In fact, there are probably a few brands that are Chinese that you don’t realize are Chinese.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    I’m not sure the whole swallowing of Hong Kong (and ignoring the two systems one country thing decades before it was set to lapse) is helping with brand reputation.
jfengel 6y ago
Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? They're going to try to compete on price and quality. If customers think that the Xiaomi phone is good and cheap, the governments will have a hard time banning it. Customers don't really care about turning over huge amounts of information to Tiktok as well as to Facebook. That puts the western governments in a bind, to either ban wholesale or piecemeal, and it looks bad for them either way. That's not a guaranteed win for China. It's hard to compete on both price and quality, and they're going to have to work hard to win a reputation for the latter. It's possible: both Japan and South Korea have done it. But they did so with a friendly US, not a hostile one. They have the advantage of an enormous internal market, but it's not a wealthy one. They're going to look to Africa, which is also not wealthy, but there is money there, with less focus on privacy and more on price. Perhaps India and Latin America as well.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  I think it's also fair to note that "Africa" is a huge place with huge income distributions. I can see South Africa and North Africa aligning more with the West, and East Africa going more to China.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    I doubt it. There's already lots of african resentment towards china's particular brand of economic exploitation. There have been murders already.
throwaway776543 6y ago
> Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft Weren’t South Korea, Taiwan, and even Japan once known for their rampant IP theft?
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  The US was to and not that long ago.
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  Nowhere near as bad. The sheer scale and reach of Chinese counterfeits/crap quality is epic. If there's an olympics for this, China wins all the medals in every event. - Fake apple cables - Fidget spinners - Remember fake Apple stores? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-fake-idUSTRE76K1SU20110721 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-fake-idUSTRE7... - Remember the milk scandal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal - And don't forget the Three Gorges Dam, where the grifters building it used so much concrete building it (causing a global concrete shortage), but didn't worry about the problems non-homogeneous concrete causes in large load-bearing structures, and skimping on quality and every which way. The CCP has basically admitted the dam is useless for flood control. And it has some cracks, and the weather changes are going to cause more issues.
  - nytgop77 6y ago
    probably legaly i am wrong. but apple cables and figdet spinners.. not much intelectual property there. there should be separate term for brand infrigment.
- nix23 6y ago
  >Japan once known for their rampant IP theft? Yes they stole even IBM Mainframe OS's repeatedly....and sold it.
mrkramer 6y ago
IP theft allowed China to acquire much needed technical know-how and to build up their manufacturing industry.
Nimitz14 6y ago
Uuh have you not heard of xiaomi or oneplus? They're already creating high value goods.
- OrbitRock 6y ago
  DJI drones is another example
- klipklop 6y ago
  Indeed. My 4 year old Oneplus phone taught me that China can make a phone just as good as anyone else. It's a quality product and was at a great price. With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff.
  - Proziam 6y ago
    > With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff. I have bad news for you, friend.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    > With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff. Isn't Apple extremely well known for it's production lines being in China?
    - znpy 6y ago
      Yes but apple users casually happen to ignore that fact when it comes up
    - supuun 6y ago
      well, it's still better than buying stuff from Chinese company if you are trying to "de-chinaze". Also, I don't think you have any other option. ah, aren't samsung phones made in South Korea? so you do have alternatives.
babesh 6y ago
The 1 child policy is probably a big issue but IP theft is partly how the US industrialized. The textile mills of the North that kicked off industrialization in the US was based off of IP stolen from Britain. In fact, many of the practices that the Chinese are using were also used by the Americans: smuggling plans, hiring key employees, tariffs, etc. https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_theft_is_what_once_helped_make_america_great_103367.html# https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_thef...! http://web.mit.edu/heikki/www/antebellum_tariff_draft1.pdf http://web.mit.edu/heikki/www/antebellum_tariff_draft1.pdf
- fragmede 6y ago
  Even domestically, the reason Hollywood is the center of the film industry is because California was too far from the East coast for patents on moving picture cameras to be effectively enforced.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    I thought it has more to do with weather, particularly ~300 sunny days per year.
    - the_af 6y ago
      It was a bit of both. I think I first read about this in Lessig's Free Culture [1], but even Wikipedia mentions some of this: somewhat ironically because of the MPAA's current heavy-handed tactics, Hollywood was founded on piracy and patents infringement. Some moviemakers moved West to explore new territories and climates (Wikipedia mentions D.W. Griffith) but others soon followed suit in order to avoid Edison's patents. It can be argued that Hollywood was made possible by people who broke the law [2] So Hollywood and the MPAA, who so aggressively pursue what they deem "IP infringement", have more than one skeleton in their closets. Bear this in mind whenever someone tells you -- as often witnessed here on HN -- "but without copyright there will be no writers" or "art isn't possible without IP laws". ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Rise_of_Hollywood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Ri...
newswasboring 6y ago
> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? You seem a bit misinformed. ASML CEO has repeatedly showed extreme desire to sell in china (it already comprises the fastest growing DUV market)[1]. It's the american pressure, indirectly or directly exerted which is causing issues. If it were upto ASML SMIC would already be establishing it's EUV fabs. [1] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-10-16/dutch-tech-giant-asml-says-being-non-american-has-its-advantages-when-selling-to-china-101615341.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-10-16/dutch-tech-giant-asm...
- nytgop77 6y ago
  fact remains, that there are dificlties.
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    Are you a troll? The difficulty is clearly not coming from chinese IP theft but american fear.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. That's because of geopolitics: These countries are small enough that they cannot be a threat to the US. In fact they are dependent on the US. China, on the other hand, is a strategic adversary irrespective of their IP laws (and enforcement of those laws) or even of their political regime.
FpUser 6y ago
>"...Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft..." IP is artificial construct supported and ultimately enforced by governments when it suits their purpose. For developing countries this IP just locks them forever into servitude as they can not afford to pay for IP. Never mind that. Even if they invent something themselves they'd still be breaking some patent. Personally I completely support a position where until country reaches certain GDP per capita they should be free from any IPO enforcements. By the way the largest IP holder on this planet is also the largest thief of IP. This is how they've started.
inglor_cz 6y ago
The one child policy is an example of a highly organized authoritarian society making a big, potentially fatal mistake, because no real debate with genuine dissent could be had. That said, it is possible that China will reverse this self-made problem by developing and mandating use of artificial wombs or something similar. Authoritarian societies do not have many ethical scruples when it comes to problem solving.
laurencerowe 6y ago
> But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Other than my car and some furniture, pretty much everything I've bought that cost more than $100 in the past 10-20 years has been made in China. > Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? Perhaps not, but they'll likely continue to manufacture most of the products sold by the Sonys and Apples of the world.

by audunw 6y ago

yorwba 6y ago

> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen. You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...

brutus1213 6y ago
I think people who think China can be contained are being naive. As an academic, I am extremely impressed with the improvement in scientific publications in CS out of China of late. In 10 years, they are now killing it on a consistent basis (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT). I have a feeling it has to do with the reality that Chinese nationals (or people with some ethnic/language connection) are an integral part of cutting edge science globally. It is extremely do-able to entice these individuals back. Western countries have severely under invested in research .. even back when I got my PhD (like a decade ago), my job packages were far superior in Asia (not just China) than in the West. I think in 5G, some top level planners in the West have realized the error of their ways, and are investing heavily in basic research. I think it is too late.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT) Wait until Berkeley Stanford and MIT get better network security! [0][1][2] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-cancer-research-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-canc... [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-officer-researcher-arrested-at-lax-being-charged-with-visa-fraud https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e...
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    Those links provided doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Berkeley, Stanford nor MIT?
    - nottrobin 6y ago
      Also, only one of them has anything to do with theft. The other two are simply unrelated news stories about people with links to China - one was a US researcher who may have lied to get a visa, the other simply a "policy breach". To cite them here is firstly to lie, as they aren't relevant, but secondly to show some pretty xenophobic tendencies, equating any news story connected to anyone Chinese as being proof of some other anti-Chinese theory. Pretty disgusting.

klmadfejno 6y ago

> I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? Because China can waggle a huge target market to tempt people into repeating well documented mistakes

throwbacktictac 6y ago

I think it's healthy to have a diverse set of mid and upper market companies. Chinese companies will ultimately buy their way into up market businesses. One antidote that I can readily think of is the acquisition of the street wear company Bape buy a the Chinese/Hong Kong manufacturer I.T Group. Forbes magazine is another company that was acquired by a Chinese company. Furthermore, Hong Kong has some international appeal and most people think of it as a nation separate from China. In reality, companies from China incorporate in HK to escape the aurora of being a Chinese compnay

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
babesh 6y ago
Hong Kong companies have better brand reputations than Chinese companies but gradually there are more Chinese brands gaining better reputations. I would expect this to continue. In fact, there are probably a few brands that are Chinese that you don’t realize are Chinese.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I’m not sure the whole swallowing of Hong Kong (and ignoring the two systems one country thing decades before it was set to lapse) is helping with brand reputation.

jfengel 6y ago

Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? They're going to try to compete on price and quality. If customers think that the Xiaomi phone is good and cheap, the governments will have a hard time banning it. Customers don't really care about turning over huge amounts of information to Tiktok as well as to Facebook. That puts the western governments in a bind, to either ban wholesale or piecemeal, and it looks bad for them either way. That's not a guaranteed win for China. It's hard to compete on both price and quality, and they're going to have to work hard to win a reputation for the latter. It's possible: both Japan and South Korea have done it. But they did so with a friendly US, not a hostile one. They have the advantage of an enormous internal market, but it's not a wealthy one. They're going to look to Africa, which is also not wealthy, but there is money there, with less focus on privacy and more on price. Perhaps India and Latin America as well.

jorblumesea 6y ago
I think it's also fair to note that "Africa" is a huge place with huge income distributions. I can see South Africa and North Africa aligning more with the West, and East Africa going more to China.
- dnautics 6y ago
  I doubt it. There's already lots of african resentment towards china's particular brand of economic exploitation. There have been murders already.

throwaway776543 6y ago

> Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft Weren’t South Korea, Taiwan, and even Japan once known for their rampant IP theft?

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
The US was to and not that long ago.
medium_burrito 6y ago
Nowhere near as bad. The sheer scale and reach of Chinese counterfeits/crap quality is epic. If there's an olympics for this, China wins all the medals in every event. - Fake apple cables - Fidget spinners - Remember fake Apple stores? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-fake-idUSTRE76K1SU20110721 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-fake-idUSTRE7... - Remember the milk scandal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal - And don't forget the Three Gorges Dam, where the grifters building it used so much concrete building it (causing a global concrete shortage), but didn't worry about the problems non-homogeneous concrete causes in large load-bearing structures, and skimping on quality and every which way. The CCP has basically admitted the dam is useless for flood control. And it has some cracks, and the weather changes are going to cause more issues.
- nytgop77 6y ago
  probably legaly i am wrong. but apple cables and figdet spinners.. not much intelectual property there. there should be separate term for brand infrigment.
nix23 6y ago
>Japan once known for their rampant IP theft? Yes they stole even IBM Mainframe OS's repeatedly....and sold it.

mrkramer 6y ago

IP theft allowed China to acquire much needed technical know-how and to build up their manufacturing industry.

Nimitz14 6y ago

Uuh have you not heard of xiaomi or oneplus? They're already creating high value goods.

OrbitRock 6y ago
DJI drones is another example
klipklop 6y ago
Indeed. My 4 year old Oneplus phone taught me that China can make a phone just as good as anyone else. It's a quality product and was at a great price. With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff.
- Proziam 6y ago
  > With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff. I have bad news for you, friend.
- justinclift 6y ago
  > With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff. Isn't Apple extremely well known for it's production lines being in China?
  - znpy 6y ago
    Yes but apple users casually happen to ignore that fact when it comes up
  - supuun 6y ago
    well, it's still better than buying stuff from Chinese company if you are trying to "de-chinaze". Also, I don't think you have any other option. ah, aren't samsung phones made in South Korea? so you do have alternatives.

babesh 6y ago

The 1 child policy is probably a big issue but IP theft is partly how the US industrialized. The textile mills of the North that kicked off industrialization in the US was based off of IP stolen from Britain. In fact, many of the practices that the Chinese are using were also used by the Americans: smuggling plans, hiring key employees, tariffs, etc. https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_theft_is_what_once_helped_make_america_great_103367.html# https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_thef...! http://web.mit.edu/heikki/www/antebellum_tariff_draft1.pdf http://web.mit.edu/heikki/www/antebellum_tariff_draft1.pdf

fragmede 6y ago
Even domestically, the reason Hollywood is the center of the film industry is because California was too far from the East coast for patents on moving picture cameras to be effectively enforced.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  I thought it has more to do with weather, particularly ~300 sunny days per year.
  - the_af 6y ago
    It was a bit of both. I think I first read about this in Lessig's Free Culture [1], but even Wikipedia mentions some of this: somewhat ironically because of the MPAA's current heavy-handed tactics, Hollywood was founded on piracy and patents infringement. Some moviemakers moved West to explore new territories and climates (Wikipedia mentions D.W. Griffith) but others soon followed suit in order to avoid Edison's patents. It can be argued that Hollywood was made possible by people who broke the law [2] So Hollywood and the MPAA, who so aggressively pursue what they deem "IP infringement", have more than one skeleton in their closets. Bear this in mind whenever someone tells you -- as often witnessed here on HN -- "but without copyright there will be no writers" or "art isn't possible without IP laws". ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Rise_of_Hollywood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Ri...

newswasboring 6y ago

> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? You seem a bit misinformed. ASML CEO has repeatedly showed extreme desire to sell in china (it already comprises the fastest growing DUV market)[1]. It's the american pressure, indirectly or directly exerted which is causing issues. If it were upto ASML SMIC would already be establishing it's EUV fabs. [1] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-10-16/dutch-tech-giant-asml-says-being-non-american-has-its-advantages-when-selling-to-china-101615341.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-10-16/dutch-tech-giant-asm...

nytgop77 6y ago
fact remains, that there are dificlties.
- newswasboring 6y ago
  Are you a troll? The difficulty is clearly not coming from chinese IP theft but american fear.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. That's because of geopolitics: These countries are small enough that they cannot be a threat to the US. In fact they are dependent on the US. China, on the other hand, is a strategic adversary irrespective of their IP laws (and enforcement of those laws) or even of their political regime.

FpUser 6y ago

>"...Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft..." IP is artificial construct supported and ultimately enforced by governments when it suits their purpose. For developing countries this IP just locks them forever into servitude as they can not afford to pay for IP. Never mind that. Even if they invent something themselves they'd still be breaking some patent. Personally I completely support a position where until country reaches certain GDP per capita they should be free from any IPO enforcements. By the way the largest IP holder on this planet is also the largest thief of IP. This is how they've started.

inglor_cz 6y ago

The one child policy is an example of a highly organized authoritarian society making a big, potentially fatal mistake, because no real debate with genuine dissent could be had. That said, it is possible that China will reverse this self-made problem by developing and mandating use of artificial wombs or something similar. Authoritarian societies do not have many ethical scruples when it comes to problem solving.

laurencerowe 6y ago

> But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Other than my car and some furniture, pretty much everything I've bought that cost more than $100 in the past 10-20 years has been made in China. > Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? Perhaps not, but they'll likely continue to manufacture most of the products sold by the Sonys and Apples of the world.