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Interesting to see the US somewhat following China's lead here. Industry/government/defense cooperation has a rich (and somewhat ugly) history in the US, but se

Interesting to see the US somewhat following China's lead here. Industry/government/defense cooperation has a rich (and somewhat ugly) history in the US, but seems to have fallen out of favor in recent decades, whereas China has leaned in even harder toward five-year plans that attempt to get every part of society -- academia, government, business, media, etc. marching in the same direction. I've really started to wonder about how, and how much, government should try to influence a lot of this. In the 60s Kennedy said we're going to put a man on the moon (US) and we did it. There's clearly some role for direction-setting at the national level. But it's not without costs: corruption, cronyism, wasted money. China's been trying to bootstrap a domestic semiconductor industry for decades and the most they have to show for it is SMIC, which is nowhere near TSMC or even Intel's level of capability. Ditto for internal-combustion cars--they (rightfully) trumpet EVs as a pretty large success story but leave out the part about wasting billions trying to make a domestic Detroit. And then there's the fact that government has a hard time writing sub-$1bln checks so there's the potential for a huge amount of waste if things don't pan out.

dirtyid 5y ago
>US somewhat following China's lead here US is _returning_ to industrial policies which PRC civil military fusion was originally modelled off. IMO establishing complex indigenous industries require the appetite for massive risk / waste which is always preferable to the alternative of not building the capabilities in first place. PRC semi efforts has been pretty lackluster until last few years, i.e. integrated circuits only got promoted to first-level discipline with streamlined funding last year. There are worst things to waste money on in this security climate.
petre 5y ago
Just don't minimize their achievements because the next thing you know they'll be buying off US and European companies. BYD went from a company everybody in the auto industry laughed at to a partner in Daimler and Toyota joint ventures and a company Warren Buffet's org has invested in more money than they have in GM.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > BYD went from a company everybody in the auto industry laughed at to a partner in Daimler and Toyota joint ventures and a company Warren Buffet's org has invested in more money than they have in GM. How much of that is due to China's protectionism, huge untapped market and forced local partnerships vs what the company's tech is actually worth?

dirtyid 5y ago

>US somewhat following China's lead here US is _returning_ to industrial policies which PRC civil military fusion was originally modelled off. IMO establishing complex indigenous industries require the appetite for massive risk / waste which is always preferable to the alternative of not building the capabilities in first place. PRC semi efforts has been pretty lackluster until last few years, i.e. integrated circuits only got promoted to first-level discipline with streamlined funding last year. There are worst things to waste money on in this security climate.

petre 5y ago

Just don't minimize their achievements because the next thing you know they'll be buying off US and European companies. BYD went from a company everybody in the auto industry laughed at to a partner in Daimler and Toyota joint ventures and a company Warren Buffet's org has invested in more money than they have in GM.

908B64B197 5y ago
> BYD went from a company everybody in the auto industry laughed at to a partner in Daimler and Toyota joint ventures and a company Warren Buffet's org has invested in more money than they have in GM. How much of that is due to China's protectionism, huge untapped market and forced local partnerships vs what the company's tech is actually worth?