4 ms·

people are sleeping on China. Sure they copy everything now, but so did US, japan and everybody in the beggining.

• nabla9 5y ago
  Samuel Slater ("Father of the American Industrial Revolution") is known in the UK as "Slater the Traitor". He stole the textile machinery designs from UK as an apprentice, then migrated to the US and build his own mills. British law banned exporting textile mill designs.
• CountDrewku 5y ago
  What people? Plenty of people are concerned with what they're doing. US government is too inept to do anything or they're willingly cooperating with them.
  • sprafa 5y ago
    well - those people.
• vlovich123 5y ago
  Who is people? There's been lots of people noting this parallel for a very long time. In fact, it's exactly China's playbook. Here's an example from 2007 where NDT is discussing China's emergence that people were missing at the time: https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/commentary/2007-08-05-why-america-needs-to-explore-space.php https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/commentary/2007-08-0... There was another talk (from NDT too IIRC) I recall seeing that compared the amount of academic papers China puts out. It's a poor metric & there is more low-quality submissions coming out of China, but overall they were set to overtake the US. Expect university prestige to start migrating east to top Chinese universities (assuming they become more friendly for immigration).
• president 5y ago
  Copying is one thing. State-sponsored wholesale transfer of trade theft is another. Now, I don't doubt for one second that the US/CIA has not done anything shady like that in the past but I do not believe it has ever been on the scale of effort that China has undertaken. And I say to my own country's detriment - more power to them. While the US fumbles with domestic politics, social justice endeavors, and enriching other countries, China has risen to take its place by taking the opposite stance and focusing all its energy on making itself the foremost global economic giant.
  • sprafa 5y ago
    read above about people who engaged in state sponsored tech theft for the early US industrial revolution. UK had laws agaisnt it too.
• aeternum 5y ago
  What can the US do? China's population is a huge advantage right now, China has figured out how to create a mostly participatory economy so they have 10x the number of brains engaged vs. the US. Each US citizen must be 10x more productive just to tie. If the US gov were smart, we would make it significantly easier for those with skills to immigrate, but unfortunately we seem to be set on doing the opposite. On top of that, China is making smart educational choices like making basic comp-sci required. The US educational system is using decades old curriculum or just cancelling classes altogether.
  • bogwog 5y ago
    But considering how the Chinese government brutally oppresses its own people, those advantages aren't worth much. When/if the CCP is overthrown and a democratically elected government takes its place, then maybe China will become the new world leader.
    • aeternum 5y ago
      That's a narrative that most democratic countries want to be true, but that does not necessarily make it true. A strict autocratic government is quicker at making decisions and may actually be ideal assuming it optimizes for the long-term best interest of the country and does not become corrupt. Only time will tell if the CCP is able to do this.
  • distribot 5y ago
    Demographic collapse, irresponsible extractive industry, and in fact many citizens are excluded from the most dynamic parts of the country by the Hukou system. China is a really interesting place that has had an incredible meteoric rise, but there are problems.
    • sudosysgen 5y ago
      Extractive industries and the Hukou system are a huge issue, but they can be fixed. The Demographic collapse is wildly overstated. China has a workforce surplus and will have one for a long time, so there is no medium-term demographic issue. Instead, underproductive rural farmers will be proletarianized and turned into workers engaged in the economy. This is a transition that was planned a really, really long time ago. The reason for the One Child policy being continued past the food insecurity times is moreso because there were too many farmers. And even today China has many more farmers than needed.
• api 5y ago
  China will surpass the USA in raw GDP by mere virtue of its population size. All they have to do is get to something like 1/3 US GDP per capita and they'll easily win in absolute terms. This is only a bad thing if China continues to become more authoritarian and starts getting truly belligerent.