7 ms·

If you're reading a tech news coming out of China, and aren't thinking about politics, you're doing something wrong. Every tech company in China is in part own

If you're reading a tech news coming out of China, and aren't thinking about politics, you're doing something wrong. Every tech company in China is in part owned or supported by the chinese government. Hard to talk about "independent tech". They're more like "national tech". Today and the next 50 years in tech is being defined by the competition between the two superpowers. Their national objectives differ vastly. China: aiming to invade Taiwan; proving everyone that their totalitarian system is competitive with democracy; proving that they can lead the world. US aiming to stay a leader; maintaining the global stability; maintaining the economic & military supremacy. Both economies are trying to slowly decouple from each other, gain independence, and prove their superiority. This is the story of our ages.

ncmncm 4y ago
By report their economy is facing imminent collapse as a real estate bubble pops. I don't know whether this makes invasion of Taiwan soon more or less likely.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  "experts" have been seeing this imminent collapse for 20 years now. It will eventually be true, but that's true for a lot of things if you keep claiming them for long enough.
- simne 4y ago
  Sure, slowing of China economy will make invasion to Taiwan more likely, for same reasons for which Hitler and Putin invades neighbors - all empires need to constantly show their people wins, or they will collapse.
starchild_3001 4y ago
Re: Chinese real estate bubble. It's been almost 10 years since news outlets and finance people have claimed a RE bubble in China. Nothing happened. Buyer (of RE and the bubble hype) beware. "60 mins" from 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  It’s been almost ten years since the same people first starting claiming that Evergrande was insolvent. The government is just able to prop things up for amazing amount of time, but $1 million dollar 2 bedroom apartments in third tier or worse cities aren’t sustainable.
emodendroket 4y ago
I really do not think a Taiwan invasion is imminent, at least short of a huge provocation.
- chillacy 4y ago
  For numbers, Metaculus collectively puts China annexing Taiwan by 2050 at around 50%: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5320/chinese-annexation-of-most-of-taiwan-by-2050/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5320/chinese-annexation-... 30 years is a long time for forecasting though, afaik forecasting accuracy in tournaments drops as a function of time.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    >For numbers, Metaculus collectively puts China annexing Taiwan by 2050 at around 50% I really don't see how that's any more accurate than tea leaves or bones... One could just as easily argue it's 84%, because a crackhead gave him that number in response to a cheeseburger.
    - chillacy 4y ago
      This is the track record for Metaculus (the chart at the end) showing historically a 10% swing in predictions of 50% historically by aggregated forecasters on the site: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/track-record/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/track-record/ Granted this tells us nothing about the accuracy of any one particular question, but on aggregate Metaculus is pretty well calibrated. That said, there is a longstanding academic debate between "forecasting can tell us useful things" (Telock) and "black swans will ruin your life" (Taleb).
      - AussieWog93 4y ago
        >Granted this tells us nothing about the accuracy of any one particular question I think this is where my skepticism comes from. Just because one can make certain predictions with reasonable accuracy (e.g. Scott Morrison will lose the upcoming Australian election, Joe Biden will die in office, Elon Musk will be the richest man in the world by 2030), it says nothing about their ability to predict other questions with far less information (such as if and when the CCP will invade Taiwan).
liuliu 4y ago
China exuberates when private sector exuberates. It is equally naive on both the West (like your comment) and the CCP side to think that being supported by the government and government-sponsored industrial espionage is / was the why of China's economic miracle. In the past 3 decades, it was repeatedly shown in China that government subsidies was only useful to a extent and created incredible amount of waste. The state-owned enterprises never hired or supported the most vibrant part of the community (middle classes in urban areas). The success of companies in China, like in the rest of the world, can be attributed to the wits and lucks of their founders. TBH, that is why the future of China looks grim to me. The current leadership seems unable to properly recognize the contribution of the private sector. OTOH, people in the West looked at China, and imagined all the private enterprises are secretly owned by the government and the government picked winners / losers. That was simply not the winning formula in the past 30 years. I can have a longer essay to establish this with data and examples, but it is too late. Probably save it for another day.
trasz 4y ago
>Every tech company in China is in part owned or supported by the chinese government. So it’s exactly like the US. >China: aiming to invade Taiwan China hasn’t invaded anyone for decades. US had.
- simne 4y ago
  > China hasn’t invaded anyone for decades Do you know history? There where at least two big open struggles - against USSR and against India. Also there where lot of hidden interventions - to Vietnam, to Korea, to Afghanistan, where China don't look as main hero, but without their intervention, world will be totally different. For example, without China intervention, we wouldn't have North Korea; probably capitalist South Vietnam would have survived and would be very strong player on world markets; we wouldn't have Taliban, which destroyed civilization level historical monuments; etc.
  - trasz 4y ago
    I don’t have a problem with “struggles”; every country has those. What I do have a problem with is wars. As in, when actual people die. Without US we wouldn’t have North Korea either - the only reason it exists is that this prevents US from placing military bases there. Taliban was literally funded and trained by CIA; not sure what Chinese involvement was?
    - simne 4y ago
      You have very strange look on history. North Korea appears because of Russian intervention, lead by Joseph Stalin. Taliban was toy movement, nothing serious, before Russian intervention to Afghanistan in 1978. You should understand one thing - US, Britain, France, even modern Germany are really strong players, but Russia after 1917 becomes small player with inadequate ambitions, so Russia could not play solo. And because of this, Russia constantly tried to break games of strong players, or as it named now - they try to break world game. US after WWII becomes something what Russian named world gendarme (this is direct translation), so US have to spend resources and send military to other parts of world, to keep peace there. BTW answer question (yes, this is test) - why do you think, mostly US military was in Yugoslavia (center of Europe), not European?

ncmncm 4y ago

By report their economy is facing imminent collapse as a real estate bubble pops. I don't know whether this makes invasion of Taiwan soon more or less likely.

iforgotpassword 4y ago
"experts" have been seeing this imminent collapse for 20 years now. It will eventually be true, but that's true for a lot of things if you keep claiming them for long enough.
simne 4y ago
Sure, slowing of China economy will make invasion to Taiwan more likely, for same reasons for which Hitler and Putin invades neighbors - all empires need to constantly show their people wins, or they will collapse.

starchild_3001 4y ago

Re: Chinese real estate bubble. It's been almost 10 years since news outlets and finance people have claimed a RE bubble in China. Nothing happened. Buyer (of RE and the bubble hype) beware. "60 mins" from 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
It’s been almost ten years since the same people first starting claiming that Evergrande was insolvent. The government is just able to prop things up for amazing amount of time, but $1 million dollar 2 bedroom apartments in third tier or worse cities aren’t sustainable.

emodendroket 4y ago

I really do not think a Taiwan invasion is imminent, at least short of a huge provocation.

chillacy 4y ago
For numbers, Metaculus collectively puts China annexing Taiwan by 2050 at around 50%: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5320/chinese-annexation-of-most-of-taiwan-by-2050/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5320/chinese-annexation-... 30 years is a long time for forecasting though, afaik forecasting accuracy in tournaments drops as a function of time.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >For numbers, Metaculus collectively puts China annexing Taiwan by 2050 at around 50% I really don't see how that's any more accurate than tea leaves or bones... One could just as easily argue it's 84%, because a crackhead gave him that number in response to a cheeseburger.
  - chillacy 4y ago
    This is the track record for Metaculus (the chart at the end) showing historically a 10% swing in predictions of 50% historically by aggregated forecasters on the site: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/track-record/ https://www.metaculus.com/questions/track-record/ Granted this tells us nothing about the accuracy of any one particular question, but on aggregate Metaculus is pretty well calibrated. That said, there is a longstanding academic debate between "forecasting can tell us useful things" (Telock) and "black swans will ruin your life" (Taleb).
    - AussieWog93 4y ago
      >Granted this tells us nothing about the accuracy of any one particular question I think this is where my skepticism comes from. Just because one can make certain predictions with reasonable accuracy (e.g. Scott Morrison will lose the upcoming Australian election, Joe Biden will die in office, Elon Musk will be the richest man in the world by 2030), it says nothing about their ability to predict other questions with far less information (such as if and when the CCP will invade Taiwan).

liuliu 4y ago

China exuberates when private sector exuberates. It is equally naive on both the West (like your comment) and the CCP side to think that being supported by the government and government-sponsored industrial espionage is / was the why of China's economic miracle. In the past 3 decades, it was repeatedly shown in China that government subsidies was only useful to a extent and created incredible amount of waste. The state-owned enterprises never hired or supported the most vibrant part of the community (middle classes in urban areas). The success of companies in China, like in the rest of the world, can be attributed to the wits and lucks of their founders. TBH, that is why the future of China looks grim to me. The current leadership seems unable to properly recognize the contribution of the private sector. OTOH, people in the West looked at China, and imagined all the private enterprises are secretly owned by the government and the government picked winners / losers. That was simply not the winning formula in the past 30 years. I can have a longer essay to establish this with data and examples, but it is too late. Probably save it for another day.

trasz 4y ago

>Every tech company in China is in part owned or supported by the chinese government. So it’s exactly like the US. >China: aiming to invade Taiwan China hasn’t invaded anyone for decades. US had.

simne 4y ago
> China hasn’t invaded anyone for decades Do you know history? There where at least two big open struggles - against USSR and against India. Also there where lot of hidden interventions - to Vietnam, to Korea, to Afghanistan, where China don't look as main hero, but without their intervention, world will be totally different. For example, without China intervention, we wouldn't have North Korea; probably capitalist South Vietnam would have survived and would be very strong player on world markets; we wouldn't have Taliban, which destroyed civilization level historical monuments; etc.
- trasz 4y ago
  I don’t have a problem with “struggles”; every country has those. What I do have a problem with is wars. As in, when actual people die. Without US we wouldn’t have North Korea either - the only reason it exists is that this prevents US from placing military bases there. Taliban was literally funded and trained by CIA; not sure what Chinese involvement was?
  - simne 4y ago
    You have very strange look on history. North Korea appears because of Russian intervention, lead by Joseph Stalin. Taliban was toy movement, nothing serious, before Russian intervention to Afghanistan in 1978. You should understand one thing - US, Britain, France, even modern Germany are really strong players, but Russia after 1917 becomes small player with inadequate ambitions, so Russia could not play solo. And because of this, Russia constantly tried to break games of strong players, or as it named now - they try to break world game. US after WWII becomes something what Russian named world gendarme (this is direct translation), so US have to spend resources and send military to other parts of world, to keep peace there. BTW answer question (yes, this is test) - why do you think, mostly US military was in Yugoslavia (center of Europe), not European?