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> This sounds like official Chinese propaganda Go to any top-N American University, pick a random STEM faculty and count the number of Chinese (nationality) po
by overfeed 2y ago
> This sounds like official Chinese propaganda
Go to any top-N American University, pick a random STEM faculty and count the number of Chinese (nationality) post-grads, post-docs and faculty. Alternatively, look at the trajectory of science publications coming out of Chinese universities vs the US. Underestimating China's brain-trust is doing oneself a disservice.
- edm0nd 2y agoand on the flipside, the Chinese government routinely uses this same route for espionage and theft of American academia and STEM research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_United_States#Higher_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Unite...
- ebruchez 2y agoI don't need to be convinced that China has lots of bright, hard-working individuals. I just want to point out that China faces immense challenges and that we should see beyond, and push back against, the propaganda. There is a massive asymmetry between China and democratic nations in this regards.
- overfeed 2y agoThis is a fair assessment. However, I think there is propaganda or self-delusion in the west that leads some people to believe that free markets and/or democracy are preconditions for any number of desirable outcomes like creativity, economic success, product innovation, etc. That may have empirically been true against the Eastern Bloc/Soviet Union during the cold war, but is not obvious to me regarding China today. AFAICT, China has produced companies that can go to to toe with the best in the west - occasionally winning outright[1]. We can argue whether that's because of subsidies, espionage, innovation or fundamental research 1. DJI, CATL, BYD, ByteDance, HighFlyer/DeepSeek
- ebruchez 2y agoFuture might tell. But while it's tempting, I wouldn't bet against democracy and freedom just yet.