4 ms·

It is complacency or is China just accelerating? It's not surprising that China wins in these things. Just go to Shenzhen. Hardware designers, parts, machines

It is complacency or is China just accelerating? It's not surprising that China wins in these things. Just go to Shenzhen. Hardware designers, parts, machines that make the parts, factories, etc. are all within driving distance. You can't compete unless you also have offices there, hire Chinese workers, compete in China. American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Ford themselves said they need to stay in the Chinese car market no matter what - not because they think they can win in it but because they can't compete anywhere if they leave. The one tech area the US is most definitely ahead is AI - both software and hardware. The US will be ahead as long as China does not have access to EUV manufacturing yet.

orochimaaru 11mo ago
The bigger risk specifically with roomba may be that people who have connected their roomba’s to wifi and have their floor plans mapped and possibly in the cloud. Wonder if the deal is going to include transfer of cloud data as well.
- AlexandrB 11mo ago
  There's very low value to the Chinese state to having detailed floor plans of a random person's house. Or even a prominent person's house. A lot of this stuff is semi-public domain regardless as many real estate listings will include a floor plan. The camera/microphone is more worrying.
mlrtime 11mo ago
And then the Chinese end up stealing any actual IP that may get the US company ahead by being there. Also, is it still difficult to bring profits back to the US? Damn'd if you do, dam'd if you don't.
- AlecSchueler 11mo ago
  Why do American companies have to rely on artificial protections like IP in order to compete? Don't forget it's only "stealing" if you're culturally inclined to see IP as actual property, whereas in China the idea has long been that ideas are common good, even predating Marxism.
  - LunaSea 11mo ago
    So stealing trade secrets is legal in China? Or do they publish all their IP on a government site for all to see?
    - AlecSchueler 11mo ago
      They introduced more and more IP laws due to requirements from the WTO[https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm#chn https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm...]. At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies, and now we're at the stage where there's essentially legal parity. Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions. But now they're getting to the point that they can start to lead the conversation. Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society. 0: https://www.sup.org/books/asian-studies/steal-book-elegant-offense https://www.sup.org/books/asian-studies/steal-book-elegant-o...
      - LunaSea 11mo ago
        > At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies Funny how that works. > Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I don't remember seeing that in the WTO rules. > Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society. Thanks for the book recommendation!
        AlecSchueler 11mo ago
        > Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I'm not sure what this hat to do with IP laws, could you explain? > Funny how that works. It seems to make sense to me, but what are you suggesting?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
expedition32 11mo ago
It's funny that we are running into the same problem that the British had with China in the 19th century: China doesn't need or want anything from the West, they do not trust the West and they certainly do not want to rely on the West. The last time the British came up with the ingenuous opium plan. But that backfired into the communist takeover in 1949.
- throw2837374 11mo ago
  China loves KFC. There are other American brands that do well such as Nike, The North Face, Coach, Polo, and Estee Lauder. And while Hollywood movies have been in decline in China, Zootopia 2 did amazingly well recently.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Zigurd 11mo ago
    15 years ago I would've agreed. I saw SUVs with obvious BMW inspired styling cues that had manufacturers badges that were conveniently the same place and the same size as the BMW roundel. I saw Starbucks and Pizza Hut look-alikes. I saw the dismay on the barista's face when I ordered a coffee drink instead of tea. They regarded the US with a sense of awe. When I told my Chinese colleagues it was unlikely that the US would lead the way in nuclear power because only China could do it at enough scale to succeed, they were shocked. Now the Chinese have their own expensive coffee brands. They even have what one could call private equity with Chinese characteristics: private equity in China is strategic, mostly minority stakes, and often behaves like late stage VC. I'm not making a moral comparison here. The impact of bad PE deals in China is that an often technology oriented pre-IPO company goes bust, whereas in the US your local hospital will close. Make up your own mind which is worse.
- ishtanbul 11mo ago
  Other than customers
- bell-cot 11mo ago
tim333 11mo ago
China's definitely much more advanced that it was twenty years ago. The science, design etc. was much worse than the west, now it's on par or sometimes ahead.
- chairmanwow1 11mo ago
  New Chinese phones and cars are incredible.
  - gloriadolly305 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - ErneX 11mo ago
    Agree. I visited China recently and every time we ordered a Didi (equivalent to Uber there) we were surprised with their vehicles, we used to order “deluxe” ones and boy we got some fancy electric vehicles. Their bullet trains are also excellent.
  - tim333 11mo ago
    Yeah, I was just comparing BYD twenty years ago and now. 2005 you had the BYD F3 which was like a bad Corolla rip off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_F3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_F3 And now you have them getting the record for fastest production car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/yangwang-u9-xtreme-hits-308mph-becomes-worlds-fastest-ever-production-car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/yangwang-u9-xtreme...
ksec 11mo ago
There was an interview from a Chinese Founder and he said something that I think accurately sums up the difference. US R&D may be on top in some areas especially AI or Frontier Tech. But it is at best 2x better than China. What sets Chinese companies apart they can have product from Lab to market and manufacturing at scale that is at least an order of magnitude faster than US, not to mention a lot cheaper. Motorola Smartphone is now Chinese owned. I dont think people even realise it. Most of the Consumer Appliance from Washing Machine to Microwave are not just manufactured in China, the brand itself are sold off to Chinese companies as well. Toshiba Home Appliances for example. Even if they are not Made in China, they are made by a Chinese Companies in SEA Region. For TV, most of the LCD Panel are from China. TCL and Hisense are not just copying but innovated with newer panel technology. CSOT Produce the Panel for Sony top range Bravia 9 TV. Inkjet Printing OLED commercially coming out this year. Even Agricultural tech China is catching up, something traditionally US is strong in. And some of those results are coming in already. There are a lot more in the pipeline they have been hammering for the past 10 - 15 years and they have finally coming out where most mainstream media haven't covered because they have no idea. I remember reading Bloomberg around 12 years ago saying Tesla Battery facility being biggest in the world and they have never heard or reported anything about CATL. And there has been a lot more Chinese companies exporting directly. I am wondering if anyone have heard of a brand called laifen where it was massively popular on IG for their toothbrush a while ago. They called it how Apple would have design and make toothbrush. And they are using exactly the same Apple packaging box for their product as well. Even Beauty products where it used to be R&D and manufactured in South Korea. China is now picking up a lot of market share as well. And it is apparent in Cosmoprof, largest beauty and cosmetics trade show. Edit: I forgot to mention something I think is bigger than AI. But doesn't get the headline like AI. Robotics. Not only do I believe they are far ahead in Humanoid Robots, they are also manufacturing it better and faster and cheaper. They are already deployed in some places in production already. Very unfortunately, they have passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. China has won. And they are not Japan in post WWII where US can force them give up certain things. Nor do they have a free flowing currency, arguably their biggest moat where the whole bubble may burst. Barring any black swan event China will dominate in nearly all consumer industries along with other adjacent industries. And I am not sure how the West or even the rest of the world can do about it. And I am writing this on the day they announced [1] Jimmy Lai was found quality under Hong Kong's National Security Law. [1] Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong tycoon and democratic firebrand who stood up to China https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/jimmy-lai-hong-kong-tycoon-democratic-firebrand-who-stood-up-china-2025-12-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/jimmy-lai-hon...
hylaride 11mo ago
IMO, the US business industry has become over-financialised to the point of self-sabotage. R&D and capital expenditure are seen as "bad" things to have on accounting statements. Combine this with Jack Welsh type CEOs who do everything they can to cut out "costs" on financial statements and you get organizations like GE turned into (badly run) banks. Cisco is now essentially a publicly traded PE firm that buys up other companies to milk dry. Most internal development is outsourced by suits far removed from any qualifications on quality. We all know the foibles of Boeing, where accountants made the final calls on everything. The only innovations the traditional American car companies seem to be able to focus on is how to make cars bigger to increase margins. It's ludicrous that it took a new company (Tesla) to make electric cars available. I could go on. This is not to say that other countries (including China) don't have their own issues with their business climate, but the United States has an environment where some of the smartest and best paid people in the country are working their asses off to find out better ways to show ads (Google/Facebook).
- coldpie 11mo ago
  Well the good news is we just destroyed our education and research sectors, too, so we'll catch up to China, uh... any day now...
  - intrasight 11mo ago
    I know, right? I think all we have to do is follow their lead in having near slave labor /s
    - coldpie 11mo ago
      That is the direction we're heading in, yes.
- Der_Einzige 11mo ago
  Everyone acts like the C8 corvette doesn’t exist when they shit on American cars. Actually GM is an innovative awesome company. The C8 has topped many “top car” lists since it came out in 2020. The reviews on it are universally excellent and it gaps pretty much anything that the turn-signal hating BMW crowd manufactures both in literal performance and in design.
imp0cat 11mo ago
Just wanted to point out that Roborock is now in a similar position - they have completely slept on the roller mop trend - and meanwhile other Chinese manufacturers are building better robots.
twodave 11mo ago
Yes, being able to pay wages that amount to slavery opens a lot of doors. There is a lot of positive Chinese sentiment on this website, much of it exaggerated, and all of their accomplishments pretty much hinge on being able to exploit their workforce, of which we just sort of wave our hands and dismiss it in these types of discussions. Not to mention the blatant corporate espionage. They may have some of their own innovations, and I’m sure there are plenty of smart people there who, despite being oppressed, still find joy in building things. But let’s not pretend this is all due to excellence.
Shacklz 11mo ago
> It is complacency or is China just accelerating? Specifically in the case of Roomba complacency certainly played a role. I have one of their robots for several years already, and while it mostly works fine for my usecases their app is a complete mess. Sometimes the roomba has an issue and aborts a run but there's zero to no detail visible in the app as to why that happened. I seem to be unable to look at old runs, see statistics over time, basically anything that might be useful other than the bog-standard basics, and even those are lacklustre at best. I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually reverse-engineered their APIs and made a better app on top of them; the app is comically bad with little to no improvement since I've started using the product.
qiqitori 11mo ago
> American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Why does China have a bunch of electronics companies? Because people outsourced all their manufacturing to China. So all non-China has left, barely, is the hardware design. Cool, so let's outsource that too? So all non-China has left is, oops?

orochimaaru 11mo ago

The bigger risk specifically with roomba may be that people who have connected their roomba’s to wifi and have their floor plans mapped and possibly in the cloud. Wonder if the deal is going to include transfer of cloud data as well.

AlexandrB 11mo ago
There's very low value to the Chinese state to having detailed floor plans of a random person's house. Or even a prominent person's house. A lot of this stuff is semi-public domain regardless as many real estate listings will include a floor plan. The camera/microphone is more worrying.

mlrtime 11mo ago

And then the Chinese end up stealing any actual IP that may get the US company ahead by being there. Also, is it still difficult to bring profits back to the US? Damn'd if you do, dam'd if you don't.

AlecSchueler 11mo ago
Why do American companies have to rely on artificial protections like IP in order to compete? Don't forget it's only "stealing" if you're culturally inclined to see IP as actual property, whereas in China the idea has long been that ideas are common good, even predating Marxism.
- LunaSea 11mo ago
  So stealing trade secrets is legal in China? Or do they publish all their IP on a government site for all to see?
  - AlecSchueler 11mo ago
    They introduced more and more IP laws due to requirements from the WTO[https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm#chn https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm...]. At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies, and now we're at the stage where there's essentially legal parity. Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions. But now they're getting to the point that they can start to lead the conversation. Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society. 0: https://www.sup.org/books/asian-studies/steal-book-elegant-offense https://www.sup.org/books/asian-studies/steal-book-elegant-o...
    - LunaSea 11mo ago
      > At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies Funny how that works. > Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I don't remember seeing that in the WTO rules. > Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society. Thanks for the book recommendation!
      - AlecSchueler 11mo ago
        > Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I'm not sure what this hat to do with IP laws, could you explain? > Funny how that works. It seems to make sense to me, but what are you suggesting?
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

expedition32 11mo ago

It's funny that we are running into the same problem that the British had with China in the 19th century: China doesn't need or want anything from the West, they do not trust the West and they certainly do not want to rely on the West. The last time the British came up with the ingenuous opium plan. But that backfired into the communist takeover in 1949.

throw2837374 11mo ago
China loves KFC. There are other American brands that do well such as Nike, The North Face, Coach, Polo, and Estee Lauder. And while Hollywood movies have been in decline in China, Zootopia 2 did amazingly well recently.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- Zigurd 11mo ago
  15 years ago I would've agreed. I saw SUVs with obvious BMW inspired styling cues that had manufacturers badges that were conveniently the same place and the same size as the BMW roundel. I saw Starbucks and Pizza Hut look-alikes. I saw the dismay on the barista's face when I ordered a coffee drink instead of tea. They regarded the US with a sense of awe. When I told my Chinese colleagues it was unlikely that the US would lead the way in nuclear power because only China could do it at enough scale to succeed, they were shocked. Now the Chinese have their own expensive coffee brands. They even have what one could call private equity with Chinese characteristics: private equity in China is strategic, mostly minority stakes, and often behaves like late stage VC. I'm not making a moral comparison here. The impact of bad PE deals in China is that an often technology oriented pre-IPO company goes bust, whereas in the US your local hospital will close. Make up your own mind which is worse.
ishtanbul 11mo ago
Other than customers
bell-cot 11mo ago

tim333 11mo ago

China's definitely much more advanced that it was twenty years ago. The science, design etc. was much worse than the west, now it's on par or sometimes ahead.

chairmanwow1 11mo ago
New Chinese phones and cars are incredible.
- gloriadolly305 11mo ago
  [dead]
- ErneX 11mo ago
  Agree. I visited China recently and every time we ordered a Didi (equivalent to Uber there) we were surprised with their vehicles, we used to order “deluxe” ones and boy we got some fancy electric vehicles. Their bullet trains are also excellent.
- tim333 11mo ago
  Yeah, I was just comparing BYD twenty years ago and now. 2005 you had the BYD F3 which was like a bad Corolla rip off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_F3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_F3 And now you have them getting the record for fastest production car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/yangwang-u9-xtreme-hits-308mph-becomes-worlds-fastest-ever-production-car https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/yangwang-u9-xtreme...

ksec 11mo ago

There was an interview from a Chinese Founder and he said something that I think accurately sums up the difference. US R&D may be on top in some areas especially AI or Frontier Tech. But it is at best 2x better than China. What sets Chinese companies apart they can have product from Lab to market and manufacturing at scale that is at least an order of magnitude faster than US, not to mention a lot cheaper. Motorola Smartphone is now Chinese owned. I dont think people even realise it. Most of the Consumer Appliance from Washing Machine to Microwave are not just manufactured in China, the brand itself are sold off to Chinese companies as well. Toshiba Home Appliances for example. Even if they are not Made in China, they are made by a Chinese Companies in SEA Region. For TV, most of the LCD Panel are from China. TCL and Hisense are not just copying but innovated with newer panel technology. CSOT Produce the Panel for Sony top range Bravia 9 TV. Inkjet Printing OLED commercially coming out this year. Even Agricultural tech China is catching up, something traditionally US is strong in. And some of those results are coming in already. There are a lot more in the pipeline they have been hammering for the past 10 - 15 years and they have finally coming out where most mainstream media haven't covered because they have no idea. I remember reading Bloomberg around 12 years ago saying Tesla Battery facility being biggest in the world and they have never heard or reported anything about CATL. And there has been a lot more Chinese companies exporting directly. I am wondering if anyone have heard of a brand called laifen where it was massively popular on IG for their toothbrush a while ago. They called it how Apple would have design and make toothbrush. And they are using exactly the same Apple packaging box for their product as well. Even Beauty products where it used to be R&D and manufactured in South Korea. China is now picking up a lot of market share as well. And it is apparent in Cosmoprof, largest beauty and cosmetics trade show. Edit: I forgot to mention something I think is bigger than AI. But doesn't get the headline like AI. Robotics. Not only do I believe they are far ahead in Humanoid Robots, they are also manufacturing it better and faster and cheaper. They are already deployed in some places in production already. Very unfortunately, they have passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. China has won. And they are not Japan in post WWII where US can force them give up certain things. Nor do they have a free flowing currency, arguably their biggest moat where the whole bubble may burst. Barring any black swan event China will dominate in nearly all consumer industries along with other adjacent industries. And I am not sure how the West or even the rest of the world can do about it. And I am writing this on the day they announced [1] Jimmy Lai was found quality under Hong Kong's National Security Law. [1] Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong tycoon and democratic firebrand who stood up to China https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/jimmy-lai-hong-kong-tycoon-democratic-firebrand-who-stood-up-china-2025-12-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/jimmy-lai-hon...

hylaride 11mo ago

IMO, the US business industry has become over-financialised to the point of self-sabotage. R&D and capital expenditure are seen as "bad" things to have on accounting statements. Combine this with Jack Welsh type CEOs who do everything they can to cut out "costs" on financial statements and you get organizations like GE turned into (badly run) banks. Cisco is now essentially a publicly traded PE firm that buys up other companies to milk dry. Most internal development is outsourced by suits far removed from any qualifications on quality. We all know the foibles of Boeing, where accountants made the final calls on everything. The only innovations the traditional American car companies seem to be able to focus on is how to make cars bigger to increase margins. It's ludicrous that it took a new company (Tesla) to make electric cars available. I could go on. This is not to say that other countries (including China) don't have their own issues with their business climate, but the United States has an environment where some of the smartest and best paid people in the country are working their asses off to find out better ways to show ads (Google/Facebook).

coldpie 11mo ago
Well the good news is we just destroyed our education and research sectors, too, so we'll catch up to China, uh... any day now...
- intrasight 11mo ago
  I know, right? I think all we have to do is follow their lead in having near slave labor /s
  - coldpie 11mo ago
    That is the direction we're heading in, yes.
Der_Einzige 11mo ago
Everyone acts like the C8 corvette doesn’t exist when they shit on American cars. Actually GM is an innovative awesome company. The C8 has topped many “top car” lists since it came out in 2020. The reviews on it are universally excellent and it gaps pretty much anything that the turn-signal hating BMW crowd manufactures both in literal performance and in design.

imp0cat 11mo ago

Just wanted to point out that Roborock is now in a similar position - they have completely slept on the roller mop trend - and meanwhile other Chinese manufacturers are building better robots.

twodave 11mo ago

Yes, being able to pay wages that amount to slavery opens a lot of doors. There is a lot of positive Chinese sentiment on this website, much of it exaggerated, and all of their accomplishments pretty much hinge on being able to exploit their workforce, of which we just sort of wave our hands and dismiss it in these types of discussions. Not to mention the blatant corporate espionage. They may have some of their own innovations, and I’m sure there are plenty of smart people there who, despite being oppressed, still find joy in building things. But let’s not pretend this is all due to excellence.

Shacklz 11mo ago

> It is complacency or is China just accelerating? Specifically in the case of Roomba complacency certainly played a role. I have one of their robots for several years already, and while it mostly works fine for my usecases their app is a complete mess. Sometimes the roomba has an issue and aborts a run but there's zero to no detail visible in the app as to why that happened. I seem to be unable to look at old runs, see statistics over time, basically anything that might be useful other than the bog-standard basics, and even those are lacklustre at best. I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually reverse-engineered their APIs and made a better app on top of them; the app is comically bad with little to no improvement since I've started using the product.

qiqitori 11mo ago

> American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Why does China have a bunch of electronics companies? Because people outsourced all their manufacturing to China. So all non-China has left, barely, is the hardware design. Cool, so let's outsource that too? So all non-China has left is, oops?