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Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then ne
by yanhangyhy 10mo ago
Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything.
There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent projects were quite serious, which undermined the Chinese government’s confidence in these efforts. A few years ago, there was even a so-called “transparent computing” scam project that was awarded a national-level prize.
Corruption and fraud can slow China’s progress, but they will not affect the final outcome. This is because it is not only a government policy, but also a Chinese way of thinking. Nothing can interrupt this process.
In fact, aside from high-end chips, China already dominates the mid- and low-end chip segments.
- NooneAtAll3 10mo agoI wonder how much scam there is on US side...
- yanhangyhy 10mo agoTo be honest, maybe only Americans themselves really understand it. Our understanding of them is that they have poured vast amounts of money into areas outside of technology.
- vasco 10mo ago> since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. This implies copying what someone else did. Rather than inventing something new. I know it's not what you meant but if it wasn't made by God it's because it's already made by someone else. The sentence says to me more about copying than some relentless pursuit. The people who invented the thing to copy, those were more relentless presumably. And then again the Chinese invented plenty over the years. These generalizations are bit meh.
- yosefk 10mo agoThe Chinese are ahead at too many things at this point to think they're only good at copying
- Ekaros 10mo agoAnd it is not like making a copy for cheaper isn't something that requires skill and innovation. Or then iterate on that copy. Didn't Roomba just fail to these copies. If west was truly so much more innovative and better shouldn't they as company be infinitely ahead still?
- _heimdall 10mo agoThat depends heavily on where the cost saving came from. For a long time China made cheap copies with extremely cheap labor, though that may no longer be the case as it seems they're innovating on the manufacturing process these days.
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- vasco 10mo agoI never said that, or that there's something wrong with copying. I just said the sentence implies copying. Which it does. And in fact this meme Chinese only copy is crap as I point out in my last paragraph. Over the centuries the Chinese were the first at quite a few things. But the sentence says what it says.
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- dleeftink 10mo agoAll is copied in one way or another, progress in a vacuum is truly artificial and those who've been singularly credited for certain inventions likely have so because of the luck of the draw.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
- dleeftink 10mo agoHopefully, this century, we can shed some of the 'dominating' mindset that has led to technological exclusionism in the first place. Not that catching up to the state-of-the-art isn't warranted, but that progress will become pocketed once more if we keep falling for the same economic traps.
- darkstar_16 10mo agoIt's interesting how this comes up when the west is the one that is trying to catch up :)
- dleeftink 10mo agoFair enough, but the point still stands: innovation of equal benefit compared to isolationism once more with a hefty share of underhanded copying, which will ultimately result in similar technical capabilities anyways. While historically this has been difficult to achieve, when innovation cycles shift there is an opportunity to shift ingrained practices too.
- barrenko 10mo agoThe final outcome is affected by the final 10%, you can even call it 1%, for which the semi-corrupt or "communistiquesque" countries never (seemingly) have the will or sheer talent for.
- bean469 10mo ago> "communistiquesque" countries never (seemingly) have the will or sheer talent for. I don't have the data to back it up, but I think that there is actually the same amount of will and talent in China as in the West
- prussia 10mo agoBased on the population size and school system, I'd conjecture there's more... though there is brain drain and emigration to consider.
- immibis 10mo agoI'd rather be in China than the USA right now.
- jimmaswell 10mo agoAre you being facetious or are you ignorant of what it's actually like over there? https://reclaimthenet.org/china-man-chair-interrogation-social-credit https://reclaimthenet.org/china-man-chair-interrogation-soci... Or even worse, do you actually support their views on human rights?
- heavyset_go 10mo agoThe US disappeared a local business owner down the street from me in a sleepy suburb because he happened to be walking to his business one morning while brown. ICE/BP was looking for someone else, but saw another brown person while waiting, and took the opportunity to grab him, too. He was imprisoned for more than a month and shuffled around the country before anyone bothered to look at his identification or acknowledge their validity. Are you aware of what's going on in the US right now? NYT: Those Deported to El Salvador Were Shackled, Beaten, and Sexually Assaulted[1] And if you're saying to yourself, "what do I have to worry about, I'm not brown", well, do you have kids who you don't want to have abducted and zip-tied naked in the middle of the night by paramilitaries using grenades and rappelling from helicopters into your home[2][3]? > Neighbors like Eboni Watson say they ducked for cover as they heard several flash bangs. > "They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'fuck them kids.'" > “It was heartbreaking to watch,” she said. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.” > "They just treated us like we were nothing," Fisher said. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/world/americas/el-salvador-prison-migrants.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z08.djrY.A074L2dbgfcn https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/world/americas/el-salvado... [2] https://www.rawstory.com/it-was-heartbreaking-naked-zip-tied-children-dragged-from-homes-in-surreal-ice-raid/ https://www.rawstory.com/it-was-heartbreaking-naked-zip-tied... [3] https://abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chicago-federal-agents-surround-south-shore-apartment-building-dhs-requests-military-deployment-illinois/17908911/ https://abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chicago-federal-agents-surr...
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago“transparent computing” -> this shit: https://www.science.org/content/article/critics-pounce-china-s-top-science-prize https://www.science.org/content/article/critics-pounce-china...
- powerapple 10mo agoIMO, the difference between East and West is money allocation. In west, especially in the US, there are a lot money in the private sector, they will take the risk and fund moonshot projects; in China, the state will (have to) play that role. Yes, 90% of the projects will fail in the portfolio, that's part of the game.
- iknowSFR 10mo agoThere’s a NYT’s interview several months back where the journalist phrased it as in America, you have to prove success first to get funded. But in China, funding comes first and the successful companies emerge.
- adventured 10mo agoWhich isn't at all accurate. Venture capital specifically exists to fund first, in the pursuit of success later - and the US has been by a dramatic margin the leader in doing that for the past ~60-70 years.
- mensetmanusman 10mo agoChina has this process at the city state level. They can leverage their pegged currency to keep their citizen’s purchasing power lower than it should be to fund anything. A downside is that their consumption economy is low, all their geo neighbors view them as a threat (reducing exports long term), and this contributes to high unemployment as productivity increases.
- iknowSFR 10mo agoVC still requires startups to find themselves and prove something first. China basically has a program to do X and anyone can sign up to be a part of that program. All are funded and the winners emerge. I’m broadly generalizing that process but that’s not how VC approaches it.
- tstrimple 10mo ago
- andyjohnson0 10mo ago> This is how we approach everything. > This is because it is not only a government policy, but also a Chinese way of thinking. Nothing can interrupt this process. Is there any evidence that this kind of homogeneous "national character" is objectively real? Or is it just another story that people tell themselves?
- brazukadev 10mo agowas the American dream real at any point? Sounds like the same to me. Just a less individualistic dream.
- Hammershaft 10mo agoI'm also skeptical of narratives of a pre-ordained future for America based on the American Dream or any other teleological belief system.
- davnicwil 10mo agoIt's always felt pretty intuitive to me that shared goals in a culture should have some real effect on outcomes. It doesn't mean absolutely everyone takes part, of course, but it does mean it's a 'thing' that people may take part in with support from many of those around them if they choose. Looking at the inverse: If you're going against the cultural wind, you're just going to have a much harder time doing whatever it is. It just seems like this must show up in outcomes, it would be strange if it didn't.
- NotGMan 10mo agoDoes it need to be homogenous? In the end, only a few people are needed to create companies and drive the vision.
- andyjohnson0 10mo agoThat's what I was asking. I was replying to a commenter who used "how we approach everything" and "Chinese way of thinking" when explaining China's economic dominance, which at least implies it. I was questioning that, is all.
- snapcaster 10mo agoI don't disagree with you on the conclusion, but man I just wish people stopped believing in fairy tales about countries like this. America does it too. Why are people so allergic to materialism? I'm not saying culture is irrelevant but saying china's success is due to "Chinese way of thinking" or america was dominant because of the "american dream" is an adult believing santa-tier take. Material conditions shape history
- heavyset_go 10mo agoTo speak to this importance, it wasn't long ago that the sentiment I heard about the country was that it isn't, or wouldn't be, ascendant due to their "culture". It's the Schrodinger's cat of cultures. Or maybe generalities about culture aren't to explain for economic and political velocity.
- holbrad 10mo agoBut it's undeniable that culture and how that's reflected in governance have a huge impact: South vs North Korea.
- hearsathought 10mo ago> But it's undeniable that culture and how that's reflected in governance have a huge impact: South vs North Korea. Considering that north and south korea share the same "culture", wouldn't they be an example against your assertion? Isn't the bigger impact that one is sanctioned by the world's sole superpower and the other is not?
- jasonwatkinspdx 10mo agoYeah, also it shows the comment is ignorant of history. In the immediate aftermath of the Korean war, the North was actually more prosperous than the South. That changed with time, dramatically so, but initially it'd be reasonable to see the north as having better economic prospects.
- 10mo ago
- qcnguy 10mo agoIt’s only a matter of time, but time matters, as they say. You should know that what China is doing was tried in the past. It is an old story. When the microchip was brand new (invented in the USA) the Soviets realized they needed the tech for military purposes. So they built a closed city devoted to silicon research called Zelenograd. It was staffed with very bright physicists and engineers. But Zelenograd didn't make the Soviets a computing superpower. In fact they were always behind and fell further and further as time went on. The reason is that the Zelenograd scientists were given copies of US chips and told to clone them. By the time they finished cloning one chip the US had already invented several that were much more advanced. Unable or unwilling to forge their own path, even though they were smart enough to do so, they could not truly develop the in-house expertise needed to match the ever accelerating pace of innovation. The Soviets never did catch up. Americans tightened security and they just fell ever further behind. By the 1980s they did not even have any attempt to develop an internal internet. That China is running secret projects to try and clone ASML's machines isn't surprising because for all it has changed, it's still a communist state and its leaders still think in communist ways. They don't understand or appreciate distributed wisdom, so are mentally unable to truly understand how innovation works. Government projects like that are destined to fail - they will clone yesterday's machines tomorrow, and just like the Soviets, will fall further and further behind. The thing that saves China is that its private sector actually does exist and is much more developed, so the Chinese government projects aren't the only way it can make progress.
- SubiculumCode 10mo agoThe analogy with Russia is too obtuse to be useful. Russia never was an economic exporting powerhouse with tons of manufacturing know-how and willing engagement in the larger international capitalist economies. I am no fan of the PRC, but there is plenty of intellectual, innovation, and economic competition within China to make your analogy unlikely to be helpful. That said, the U.S., if it wants to stay ahead, also needs to fight trends toward reducing competition via de facto monopolistic behaviors by mega corporations with co-opted governmental protections.
- qcnguy 10mo ago
- hearsathought 10mo ago> Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. That's how everyone who industrialized/advanced approaches everything. China isn't the only country with the "can do" or "if you can do it, we can do it" attitude. The US is a prime example of the "can do" attitude. Do you think when britain industrialized, the US decided only britain is capable of industrializing and gave up? Of course not. Heck, china isn't even the first asian country with the "can do" attitude. The japanese, during the 1800s, decided that if europeans can industrialize, so can they. So on and so forth. > Corruption and fraud can slow China’s progress, but they will not affect the final outcome. This is because it is not only a government policy, but also a Chinese way of thinking. Nothing can interrupt this process. It isn't a "chinese way of thinking". It is assumed everywhere that some level "corruption and fraud" is baked into any large scale investment or endeavor. It's simply a matter of managing it so as not to consume the whole project.
- maxglute 10mo agoThe PRC motto is not about "can do", it's about "able to do". Can Palau build a commercial airliner when Boeing and Airbus workforce is 10x their population? No that's simply out of their reach. That's really the crux behind the original statement, there are not many (really currently any) country in the world other than PRC who has the complete industrial chains and workforce numbers to build anything that already exist if they pour enough resources into it. They're the only country whose manufacturing sector has every industrial category classified by UN. That's the context behind the quote (directed at domestic doubters), every other country in the world has to pick and choose what to specialize in, PRC doesn't, so as long as item is not made by god, PRC can figure out how to build it. The geopolitical reality today (i.e. the amount aggregate S&T complexity that has accumulated from past 100 years) is there may not be anything others can build that PRC eventually can't due to size of PRC talent and industrial base, the reverse is not necessarily true. There's a shit load of advanced industries that are simply out of most small/medium even large countries reach because their size precludes them from coordinating enough people or industrial resources for undertaking.