This article is missing the key part where China blocked and limited products by major foreign tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft et al so homegrown Chinese variants could flourish.
Don't you think that by limiting foreign companies' products the local companies would operate less efficiently since there is no competition? I think I was taught about this in my econ 101 class. Why does it work differently this time?
Google, M$ and Amazon were not successful when they were not blocked in China.. Amazon China is still not blocked but far behind JD, Alibaba, etc. In some areas like fintech, drones, consumer apps and games China is clearly the leader. If FB is unblocked I doubt it can compete with Tencent at all. Tencent has a higher market cap than FB and understands the Chinese so much more..
I am not American, but I think it's fair to say that America brought the world into "modernity". Telephone, computers, software, the internet, smart devices, these had a huge impact on the world.
To me, the real test of China's innovation will be to see if they can have a true and significant impact on the world.
We often talk about innovation in terms of technological advancements, but we need to also talk about innovation as new methods, new way of thinking.
What does the world need today in 2018? The environment is in peril, the resources are diminishing rapidly, the climate is changing, etc...
Going forward, I believe the most impactful innovations will be the ones who will deal with these huge problems. I sure hope both the US and China can unite their efforts here because in the end, we are all sharing this planet.
In that context, I think you need to consider the US' impact on political norms. It was the first modern democratic republic. Its basic political norms and rights form the most important example of what we know as liberal democracy.
It's mostly making real stuff, too. The US suffers from ad-based companies, especially Google and Facebook, dominating "tech". YC recognizes this; most newer YC startups are not ad-funded. But it's going to take a while to turn this around.
It's like that strange period in the 1990s when 40% of US corporate profits came from financial activities, and every big company had to have a finance subsidiary with a trading desk. That's so over.
It's like that strange period in the 1990s when 40% of US corporate profits came from financial activities, and every big company had to have a finance subsidiary with a trading desk. That's so over.
I realize that you're refering finance activities contribution to the profits of perhaps non-financial firms, but the contribution to GDP from financial services firms has been growing steadily since the 50s and shows no sign of slowing [0].
Yea, that ad bubble is one of my favorite topics right now. Part of it is that the US economy has been mostly based on debt (to generate growth) since the 1970s though, with the Japanese being first (after US manufacturing lost dominance). As a side note: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user330... Notice the period where debt was not increasing but stocks were going up. I suspect this was not a coincidence.
The examples you chose in particular are strange. Yes, they're ad-supported but they're both still "making real stuff" and both still "tech".
Isn't the turn away from ad funded user-count business models more about attention saturation and the fact that those markets have stabilized around a set of incumbent platforms by now?
It's mostly making real stuff, too. The US suffers from ad-based companies, especially Google and Facebook, dominating "tech".
This is an odd criticism. Newspaper, Cable and TV companies have always been financial giants. It would be more surprising if ad-based companies hadn't remained big players.
The article is missing the real step one: Education.
From "China’s rise as a major contributor to science and technology"[0]:
"China is now the world’s distant leader in bachelor’s degrees in Science and Engineering, with 1.1 million in 2010, more than four times the US figure. This large disparity reflects not only China’s dramatic expansion in higher education since 1999 but also a much higher percentage of students majoring in S/E in China, around 44% in 2010, compared with 16% in the United States."
Many of those CS degrees outside of first and second tier universities are not very good, however. When every foreign language unverisity and teacher’s college (there called normal universities) has a CS department, there is definitely something going on.
There is nothing obviously wrong with copying things and nothing obvious right with "inventing" them first. DOS was not first but beat CPM. Microsoft even went on to PROMOTE its "fast follower" modus operandi. VC's seeking exits have very sound reasons for wanting something "first" and preferably "license protected." But those wins do not obviously confer to either nation states or even all industries or companies. Making things over and over for expanding markets is the best source of innovation. Any delusions of "labs" as "heads" and "making things" as "mere hands" are in fact pure delusions. [Edit: sp]
Maybe not pure delusions! But I think you’re otherwise right. It’s slow to penetrate post-modern perspectives, so much that pointing it out seems to only confuse and slow us down. I think it’s sad. At this point, an American with the lab:factory perspective is met with a set of industries and personnel perfectly trained to that model, and scarce resources to undermine it if they choose to go against the grain (See Tesla’s uphill battles in manufacturing, not an isolated or perfect example but fits). We’re also likely to be surrounded with success stories of that model.
But, like you say, there is another way. It’s pretty tough to see the benefit of not looking for it, especially when comparing the pace of the outsourcing model. But, we ironically installed the artisan model in our nation’s individualist “doer” image of itself and spend a lot of effort talking around it. It’s proven time and time again in stories of history, art and innovation but it’s just a matter of a pendulum swing.
It probably depends on industry. It doesn't work so well in today's software, like Microsoft has proved. Also in industries with strong patents or with effective process secrets. And i'm not sure that way of thinking is effective in industries with network effects.
So what's left ? usually industries with low-margins. And afaik, that generally describes China.
I was recently reviewing front-end frameworks (i.e., React vs. Angular), and part of the review was looking at Google Trends to get an idea of their relative popularity. I was pretty surprised to see that while React has been gaining on Angular for some time worldwide, it's had remarkable growth in China, where it now surpasses Angular by a wide margin.
Certainly seems that China is faster to adopt this technology than others. Unclear if this is an isolated incidence, but was just surprised to see China pick up a new technology faster than most established tech centers.
The next step in China will be that an important part of their citizens will earn a living above a certain threshold where they will think about non-material problems in their lives, which is the moment the Chinese government has to start dealing with unruly citizens. This happened in the 1960's in Western Europe and the US.
There was an article in the WSJ yesterday that called the last 20 years of GE under CEO under Jeff Immelt “success theater” due to the underlying rot.
China is a country of “business theater”. They sure look like they’re doing business, lots of factories, tons of people in suits, cargo container ships, etc. But it’s all just a lie. It’s nothing but the 21st century planned economy version of the Soviet Union. It’s not even communism as much as simple totalitarianism. The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is if more than 50,000,000 million people are going to die, which was the same amount in 1958-1963 that died in totalitarian China, a number greater than the USSR and the Holocaust combined I would like to add.
Capitalism in the US sucks, but it’s very fixable. Capitalism in the 1910’s was far more horrible, but it was fixed beyond even today with the reforms of the 30’s-50’s, so I don’t want anyone to think my criticism of China is some apologia for capitalism right now.
This I do not believe in / don’t want to, but just so everyone is aware, the theory that really propelled Trump into office was that of the “fourth turning”, which Steve Bannon was a huge believer in. Essentially it’s the belief that every 80-90 years a massive war and change in Western government happens, stretching back to the British defeat of the Armada in 1588. As Christopher Coker wrote in “The Improbable War”, the next World War is most likely with China, a county with the manpower and resources to fight a grinding global battle against the US. We will see.
What does totalitarianism have to do with them doing business? China produces stuff I want. And increasingly, China produces stuff China wants. This is business.
There will never be a world war again, the US cannot sustain a real war against China at all, it will just use nukes (or China will). Why do Americans fantasize about war so much?!
You seem to think china is one massive block of people all thinking the same. Being there at the present time, i see a society full of very independant, almost libertarian people, very hard to govern, that are thriving to do business, from 1-shop man to big businessmen. And the young generation (<35) is 100% oriented toward the western way of life.
My feeling is that if a war should happen it will be a civil war between China government and chineese people, maybe once the economical boom begins to slow and people stop making fortunes (unless americans start to screw up so massively that they become unattractive as a lifestyle model, that is).
I think that you're missing the giant change that happened in the 1980s when China allowed people to openly amass wealth and start businesses. All of this led to all of the businesses and factories that you call fake.
If they kept trying to run a Soviet-style command economy they'd be at the same level of development as North Korea, with their fake grocery stores, rolling blackouts, and constant famine.
Everyone points to automation as the savior, but where is the Chinese Caterpillar? The Chinese Bosch? As far as I can tell, they still rely primarily on companies from the US, Japan, and Germany for their automated heavy industry.
It's funny, if an author with a book to peddle repeats the mantra enough times..."China is innovative", it might become true.
And yet, what evidence does she raise?
"the electronics were assembled in China; almost never were they invented in China"
"paying with your smartphone has become the norm"
"bikeshare firms"
"China has the largest number of unicorns outside the US"
Nothing that would define as innovations. Let's ask ourselves. What consumer innovations has China come up with in the last 40 years that is known worldwide. Think hard. Maybe none? one? Now compare that against Japan in its 40 years rise.
I agree that those are not examples of original ideas. But being the first to have an idea isn't actually that important. James Watt is famous for the steam engine, although he "only" improved the existing design.
Similarly, the innovation in many of the domains where China is "ahead" of the rest of the world is not in the original idea, but in actually making it work so that it took off. And that doesn't necessarily mean that those Chinese companies were somehow more innovative than companies that tried the same ideas elsewhere, but that the Chinese market valued those ideas more.
I'm actually not sure how many Japanese innovations weren't "just" incremental improvements of some existing idea that were tried in multiple countries but took off the fastest in Japan.
You're ignoring the fact that China's rise is really in its 17th year, if we count from it joining the WTO (which is arguably too early). At that point if I recall my cultural history correctly Japanese copy products were just about managing quality parity with US and European products. Give it time
[+] [-] tristanj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arn_Thor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
Only third and fourth tier players (like what the European countries have become now) let others control such key infrastructure.
[+] [-] tinyrick2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aikinai|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yadongwen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remir|8 years ago|reply
To me, the real test of China's innovation will be to see if they can have a true and significant impact on the world.
We often talk about innovation in terms of technological advancements, but we need to also talk about innovation as new methods, new way of thinking.
What does the world need today in 2018? The environment is in peril, the resources are diminishing rapidly, the climate is changing, etc...
Going forward, I believe the most impactful innovations will be the ones who will deal with these huge problems. I sure hope both the US and China can unite their efforts here because in the end, we are all sharing this planet.
[+] [-] dalbasal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ttoinou|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
It's like that strange period in the 1990s when 40% of US corporate profits came from financial activities, and every big company had to have a finance subsidiary with a trading desk. That's so over.
[+] [-] ddeck|8 years ago|reply
I realize that you're refering finance activities contribution to the profits of perhaps non-financial firms, but the contribution to GDP from financial services firms has been growing steadily since the 50s and shows no sign of slowing [0].
[0] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/BL-REB-15342?responsive=y
[+] [-] yuhong|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elefanten|8 years ago|reply
Isn't the turn away from ad funded user-count business models more about attention saturation and the fact that those markets have stabilized around a set of incumbent platforms by now?
[+] [-] nl|8 years ago|reply
This is an odd criticism. Newspaper, Cable and TV companies have always been financial giants. It would be more surprising if ad-based companies hadn't remained big players.
[+] [-] hownottowrite|8 years ago|reply
From "China’s rise as a major contributor to science and technology"[0]:
"China is now the world’s distant leader in bachelor’s degrees in Science and Engineering, with 1.1 million in 2010, more than four times the US figure. This large disparity reflects not only China’s dramatic expansion in higher education since 1999 but also a much higher percentage of students majoring in S/E in China, around 44% in 2010, compared with 16% in the United States."
[0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9437
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mononokay|8 years ago|reply
Step One: Have 1/8 of the world's population in a densely populated region.
Step Two: Don't actively harm people trying to innovate.
Step Three: Wait.
[+] [-] dannylandau|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IntronExon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Chiba-City|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gt_|8 years ago|reply
But, like you say, there is another way. It’s pretty tough to see the benefit of not looking for it, especially when comparing the pace of the outsourcing model. But, we ironically installed the artisan model in our nation’s individualist “doer” image of itself and spend a lot of effort talking around it. It’s proven time and time again in stories of history, art and innovation but it’s just a matter of a pendulum swing.
[+] [-] petra|8 years ago|reply
So what's left ? usually industries with low-margins. And afaik, that generally describes China.
[+] [-] speedplane|8 years ago|reply
Certainly seems that China is faster to adopt this technology than others. Unclear if this is an isolated incidence, but was just surprised to see China pick up a new technology faster than most established tech centers.
[+] [-] dep_b|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bucephalus355|8 years ago|reply
China is a country of “business theater”. They sure look like they’re doing business, lots of factories, tons of people in suits, cargo container ships, etc. But it’s all just a lie. It’s nothing but the 21st century planned economy version of the Soviet Union. It’s not even communism as much as simple totalitarianism. The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is if more than 50,000,000 million people are going to die, which was the same amount in 1958-1963 that died in totalitarian China, a number greater than the USSR and the Holocaust combined I would like to add.
Capitalism in the US sucks, but it’s very fixable. Capitalism in the 1910’s was far more horrible, but it was fixed beyond even today with the reforms of the 30’s-50’s, so I don’t want anyone to think my criticism of China is some apologia for capitalism right now.
This I do not believe in / don’t want to, but just so everyone is aware, the theory that really propelled Trump into office was that of the “fourth turning”, which Steve Bannon was a huge believer in. Essentially it’s the belief that every 80-90 years a massive war and change in Western government happens, stretching back to the British defeat of the Armada in 1588. As Christopher Coker wrote in “The Improbable War”, the next World War is most likely with China, a county with the manpower and resources to fight a grinding global battle against the US. We will see.
https://www.amazon.com/Improbable-War-United-States-Conflict...
[+] [-] cylinder|8 years ago|reply
There will never be a world war again, the US cannot sustain a real war against China at all, it will just use nukes (or China will). Why do Americans fantasize about war so much?!
[+] [-] bsaul|8 years ago|reply
My feeling is that if a war should happen it will be a civil war between China government and chineese people, maybe once the economical boom begins to slow and people stop making fortunes (unless americans start to screw up so massively that they become unattractive as a lifestyle model, that is).
[+] [-] sct202|8 years ago|reply
If they kept trying to run a Soviet-style command economy they'd be at the same level of development as North Korea, with their fake grocery stores, rolling blackouts, and constant famine.
[+] [-] ghostcluster|8 years ago|reply
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Japanese-robot-ma...
[+] [-] agumonkey|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yusuke10|8 years ago|reply
And yet, what evidence does she raise?
"the electronics were assembled in China; almost never were they invented in China"
"paying with your smartphone has become the norm"
"bikeshare firms"
"China has the largest number of unicorns outside the US"
Nothing that would define as innovations. Let's ask ourselves. What consumer innovations has China come up with in the last 40 years that is known worldwide. Think hard. Maybe none? one? Now compare that against Japan in its 40 years rise.
[+] [-] ghostcluster|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI_(company)
Founded by a Chinese engineering student with a personal aeronautics hobby, based in Shenzhen — he's now a billionaire.
[+] [-] nl|8 years ago|reply
I dunno - I can think of lots of criticisms of China but this isn't one.
[+] [-] yorwba|8 years ago|reply
Similarly, the innovation in many of the domains where China is "ahead" of the rest of the world is not in the original idea, but in actually making it work so that it took off. And that doesn't necessarily mean that those Chinese companies were somehow more innovative than companies that tried the same ideas elsewhere, but that the Chinese market valued those ideas more.
I'm actually not sure how many Japanese innovations weren't "just" incremental improvements of some existing idea that were tried in multiple countries but took off the fastest in Japan.
[+] [-] Arn_Thor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarcasm_heals|8 years ago|reply
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