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From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

wired.co.uk

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Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#11

Post by ghostcluster »

sct202 wrote: post #9
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #3

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 no…

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.

Except now they're cracking down on foreign capital ownership from domestic businesses and private citizens

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#12

Post by cylinder »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #3

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 no…

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?!

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#13

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

IntronExon wrote: post #10
Mononokay wrote: post #6

It's not too hard! The steps on how it did anyone can follow, given they have the resources! 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.

Real Step Two: Just copy everything.

I guess we really taught them how to copy everything by moving all manufacturing there. Once they could do everything without external help, they would innovate.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#14

Post by Chiba-City »

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]

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#15

Post by Animats »

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.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#16

Post by bsaul »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #3

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 no…

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 (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).

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#17

Post by yadongwen »

tristanj wrote: post #2

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.

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..

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#18

Post by elefanten »

Animats wrote: post #15

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 d…

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?

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#19

Post by Zafira »

yadongwen wrote: post #17
tristanj wrote: post #2

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.

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 don't think this concedes how much a factor Chinese regionalism plays into the dominance of Chinese companies in China. The government has had a much stronger hand in shaping what technologies and companies flourish than in the rest of the developed world. How the market would have looked if the government was less heavy-handed is an open question, but I think it is misleading to omit this factor.

Also, there are things that foreign companies simply will not concede to Beijing. Tencent allows full access to their networks to the government. Ephemeral criticisms of the government can get you a warning from the state. This is unconscionable behavior in a lot of other countries, but it's a concession Chinese companies have made time and again.

Re: From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

#20

Post by yusuke10 »

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.

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