Could someone please list the top 10 technological innovations that originated in China?
How about top four?
Paper, printing, gunpowder and compass.
China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
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Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#32The "trade war" thing has been the most/only interesting ideas to come from trump, to me.
It was interesting in that he did recognized (fluked into?) an actual shift in public/expert position. China is the pro-trade side. They'll be willing to make concessions, do the work, etc. It's the beijing consensus now, not washington.
Large american companies are still on the pro-trade side, being multinationals. They also have pretty obvious interests. They want market access, american IP protection, they want freedom to operate mostly independently of the CCP.
Market access is a typical request. This has been the basic definition of free trade for a while. They probably can get this protection. Independance is a trickier one. I'm not sure it's realistic. Imagine a Chinese company operating in the states, with an a fully imported senior management and all "c-level" discussions in chinese. I dunno. I doubt they'll get what they say they want.
The "IP" point is interesting. Why does the american economy want US IP rules everywhere so bad? Same reason Disney does. They have the biggest IP portfolio. A pharmaceutical company's value (for example) is mostly IP. IE, the market cap is the IP portfolio.
Why would china want to use this IP system, where they start with fewer chips than the US? I'm not sure. Who says a fake Gucci is a crime, if the buyer knows it's fake. Why should a US drug patent grant a worldwide monopoly. This one would be a concession.
Anyway, it's not just pharmaceuticals that need IP. The economy is ethereal these days. Capital isn't building and machines. It's intellectual property of one sort or another, whether or not it's legally formalized as such.
..
PS: I'm Irish, not American. Realize from the wild votes in both directions (didn't think) that I've obviously waded into live american politics. I wasn't trying to make any political points. Just musing and bullshitting on the shifting world of political interests after reading the morning paper. I'm not against anyone, nor do I mean anything too seriously.
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#33It's interesting to observe how China has managed to fuse together, almost seamlessly, the major functional modules of it's government -- Communist Party committees, for example -- with the tech sector. As other commentators in various publications have pointed out, this deep integration coupled with massive investments in auxiliary sectors, a culture of scientific inquiry and a heavily STEM focused primary education…
Yes. Seems like China is the first country who got the means for centralization. They got the ideology and the tech to manage it on that scale. Also they're too big to get attacked.
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Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Central planning has always proven to be an inefficient way to allocate resources Amazon seems pretty efficient. ;)
Hmmmmm. I've often wondered about the contradiction wherein it's argued that the economy thrives on competition and yet corporations larger than many nation states never apply the same model internally. (I'm aware there are efforts in some companies at creating "internal markets" but never close to the scale of market forces that exist externally to the company)
Resource allocation is the single hardest problem to address in large organisations, and there’s numerous cases of companies withering and dying because they failed to properly align their resource allocation with market forces.
Except withering and dying for a company is not a humanitarian crisis, but it is for a country. A company can also fire an underperforming team member, or ditch an entire department. Where as terminating underperforming citizens, or unneeded communities is generally frowned upon.
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#35It's interesting to observe how China has managed to fuse together, almost seamlessly, the major functional modules of it's government -- Communist Party committees, for example -- with the tech sector. As other commentators in various publications have pointed out, this deep integration coupled with massive investments in auxiliary sectors, a culture of scientific inquiry and a heavily STEM focused primary education…
Seems like premature celebration. The Soviet Union was incredibly successful (turning a backwater into a superpower in a few decades) until it wasn’t.
The first catastrophic failure of the Soviet Union was agriculture. When the West was beginning Borlaug's Green Revolution they were deep into Stalin's great famine, the Holodomor. Their inability to put bread on tables is at the root of their collapse.
Most tragedies in China's recent history also have their cause on failure to produce food.
I wonder how China is prepared to handle the impact Global Warming will have on agriculture.
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Central planning has always proven to be an inefficient way to allocate resources Amazon seems pretty efficient. ;)
Hmmmmm. I've often wondered about the contradiction wherein it's argued that the economy thrives on competition and yet corporations larger than many nation states never apply the same model internally. (I'm aware there are efforts in some companies at creating "internal markets" but never close to the scale of market forces that exist externally to the company)
Amazon does apply that model internally. This is arguably why Amazon is as successful as it is: Bezos turns internal products into external products. AWS started as an internal product. In order to keep it competitive with external offerings, they opened it up to external customers. If AWS fails to compete in the market, then Amazon knows it can get a better price by outsourcing.
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#37The tech sector in the west can breath a sigh of relief.
It's no surprise the power grabbing politicians would want to control the booming tech sector. But I naively thought that their affair with quasi-capitalism would run longer. We have been here before and know how nationalization affects innovation. Being a leader of a communist nation gives you perhaps more opportunity to run these kinds of massive experiments while thinking this time things will be different. Capitalistic (Darwinian) society wouldn't be as forgiving.
/rant
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not forget that that previous grand experiment certainly did not look like a failure for 20-30, some say 50 years. Even after that there was a never-ending chorus of people proclaiming it's success. And yes, that was because they were of a particular political bent, but still ... Some still haven't gone silent. Unless of course, you were one of it's subjects living within it's borders. Then there was no doubt.…
But they didn't have the technology. Maybe with help of good IT, this is manageable better?
[dead]
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like premature celebration. The Soviet Union was incredibly successful (turning a backwater into a superpower in a few decades) until it wasn’t.
The first catastrophic failure of the Soviet Union was agriculture. When the West was beginning Borlaug's Green Revolution they were deep into Stalin's great famine, the Holodomor. Their inability to put bread on tables is at the root of their collapse. Most tragedies in China's recent history also have their cause on failure to produce food. I wonder how China is prepared to handle the impact Global Warming will hav…
Easy: the party will command the food to grow, and if it doesn't grow, they will throw it in prison.
Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
#40It's interesting to observe how China has managed to fuse together, almost seamlessly, the major functional modules of it's government -- Communist Party committees, for example -- with the tech sector. As other commentators in various publications have pointed out, this deep integration coupled with massive investments in auxiliary sectors, a culture of scientific inquiry and a heavily STEM focused primary education…
Seems like premature celebration. The Soviet Union was incredibly successful (turning a backwater into a superpower in a few decades) until it wasn’t.
The Soviet Union was badly afflicted by dutch disease and engaged in an eye wateringly expensive arms race. China isn't.
Though, because of their lack of mineral and agricultural wealth is that if they were subjected to a successful shipping blockade they would begin to starve relatively quickly.
This lack of fuel/food security is why they're so domineering in the South China sea, why they're spending ridiculous amounts on the new silk road, why they're so keen to get the US and the rest of the world hooked on Chinese exports and why they're leaders in green energy.