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China is winning the global tech race

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Re: China is winning the global tech race

#61

Post by l5870uoo9y »

opportune wrote: post #24
l5870uoo9y wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe needs to build its own tech ecosystem instead of being a resource hub and market for US companies. There were some sense in the French driving Peugeot, the Germans VW and the Americans Ford, instead of all driving a generic car from a distant silicon valley company far away from local market and value chain.

I don’t really understand how Europe has struggled so much. Is it due to a lack of investors? Brain drain or some comparative lack of talent (I doubt it)? Regulations (also doubt it)? Cultural differences? Difficult domestic market?

To me an important part seems to be the fact that the US has an extremely competitive tech sector – personified in Silicon Valley – that has been cultivated over decades, basically since the US rose to prominence after second world war.

Through innovative symbiosis between universities, business', talent, steady US defence spending, plentiful of financing and business friendly regulations it has become the preeminent tech sector only rivalled by the Chinese which was born out of protectionism. With the invention of the internet and the unprecedented level of free trade, a few companies from Silicon Valley has successfully monopolised large part of not only the US market but also the European market. And not only that, this was done in record speed, Facebook was only founded in 2004. Traditional manufacturing sectors are much more dependent on the local market than tech companies.

After the second world war Europe was destroyed and effort when in to rebuilding countries and relations. Furthermore the mindset that gave birth to Silicon Valley to combine raw capitalism with university campus' wouldn't have had a chance. Rigid universities, socialist political discourse and unions would have prevented it. Perhaps the mindset is changing, question is to what degree protectionism will be used to gain a footing in the vital tech sector.

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#62

Post by corporateslaver »

coldtea wrote: post #26
corporateslaver wrote: post #10

This is propaganda. China is mostly an uneducated factory nation who will be crushed by automation. Articles like this are great for clicks on a website. Edit: which Chinese tech companies are actually dominant? All of them are copies of American tech companies propped up by their government. Where is the market penetration into the USA? Where is the competition? There is none.

> This is propaganda. China is mostly an uneducated factory nation who will be crushed by automation LOL. First, that's the same argument they were making back in the day for Japan (the "uneducated factory nation", the "copy cats", the "cheap knockoffs" etc). Funny how that turned out. Second, labor costs are not the relevant factor, so automation wont matter much to bring factory jobs back. It's all about the supply…

Look at Japan, their economy has been stagnant since the 80s, propped up by government market manipulation. They are almost completely irrelevant. Which innovative companies does China have that aren’t complete rip offs of American ones? Where is the penetration by those companies into the USA?

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#63

Post by berthe »

rarec wrote: post #30
opportune wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really understand how Europe has struggled so much. Is it due to a lack of investors? Brain drain or some comparative lack of talent (I doubt it)? Regulations (also doubt it)? Cultural differences? Difficult domestic market?

Probably a combination of all three. The US and China have the benefit of a comparatively gargantuan native population that all speak the same language and enjoy similar tasting kool-aid that you can immediately market to. A business in SF can reach people NYC, Florida, etc. Combine that with somewhat lax customer rights laws (however you may view it), and you have recipes for some explosive growth. I've also heard t…

> Probably a combination of all three. The US and China have the benefit of a comparatively gargantuan native population that all speak the same language

As odd as it sounds, my understanding is that China's Han population doesn't all speak the same language, but they (for the most part) read/write the same language. They call the variations in spoken language "dialects," but many of them are mutually unintelligible. I think the situation is the similar to a hypothetical one where the Romance countries (e.g. France, Spain, Italy, etc.) speak their respective modern languages, but continue to write exclusively in Latin.

Just a small unimportant quibble that doesn't negate your larger point.

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#64

Post by mistermann »

coldtea wrote: post #55
mistermann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these other countries continue to enjoy WTO Developing Nation Status, which enables a lot of the unfair advantages China enjoys as pointed out by the grandparent comment? https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/devel_e/dev_special_dif... Pointing out the historic cheating of now first world countries is fair if questionably relevant, pointing out Donald Trump's raising of tariffs as hypocrisy (I assume) is down right…

> Do these other countries continue to enjoy WTO Developing Nation Status, which enables a lot of the unfair advantages China enjoys as pointed out by the grandparent comment? No -- they don't need it as much, as they already climbed the lax-IP/protectionism ladder for centuries to get high. Now they insist nobody currently lower than them should use the ladder.

Taking your last sentence literally, is that actually your honest assessment of this dispute, in its entirety?

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#66

Post by coldtea »

corporateslaver wrote: post #62
coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is propaganda. China is mostly an uneducated factory nation who will be crushed by automation LOL. First, that's the same argument they were making back in the day for Japan (the "uneducated factory nation", the "copy cats", the "cheap knockoffs" etc). Funny how that turned out. Second, labor costs are not the relevant factor, so automation wont matter much to bring factory jobs back. It's all about the supply…

Look at Japan, their economy has been stagnant since the 80s, propped up by government market manipulation. They are almost completely irrelevant. Which innovative companies does China have that aren’t complete rip offs of American ones? Where is the penetration by those companies into the USA?

>Look at Japan, their economy has been stagnant since the 80s, propped up by government market manipulation. They are almost completely irrelevant.

They're still "the third-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). and is the world's second largest developed economy".

I'd take that level of irrelevance any day.

Besides that, Japan's situation doesn't tell us much.

>Which innovative companies does China have that aren’t complete rip offs of American ones?

DJI would be a good example. They're the Apple of drones, and are doing great in the gimbal business as well. No American company comes even close.

There are others of course, and more will emerge. Already they make phones on par with the best of the Android world.

Besides, which innovative companies did Japan have before the 70s that weren't complete rip offs of American ones? And which innovative companies did the US have (before the mid-19th century) that weren't complete rip offs of European ones? And yet here we are now...

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#67

Post by coldtea »

mistermann wrote: post #64
coldtea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do these other countries continue to enjoy WTO Developing Nation Status, which enables a lot of the unfair advantages China enjoys as pointed out by the grandparent comment? No -- they don't need it as much, as they already climbed the lax-IP/protectionism ladder for centuries to get high. Now they insist nobody currently lower than them should use the ladder.

Taking your last sentence literally, is that actually your honest assessment of this dispute, in its entirety?

My actually assessment of this dispute is even worse.

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#68

Post by gonvaled »

mistermann wrote: post #64
coldtea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do these other countries continue to enjoy WTO Developing Nation Status, which enables a lot of the unfair advantages China enjoys as pointed out by the grandparent comment? No -- they don't need it as much, as they already climbed the lax-IP/protectionism ladder for centuries to get high. Now they insist nobody currently lower than them should use the ladder.

Taking your last sentence literally, is that actually your honest assessment of this dispute, in its entirety?

Not op, but pretty much, yes. GDP per capita is still way lower for China compared to US.

China is perfectly justified in playing a system built by the winners for the winners. Much luck to them in making the hypocrisy of the system more clearly obvious.

The US is complaining about IP theft, where:

1) they are (were? mainly?) the ones with IP assets

2) the rules have been established by the US (mainly)

3) whenever the US sees fit, it breaks its own rules (thanks Trump, finally this is obvious to everybody!)

And all the while without even mentioning:

A) the war dividends, all around the world. Whoever thinks the US is losing money with NATO is just delluded.

B) the massive rent extracting effects that the dollar has throughout the world economy.

Tell Trumpy something: if he wants "fair" trade, let's also get a fair currency for all involved.

The truth is that the deficit happens because the US consumer indulges in extra hyperconsumerism thanks to an overvalued dollar.

The arrangment suits nealy everybody. Now comes Trump and wants a new deal.

Let's get one: the US consumes less with a weaker dollar, and the deficit disappears.

You know what the US won't get: a world where the US controls the currency, the military and the economy. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the US is only 5% of world population.

It wouldn't be fair.

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#69

Post by ponzored »

opportune wrote: post #24
l5870uoo9y wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe needs to build its own tech ecosystem instead of being a resource hub and market for US companies. There were some sense in the French driving Peugeot, the Germans VW and the Americans Ford, instead of all driving a generic car from a distant silicon valley company far away from local market and value chain.

I don’t really understand how Europe has struggled so much. Is it due to a lack of investors? Brain drain or some comparative lack of talent (I doubt it)? Regulations (also doubt it)? Cultural differences? Difficult domestic market?

A few factors:

1. There is no common language so hiring is typically restricted to one country.

2. Taxes are very high, particularly social security taxes that must be paid by the employer. Firms are very reluctant to create jobs.

3. A lot of bureaucracies are old and inefficient.

4. For the same reasons, products are difficult to scale. You can go from a local product in San Francisco to a national product in the USA relatively easily. But in the EU you are dealing with multiple languages, cultures, country bureaucracies in order to make the same jump.

The best thing for the EU would be to get everyone speaking English at least as a second language. Then, to require all official forms, Government engagement etc. to be in the national language and English.

Imagine you go from working in Warsaw to Berlin. A distance of only 570km, but you need to be able to speak Polish to deal with Polish bureaucracy, English to work at the multinational firm, and German to deal with German bureaucracy.

Re: China is winning the global tech race

#70

Post by KarlRutnick »

mistermann wrote: post #59
portpecos wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what happened with the Hambantota Port. Sri Lanka asked for billions in loans from China to build a second port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. After it was built, the naval port didn’t get any shipping/cargo traffic so Sri Lanka couldn’t pay back the Billions. China offered to refinance the loan, how? Sri Lanka turned over control of the port to the Chinese Government under a lease of 100 years and Sri Lan…

Exactly. It's odd how some people can clearly see (and acknowledge) these things, while others seem literally unable to see them, almost as if they have some sort of a psychological filter hiding portions of the full spectrum of reality. I wonder if I suffer from the same thing, but different portions of the spectrum. I find it an interesting and useful way in which to observe the world and disagreements between peop…

It's kinda funny how Americans still thinks US is doing shit to help anyone else besides themselves and their business interests. China is now doing the same thing the west/ImF/world Bank have always done. But in the case of China they don't run around toppling government and the countries do get general infrastructure while the west usually just built the bare minimum to get the resources out. Yes its imperialism but I'd take the Chinese version over the horrors of the western Empire any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
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