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China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

nytimes.com

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Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#61

Post by astronautjones »

clubm8 wrote: post #29
diminish wrote: post #22

"The West was sure the Chinese approach would not work. It just had to wait. It’s still waiting." Waiting, crossing fingers, thinking wishfully, hoping, and acting upon it. China is doing something right.. or maybe West is indeed helping the Chinese success?

Or maybe in the short term China will "win" (America declines, Chine's influence rises). Only to find that they are unable to develop their own tech, come up to solutions to keeping said tech running 10-20 years down the line, etc etc. I could totally see a future where America gets embroiled in a civil war and China's experiencing a sort of "island syndrome" ala Japan where all their tech was advanced at one point a…

USA's best and brightest minds are currently being used to figure out how to sell ads for corrupt social media companies

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#62

Post by toyg »

gammateam wrote: post #36
bilbo0s wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. So they steal bullet trains etc and we stole steam tech etc. I guess it just indicates that it's foolish for a nation to pay for technology if it's poor. I wonder are there any examples of poor nations in history that actually paid market prices for technology, and became super powers? (Or at least maybe regional powers?)

Would Germany count? Obviously Post WWII without any of their acquisitions, debilitated infrastructure, and debt Yet third time's a charm!

Germany didn’t pay market prices, thanks to US subsidies, and even defaulted on their debt.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#63

Post by chillacy »

joefranklinsrs wrote: post #9

Very optimistic piece about the Chinese economy from a Chinese American who now resides in China. The author works for Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, whose company Amazon greatly benefits from China. There is no doubt this is a piece that is trying to rally around a very unlikely scenario where the US administration will give into Chinese belligerence and back off on trade tariffs at the end of Novemb…

I didn’t read optimism at all. Look at the very next line after that quote.

> The party appears to enjoy broad public support, and many around the world are convinced that Mr. Trump’s America is in retreat while China’s moment is just beginning.

> Then again, China has a way of defying expectations.

In other words: China seems to be doing well but then again they could totally fail

The author is clearly uncertain of China’s future, not too bearish but clearly not bullish either. He even makes reference to Xi’s crackdowns and return to autocracy as being troubling signs, not sure signs of success.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#64

Post by toyg »

arethuza wrote: post #55
whooshee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the British https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/arti...

The UK also did something similar with rubber - originally it was a product closely guarded by Brazil but a "bio-pirate" stole samples and they were then planted widely within the Empire - with Malaya going on to become the top producer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wickham_(explorer)

The history of silk production is similarly full of continuous theft between cities and countries, from China to Turkey to Italy and beyond. Some cities tried harder than others to keep their secrets, but “theft” eventually happened anyway.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#65

Post by toyg »

hourislate wrote: post #48
neya wrote: post #2

Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over. Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4a…

According to Mark Goodman "Future Crimes", it amounts to over 1 trillion USD over the last 10 years. Micron being the latest victim. https://www.wired.com/story/us-accuses-chinese-stealing-micr... It is interesting that an agrarian society can transform and innovate itself in approx 10-15 years to become the world leader in Technology, etc. They also never seem to run out of funds to drive anything they do?

Not that remarkable: the USSR had done it before China, and Japan had a similar big push in the Meiji era, in similarly short timeframes (taking into consideration the communication and transportation technology available at the time).

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#66

Post by bitxbit »

40acres wrote: post #59

China has mastered the balancing act between authoritarian and free market policies. In a way, the West's persistence that eventually prosperity would lead to Democratic policies always seemed a bit condescending and short sighted to me, democracy is a strong form of government, but why does it have to be the only one? The big variable here is growth, the social contract between China and it's citizens seems to be on…

I would counter this by saying China has been and will always be an inward looking country. This alone limits its ability to be a global leader.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#67

Post by toyg »

api wrote: post #32
neya wrote: post #2

Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over. Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4a…

China has also totally rejected environmentalism and monetary discipline. Need energy? Burn coal with no scrubbers and fake the air quality data. Have waste? Dump it in rivers and bribe local officials. Economy slowing? Print money. Need infrastructure? Print the money to pay for it. Western liberals say ignoring the environment will catch up to them. Western conservatives say you can't ignore fiscal discipline forev…

The USSR looked similarly all-powerful between ‘45 and ‘78, roughly. If we say “new China” started its rise in the late ‘80s/ early ‘90s, we should expect another decade or so of its power looking “inevitable” before cracks start to be a bit too big to ignore - possibly longer, considering their superior scale.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#68

Post by simonh »

simion314 wrote: post #39
dforrestwilson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries don’t have the military or self-sufficient economics of China though. French Polynesia could probably never do this kind of thing to Japan for example.

What do you mean? Can NATO or US force any law they want? If I am in a small country and decide that patents and copyright is evil should I expect a war? If not what do you mean by military in your comment? As I see it if you don't like China politics don't do business with them and do not involve the army(though we all know some big countries like to get involved in smaller countries politics and force laws).

Most smaller countries depend on bigger ones for defence, and often for defence subsidies in order to support the strategic objectives of the bigger powers. So military considerations can be a huge factor in a way it just isn’t with China (not in the same ways, anyway).

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#69

Post by Riverheart »

Fricken wrote: post #47
jerkstate wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Censorship is bad. Free exchange of information is good. Unless we're talking about IP, then suddenly the opposite is true. Alright, let's torture your false equivalence a little more: you shouldn't have privacy because that's prevention of the free exchange of information.

How is it false equivalency? This has nothing to do with the concept of sanctuary. Even Adam Smith regarded IP laws to be an 'Unessecary Evil'. Even in SV, an engineer works for one company, learns the tricks of the trade, and then takes that knowledge to another. This is business as usual, and it's a critical ingredient to Silicon Valley's success, and it's the secret to the success of many city states and industria…

Not some defender of IP here but it doesn't seem equivalent. Guy transferring companies takes domain knowledge with them, they don't take the blueprints to project X with them.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#70

Post by foobarian »

scarcely wrote: post #53
Edmond wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP theft is an important part of the Chinese "Miracle" but it is short-sighted to focus too much on that...If IP access is all it took, I think we would have seen the Chinese achievement replicated in many other places.

America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations of black people by using them as draft animal (hence freeing the white man to think about science, mathematics, whatever). The entire material infrastructure that enabled the production of these fruits of the intellect is stolen, with direct violent human cons…

Don't forget how much American intellectual progress actually came from Europe. Europe did the hard work of educating and raising generations of scientists and other cream of the crop intellectual elites, who then proceeded to get chased away by wars and persecution and ended up in America. I heard some execs in startup land joke about how they managed to "get their Russian scientists" with relief that their intellectual problems will be solved now.
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