Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is China smashing its tech industry?

noahpinion.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 401 posts

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#71

Post by japhib »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #63

China's investment into hard-tech (semiconductors, etc) doesn't not mean it can't also allow for the growth of consumer tech. For instance, we subsidize farming to keep it state-side but we don't prevent food processing companies from growing and consolidating. Maybe the point here is that the government in china wants to always be between the consumer and the service, which makes a lot more sense. Maybe Alibaba and…

> doesn't not mean it can't also allow for the growth of consumer tech

I can't understand this sentence haha ... Too many "nots"

> I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion of the author: that to grow their hard-tech industry, they have to punish consumer tech.

I don't think the author is trying to argue that this strategy is true -- I think they're just trying to explain China's behavior.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#72

Post by cyberpunk »

jeswin wrote: post #45

Asia is headed towards war - it almost seems inevitable. Xi has publicly committed to not leaving Taiwan invasion to the next generation. China is focused on building an industrial base that complements its military power while generating cash, and internet software startups aren't going to help. For the rest of Asia, they'd do well to militarize; for Japan and Australia to consider getting nuclear weapons or hosting…

Can you elaborate on why you think it seems inevitable?

From my armchair, I can't see a benefit to China for kicking off a superpower war; they're already pulling ahead in STEM, their economy is fairly safe and not really that dependant on exports, quality of life is improving massively, infra is improving.. ?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#74

Post by f00zz »

volta83 wrote: post #40

> There are certainly those in America who believe that Facebook and Google produce little of value relative to the profit they rake in; maybe China’s leaders, for reasons that will remain forever opaque to us, have simply reached the same conclusion. Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue fr…

> "That's just from EU consumers, never mind the rest of the world - spending so much on mobile netlink that companies can clear more than thirty billion in profit, in profit alone, over two years. Think of the gross! So you tell me - is that the best way of spending humanity's money, webbing friends, playing games on the bus? A fraction of a single percent of that money, we could have bases on Mars in five years. Destiny - possibility - glorious - but, no, we'll keep frittering our money on games, on cosmetics, on flim-flam, and we'll turn round in five hundred years and still be right here where we are now."

- from Adam Roberts' sci-fi novel "Gradisil"

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#75

Post by zwieback »

ilamont wrote: post #31

I believe we're seeing yet another example of an ossified and hierarchal Chinese Communist Party struggling to maintain control over real or imagined internal threats. Under the CCP, the "rights" pendulum swings wildly for society and the economy, alternating between openness and crackdowns. Some policies seem well thought out, and then you have edicts which seem impulsive and extreme with little regard to long-term…

I also think this much simpler explanation is at least worth considering.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#76

Post by johnnyApplePRNG »

I thought it was well known why Jack Ma/Ant were being crushed?

He spoke out against and essentially insulted the government in a speech last year, and immediately disappeared from the limelight. [0]

[0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-speech-that-cost-jack-m...

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#77

Post by itmayno »

caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

The native citizens will come to HN and offer some rationalization. The non citizens will offer others. The reason is very simple. The dictator is paranoid about losing control and getting killed. Simple as that.

Long version: when you are facing internal party conflicts, alliance between US-UK-Japan-Australia-India-Taiwan-South Korea-EU which accounts for 90% of worlds wealth and war power 10x the magnitude and is against you, floods that gets worse every year, extreme heatwave that will eventually make Shanghai unlivable, delta Covid lockdowns, capital flight, demographic crisis, supply chain moving out, internal resistance from Hong Kong and tibet and xinjiang, and young generation lying flat. You are paranoid as hell and afraid to lose control so as to not get killed.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#78

Post by tablespoon »

bennysomething wrote: post #51
tablespoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even more succinctly: financial value != value to society. Sometimes there's alignment, but very frequently there is not.

Who's "value to society" people's values vary that's why we have markets so people can decide what they value by deciding to buy it.

> Who's "value to society" people's values vary that's why we have markets so people can decide what they value by deciding to buy it.

That's a difficult question to answer generally, however it's also clearly not one that markets "solve." That's easy to see with the example of addictive drugs (which the market shows can be very profitable), unless you're willing to argue there's social value in destroying many people's lives through addiction.

That's not to say that financial value and social value aren't sometimes aligned, it just that you can't assume the former implies the latter.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#79

Post by triceratops »

billytetrud wrote: post #37
tablespoon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even more succinctly: financial value != value to society. Sometimes there's alignment, but very frequently there is not.

When it's out of alignment, usually it's because of regulatory capture.

Not always. Tobacco generated enormous profits even when there was no regulatory heat on it.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#80

Post by polynomial »

dilap wrote: post #60
rvn1045 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale that these companies operate on requires huge innovations in software engineering and computer science. Think about all the distributed systems that have come out of places like Facebook and Google over the last 2 decades.

I think that's overstating. To be sure some real tech challenges in distributing work horizontally, but I don't think it's created anywhere near the amount of value that's come out of e.g. space race research.

This is a really solid question with no clear cut answer on the surface. I wonder what sort of research is being done here?
Post reply on HN